Lives of the Saints, by Richard P. McBrien

There's somebody for everybody--an intention that cuts many ways--in this latest encyclopedic offering from eminent Notre Dame theologian and historian Richard P. McBrien, general editor of The Encyclopedia of Catholicism. This book aspires to cover the saintly waterfront. For students of Catholic theology and history, it provides the theological grounding for saintliness and the historic context for the evolving process of canonization within the Catholic Church, an institution that changes, however slowly, over time.

For lovers of the rich hagiographic tradition of the church, the book is full of short, vivid sketches of the saints whose lives--or deaths--are commemorated each day of the liturgical year. Calendars of non-Catholic Christian denominations are even referred to, giving the book something for ecumenists of various denominational stripes. For readers who want their Catholicism on the lite side, there are hagiographic factoids assembled in lists. (Polish-American Catholics will learn, for example, that Maria Faustina Kowalska is the first female saint from Poland.)

It isn't easy being encyclopedic--McBrien acknowledges the help of a cast of graduate assistants and peers--nor can it be easy for a leading Catholic liberal theologian to tackle one of the bulwarks of the church traditional: its pantheon of saints, who are associated with such uncontemporary behaviors as virginity, hermithood and self-flagellation. But like many other writers today finding fresh meaning in the lives and deaths of long-ago Christians, McBrien reviews traditional hagiography in order to draw contemporary lessons. He finds lived holiness expressed in a variety of modes and activities, a universal sanctity that binds the saintly "cloud of witnesses."