Knowing your saints


You'd think a show with so much of Catholic culture would research the saints they exhibit. St Sebastian -- the guy stuck through with arrows -- was amusingly used in one early episode. But in the season 3 episode where Grace has a pack of cards with saints' images, she points to a few of them recounting their awful deaths. When she points to St Therese of Lisieux, and well known saint and image, Grace says "...she was skinned alive." Well, young Therese was a Carmelite nun who joined a convent very young and died of tuberculosis a few years later. No flaying involved.

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Like the show, "saints" are also fiction.

It doesn't matter.

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That's a stupid response. The point is, the show flubbed up.

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I never noticed the Saint Therese mistake. The show definitely goofed, but we could chalk it up to Grace making the mistake. I know she kind of goofed up another time. She chose "Christina the Astonishing" for that stage presentation, but that wasn't even a real saint. The Church never found the stories of Christina credible.

Grace should have chosen Dymphna... a real saint with just as gruesome of an ending (that Grace is fascinated by), AND Dymphna is the patron saint of anxiety disorders--Grace deaperately needed some comfort in that department.

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Yes, saints are fiction; however, the show was inconsistent with the mythology.

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