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{{Useful Notes}}
▲[[File:PatronSaint_3497.jpg|frame]]
{{quote|''"Holy Hannah!" shouted [[Captain America (comics)|Captain America]] in ''Secret Defenders'' #6. ''Who'', you ask? Why, "Holy Hannah" is better known as St. Hannah of the Funnybooks, patron saint to [[The Golden Age of Comic Books|Golden Age]] superheroes (As opposed to "Holy #%&* !", patron saint of [[Nineties Anti-Hero|'90s super heroes]].)''|'''Marvel Year In Review 1993'''}}
Some of us are believed to be [[Pals with Jesus|closer to the divine]] than others. In Catholicism and Orthodoxy, these special people are called "saints" and they can be called upon, via intercessory prayer, to intercede and/or create miracles on our behalf.
The process of being named a saint is canonization, a long and complicated process.
Note that Catholics and Orthodox vehemently deny offering "worship" (''latria'') to the saints; what the saints receive is ''doulia'' or "honor"
The idea behind the "patron saint" is simply that, for various reasons (usually involving the details of their human lives) certain saints might be considered more applicable to a given situation than others. Most Catholic and Orthodox churches and religious orders are named after saints, who would therefore be considered a patron saint of that community. An individual who has a saint's name might also consider them a personal patron saint. In many cases, official patron saints have been declared for countries. Most other patronages are not officially declared, but have evolved organically, as mere customs and practices.
In fiction, some of the most commonly referenced Saints are:
* The aforementioned Virgin Mary, who is astonishingly active in her post-Biblical activities, according to pious legend. She is, among other things, patroness of the United States, under the title of "the Immaculate Conception" (the US being hostile to Catholics until [[John F. Kennedy|one became President]], the American Church must have figured that they needed the biggest guns they could find). She is also the patroness of Mexico, under the title "Our Lady of Guadalupe".
* Saint Agnes, patron saint of girls
* Saint Anthony (of
* Saint Barbara, patron saint of those in dangerous occupations (including [[Reds with Rockets|Russian rocketeers]]).
* Saint Christopher, patron saint of travellers, and a medal of whom is usually featured in a car, is often the butt of car-related jokes.
* Saint Francis of Assisi, patron saint of animals and the enviroment
* Saint George, the dragon-slayer, patron saint of England, Portugal, Greece, Bulgaria, [[Overly Long Gag|Catalonia]], Georgia, and...screw it, let's just say half of Europe; a ridiculous number of cities; [[Tank Goodness|armored units]]; and [[Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking|the Boy Scouts]].
* Saint [[Joan of Arc]], co-patron saint of France (Saint Denis is the original patron) and of women in the military, archetypal [[Action Girl]]
* Saint Jude, the patron saint of Lost Causes. [[The Untouchables|And police officers.]]
* Saint Michael the Archangel, highly regarded for being a [[Knight in Shining Armour]] and general of God's army. Patron saint of police officers.
* Saint Nicholas, a.k.a. [[Santa Claus]] (a lot of [[Recursive Translation|Multilingual]] [[Memetic Mutation]] was involved), patron saint of children; also patron of thieves.
* Saint Patrick, patron saint of Ireland, said to have driven the snakes out of Ireland. As there are no snakes native to Ireland, this is taken to be [[What Do You Mean Its Not Symbolic|symbolic]] of driving out the pagan influences (that, or he was [[Just-So Story|very, very thorough]]).
* Saint Peter, portrayed as standing at the [[Fluffy Cloud Heaven|Pearly Gates of heaven]] and acting as God's bouncer, as it were. Famously crucified ''upside-down'' (which is why if you wear an upside-down cross to be "Satanic," [[Dan Browned|you are doing it wrong]] <ref>
* ...and other saints with [[Odd Job Gods|unusual patronage]]. There can be a lot of overlap in patronage, particularly in issues that cause people to pray a lot.
