Who Says You Can’t Be a Saint? Female Saints as Heroes on the Italian Catholic Stage

Abstract

This essay considers how one modern order of Catholic priests and nuns, the Salesians, presented the lives of female saints as heroic role models through theater to young women in Italy in the post-World War II years. My discussion touches on the Salesian use of theater in education; the most important Salesian woman author, Caterina Pesci; the heroic journey of the saints that Pesci chose as role models; the effect that the theatrical representation of these saints was meant to make on performers and audience, and the historical reasons for the importance of saints as heroic role models in postwar Italy.