June 21st, Feast of Aloysius Gonzaga
Today is the Catholic feast of St. Aloysius Gonzaga, the patron of youth and the original of the "saint's name day" of Sebastian Flyte's teddy bear, "Aloysius," in Brideshead Revisited.
In Father James Martin's description, this prince-turned-saint turns out not to be the wimp that Catholic pietism made him out to be. And I think it is also interesting that Father Martin, so often called a "heretic" for championing the rights of LGBTQ Christians, shows himself in this article to be a regular othodox Catholic, in his devotion to the cult of saints:
https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2015/06/21/who-was-real-st-aloysius-gonzaga
I think it's also worth noting that this prince of the Gonzaga clan died nursing the sick in the midst of another pandemic.
In Father James Martin's description, this prince-turned-saint turns out not to be the wimp that Catholic pietism made him out to be. And I think it is also interesting that Father Martin, so often called a "heretic" for championing the rights of LGBTQ Christians, shows himself in this article to be a regular othodox Catholic, in his devotion to the cult of saints:
https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2015/06/21/who-was-real-st-aloysius-gonzaga
I think it's also worth noting that this prince of the Gonzaga clan died nursing the sick in the midst of another pandemic.