{{examples}}
== [[Anime]] ==
* Saint Francis Xavier tends to be referenced once in a while in anime, because he went to Japan to evangelize the heathens and generally speaking piss off [[Tokugawa Ieyasu]]. There's an alleged descendant of his who appears in ''[[Samurai Champloo]]'', for example. Xavi in the ''[[Sengoku Basara]]'' games is also based on Xavier.
* Saint Francis (and Jesuit monks in particular) are posited as the origin of the Kappa myth in the author's notes of ''[[Hell Teacher Nube]]''.
== Art ==
* Patron saints were common subjects for artists throughout [[The Middle Ages]] and [[The Renaissance]] (as in the page image of the
** This tradition is continued in the (mostly Roman Catholic) phenomena of holy medals and holy cards and in the (mostly Eastern Orthodox) phenomenon of icons.
** This is also the most common theme of the stained glass window artwork in Roman Catholic churches.
** Regarding the emblems: since the vast majority of Christians were illiterate until the Age of Exploration (at least), it was customary to associate a particular animal or inanimate object with each of the commonly-known saints, basically as a form of 'nametag', since captioning the artwork was pointless. I.E. a bishop holding a shamrock is obviously St. Patrick, St. Catherine of Alexandria is commonly pictured holding a wheel, St. Bartholomew holding his own ''[[Nightmare Fuel|flayed skin]]''. For martyred saints, the emblem is usually the method of his or her martyrdom. Many Catholic churches - even newly constructed ones from the 20th and 21st centuries - will still include artwork in this style, often without captions.
== [[Comic Books]] ==
* In ''[[Hellboy]]: The Nature of the Beast'', St. Leonard the Hermit and his slaying of the St. Leonard Worm are alluded to to when the eponymous Hellboy fights a similar creature, and just like in the legends, Hellboy's blood also causes flowers to spring up from the earth. Later, in ''Box Full of Evil'', St. Dunstan is mentioned, and his image used, in connection with a demon he had defeated and imprisoned centuries earlier.
* The Saint of Killers from the comic ''[[Preacher (Comic Book)|Preacher]]''
== [[Fan Works]] ==
* [[The Teraverse]] features, among a number of superheroes and their various sidekicks and support staffers, an entire order of Catholic nuns, one of whom is a telekinetic flier. They're called the Order of [[Joan of Arc|Sainte Jeanne d'Arc]], in a fit of [[Insistent Terminology]]: their foundress is a California girl, but bilingual in French.
== [[Film]] ==
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* A St. Christopher statue in a car turned into a plot point in ''[[Crash (film)|Crash]]''.
* In the ''[[Hellboy (film)|Hellboy]]'' film, a statue of St. Dionysius was used as a prison for the monster Sammael, and later a finger bone of St. Jude is used to ward off the same monster.
* The entire plot of ''[[The Way (film)|The Way]]'' revolves around a pilgrimage to the shrine and tomb of St. James the Greater, which is in northern Spain.
== [[Literature]] ==
* Nicholas van Rijn (A.D. 2376 to c. 2500) is a fictional character who plays the central role in the first half of [[Poul Anderson]]'s [[Technic History]]. He swears by Saint Dismas (the Good Thief, appropriately), and has expressed the intention of burning candles in offering (to which another character responded "The Saint had best get it in writing").
* Leonard Cohen's ''Beautiful Losers'' is about a Canadian historian researching
* Several stories from Christopher Stasheff's ''[[Warlock of Gramarye]]'' series are
* St. Sebastian's connection to gay men led [[Yukio Mishima]], in his autobiographical novel ''Confessions of a Mask'', to write a lengthy "awakening" moment in front of a picture of the saint.
* A heavily fictionalized St. George is the hero of the first book of ''[[The Faerie Queene]]''.
