NOVEMBER 28, 2016 It’s Time to Rehabilitate St. Aloysius THOMAS J. CRAUGHWELL In the chest of drawers where I keep small family heirlooms is a white rectangular box that contains the lapel pin my great-grandfather wore at meetings of his parish’s Sodality of St. Aloysius. Dangling from a green ribbon, framed in a tin disk, is a small black-and-white engraving of the saint, clutching a largish crucifix to his chest. It is the standard representation of St. Aloysius Gonzaga I have seen all my life—cloying, mawkish, insufferable. Hadn’t the artist ever seen a real-life teenage boy? Devotion to St. Aloysius reached its zenith in the nineteenth century when it was fashionable to take a sentimental view of saints who had died young. Collections of saints’ lives from this period emphasized Aloysius’ intense piety, his self-mortifications, his dread of anything pleasurable. I don’t doubt the good intentions of the authors, but such descriptions of Aloysius’ character, like t...
