Thank You, St. Jude: Womens Devotion to the Patron Saint of Hopeless Causes

As devotion to saints go, the devotion to Saint Jude, the patron saint of hopeless causes, is relatively recent. Established in Chicago in 1929, the cult of St. Jude attracted the devotion of numerous immigrant Catholic women who were confronted with the difficulty of establishing new lives for themselves and their families in the U.S. In this engaging social history, Orsi expores the variety of ways that their devotion to St. Jude helped these women survive the pressures of surviving in a foreign land caught in the throes of the Depression. Orsi uses interviews and letters to various periodicals like the Shrine of St. Jude's promotional magazine, the Voice of St. Jude, to explore the variety of reasons that women rather than men comprise the majority of St. Jude's devotees. He even goes behind the scenes at the Shrine to discover that Father Robert, who is the ostensible director of the Shrine, doesn't exist, and that the Shrine itself is run primarily by women. Finally, Orsi examines the paradoxical nature of this saint, who answers prayers as long as the recipients of the saint's responses tell others about the saint. Orsi's book takes a fascinating and compelling look at American cultural and religious history. (Sept.)