* The English fairy tale of "The Seven Champions of Christendom" depicts the patron saints of seven prominent Christian nations as [[Knight in Shining Armor|knights errant]]: St. George (England), St. Denis (France), St. Patrick (Ireland), St. Anthony [of Padua] (Italy), St. Andrew (Scotland), St. James [the Greater] (Spain), and St. David (Wales).
* The founder of the monastery in ''[[A Canticle for Leibowitz]]'' becomes the patron saint of electricians once civilization gets back to that point. There is also a reference to Saint Raul the Cyclopean, patron of mutants.
* In [[Robert A. Heinlein]]'s ''[[Space Cadet (novel)|Space Cadet]]'', when persuading the hero that an apparent accident was a real one and not a [[Training Accident|put on job to scare the candidates]], someone asks him whether he has ever heard of St. Barbara, explains that she is the patron of those in dangerous occupations, and tells him that if he goes to the chapel dedicated to her, he will find that the priest is saying Mass for those who died in the accident. This convinces him.
* In [[Larry Niven]] and [[Jerry Pournelle]]'s ''[[The Mote in God's Eye]]'', a statue of St. Barbara aboard a spaceship has carefully constructed fans so the candles will continue to burn right in freefall.
* In ''[[Cell]]'', by [[Stephen King]], Denise successfully helps Clay find a necessary item by invoking St. Anthony's help. Clay himself borrows this idea at the [[No Ending|ending]].
* In [[John C. Wright]]'s ''[[Chronicles of Chaos|Orphans of Chaos]]'', Boggins informs Amelia, "I, for example, am employed directly by Saint Dymphna's School and College for Destitute Children." Which is to say, after the saint of the insane and emotionally disturbed.
* In Mary Stewart's ''
* In [[Jim Butcher]]'s ''[[Dresden Files]]'' story "Aftermath", Murphy prays to St. Jude before her attack.
* In L. Jagi Lamplighter's ''[[Prospero's Daughter]]'' trilogy, Logistilla's home is on the island of St. Dismas.
* The ''Speaker for the Dead'' branch of [[Orson Scott Card]]'s [[Ender's Game|Enderverse]] includes the Order of the Children of the Mind of Christ (married but chaste monks who run schools on most Catholic colonies), founded by St. Angelo of Moctezuma (who in traditional Church logic would therefore be the Order's patron saint), an eccentric monk whose death Andrew had spoken [[Really Seven Hundred Years Old|2000 years]] before the events of ''Speaker for the Dead''.
* St. Expeditus, a cult saint not recognized by the Church, is referenced in the ''[[Father Koesler]]'' mystery, ''Death Wears a Red Hat'', wherein he is noted both as the patron saint of avoiding procrastination and hurrying decisions and also in his role in Santeria of being used in rituals to dispatch foes.
* In ''[[1632]]'', the town of Grantville, West Virginia, travels back in time to 1630s Germany; as a result, the Catholic priest finds it necessary to rename the parish church, because its original patron saint, St. Vincent de Paul, ''isn't even dead yet.'' He also notes that many of the other saints commonly used for naming churches in the 20th century United States are either (like Vincent de Paul) currently alive, not canonized yet, not ''born'' yet, or politically sensitive... and finally renames it St. Mary (or possibly St. Mary Magdalene). In the various sequels, the original name is often referred to, particularly by a couple of high-ranking church officials who have had to deal with Vincent de Paul and are grateful that he doesn't know the Americans think he's a saint, because it would apparently make him more insufferable than he already is.
== [[Live Action TV]] ==
* Saint Nicholas' other patronage (that of
** Nathan is also handed a Brigid medal in one episode.
* ''[[Joan of Arcadia]]'' is a [[Whole-Plot Reference]] to Joan of Arc.
* Like ''Joan of Arcadia'', ''[[Wonderfalls]]'' was inspired by Joan of Arc's story.
* ''[[House (TV series)|House]]'' snarks at one of his patients when he spots a Saint Nicholas (I believe) medallion, whose patronage also includes prostitutes. She snarks right back that he's also the patron saint of the wrongfully accused.
* In ''[[Life On Mars]]'', Sam Tyler (who may or not be a time traveler) wears a St. Christopher medal.
** And appropriately enough, Gene Hunt (the copper to end all coppers) wears a St. Michael medal.
* The ''[[
** Alton Brown regarded [[MacGyver]] as his patron saint first, in a 2001 episode of ''[[Good Eats]]'', "Where There's Smoke, There's Fish." (he constructed a fish smoker out of a cardboard box...go figure.)
* ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'' has the villains celebrate the Night of St. Vigeous, the patron saint of vampires. Since vampires are basically [[
* During an episode of ''[[30
{{quote|'''Elisa:''' How dare you say such things in front of the statue of Santa Lucia, the patron saint of judgemental statues!}}
== Poetry ==
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== Radio ==
* ''[[A Prairie Home Companion]]'': at Lake Wobegon, the annual blessing of the animals on St. Francis's feast is a trial for the priest, who is allergic to animals.
** Not to mention the Catholic church in Lake Wobegon is named Our Lady of Perpetual Responsibility.
== [[Tabletop Games]] ==
* In ''[[Deadlands|Hell On Earth]]'', the Templars have their own pantheon of Patron Saints (that includes, among others, St. John Wayne and St. Eliot Ness).
* A supplement for ''[[Shadowrun]]'' mentioned how religion mixed with all the magic wandering around, especially shamanic stuff. The main shamanic influence is Native American, but that doesn't leave the Christians out. Shamans even have them available as variations of totems.
* [[Warhammer
* [[Indiana Jones]] is often referred to as the patron saint of player characters. "I don't know, I'm making this up as I go!"
* In [[Dungeons
* ''[[In Nomine]]'', being a game about the War between Heaven and Hell on modern Earth, of course has saints -- they're mortals who have died and gone to Heaven, and who have chosen to be reborn into new lives on Earth to serve Heaven's cause there.
== [[Video Games]] ==
* ''[[Darklands]]'' has the saints, and their areas of expertise, as the foundation of their magic system based on prayer.
* ''[[Infamous (video game series)|In Famous]]'': {{spoiler|In the Good Ending to ''Infamous 2'', Cole is revered as one by the citizens of New Marais}}
== [[Web Comics]] ==
* ''[https://web.archive.org/web/20140104235428/http://st_dyphna.comicdish.com/ St Dyphn(i)a Academy]
* In ''[[Silent Hill: Promise]]'' the protagonist Vanessa swears by an increasing number of saints, in different situations.
* In ''[[Squid Row]]'', [http://squidrowcomics.com/?p=1344 Randi buys a statue of St. Luke, patron of artists, and buries it in her houseplant.]
== Other ==
* For our own Wiki, there is a Patron Saint of Television, [http://saints.sqpn.com/saint-clare-of-assisi/ Saint Clare of Assisi], and [http://saints.sqpn.com/saint-isidore-of-seville/ Saint Isidore, Patron Saint of the Internet].
** Also, "X show is the patron saint of this trope", to the delight of some and the despair of others.
** A patron saint of our Wiki would be probably named [[Incredibly Lame Pun|Saint-Tropez]].
*** We already gave that role to [[Joss Whedon]].
** We ourselves have designated [[Godzilla]] as the Patron Saint of Collateral Damage.
* The patron saint of speedy delivery, prayed to by people in a hurry for something, is the possibly apocryphal Saint Expeditus. The story goes, he was a Roman soldier that was considering converting to Christianity; the Devil appeared to him as a crow and suggested he put it off until tomorrow, and Expeditus stomped the shit out of the crow and converted then and there. However, all of this may be completely fictional (as opposed to partially); some say that he was created when a crate of saints' relics showed up at a nunnery with no label except "Expeditus", as in "expedited delivery"; the nuns, not being familiar with the Medeival post office traditions, thought it was the saint's name. Nobody's sure if any of that is true, but St. Expeditus has a big following in Voodoo.
* Another fun saint is Santo
* And then there's the completely apocryphal Saint Josephat, an Indian prince that was shocked from his high-end life the first time he saw a poor beggar; he became an ascetic but found it unrewarding, and finally converted to Christianity. Replace "converted to Christianity" with "achieved enlightenment" and you get the story of Siddartha
* Things that never happened have occasionally been said to take place on Saint Tib's Day or the Feast of Saint Nunca.
* Saint Grobian is a fictional patron of vulgar language.
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== [[Real Life]] ==
* Saint Jude's Children Research Hospital, who treats and hopes to find cures for things like cancer. Other common patrons for hospitals are Saint Luke (who according to [[The Bible|St. Paul]] (''[[The Bible/Source/Colossians|Colossians]] IV, xiv.'') was a physician) and Saint Mary under her title of "The Immaculate Conception" is also the Patron Saint of the United States.
* [http://saints.sqpn.com/saint-barbara/ Saint Barbara] is the patron saint of Heavy Artillery and Artillerymen.
** And as such was celebrated in a poem by [[G. K. Chesterton]].
** The Russian Orthodox Church has, [[New Powers as the Plot Demands|by extension]], made her the patron saint of the [[From Russia With Nukes|Strategic Rocket Forces]].
* [[wikipedia:Emperor Norton|Emperor Norton]] is the only real-life person considered to be a
* St. Philip Neri is patron of the [[Yanks With Tanks|US Special Forces]].
* Lots of cities are named after saints: St. Paul, San Francisco, ''etc''.
** Saint Paul is interesting in that he gets ''two'' fairly-important cities named after him: the [[Twin Cities|capital of Minnesota]], and São Paulo (aka the largest city in the Western Hemisphere).
** It should be noted that in many cases - particularly, in former Spanish, Portuguese, and French colonies - the Catholic church established missionary churches with such names, and the cities built around the churches ''inherited'' the names.
** Not just cities, either. The Spanish and Portuguese explorers often used the ecclesiastical calendar to name geographical features. Santa Catalina Island, off the coast of California, is a good example: it was discovered on St. Catherine's Day.
* There are patron saints for, among others, Fireworks (St. Barbara) and Translators (St. Jerome).
* St. Sebastian,
* St. Mark is the
** St. George is the
** St. Dionysus (Dennis, Denis) is the
** St. James (the Greater) is the
*** St. James the Greater is also the second
* [[A Man for All Seasons|St. Thomas More]] was made the
* Bartholomew the Apostle, who - among other things - presides over mental and neurological disorders. [http://dc.wikia.com/wiki/Bartholomew_Allen_II_%28New_Earth%29 There's got to be someone of that name] [[Attention Deficit Ooh Shiny|with a mental disorder...right?]]
* There is a traditional grouping of saints invoked together as protectors against certain ills, the [[wikipedia:Fourteen Holy Helpers|"Fourteen Holy Helpers"]] often honored together in one church or shrine: St. Agathius, St. Barbara, St. Blaise (on whose feast day Catholics used to have their throats blessed against disease), St. Catherine of Alexandria (she of the wheel, which was commemorated in the Catherine-wheel firework), St. Christopher, St. Cyriacus, St. Denis of France, St. Erasmus, St. Eustace, St. George, St. Giles, St. Margaret of Antioch (who was swallowed by a devil in the form of a dragon, made the sign of the Cross, burst out of its stomach, and became patroness of childbirth), St. Pantaleon, and St. Vitus (he of the dance, ''i.e.'', the disease choreia). Their most famous shrine, the ''[[wikipedia:Basilica of the Vierzehnheiligen|Basilika Vierzehnheiligen]]'' near Bamberg (Bavaria, Germany), is a very well-known work of Baroque architecture by the famous Balthasar Neumann.
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{{reflist}}
[[Category:Useful Notes]]▼
[[Category:Religion Tropes]]
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