Church Of the Broken Spirit

I was walking past this church in South philadelphia while I and a friend looked for wherever we had parked his car. It turns out there's a story behind the saint. She is the "Patron Saint of the Sick and against Sexual Temptation."

Saint Mary Magdalene of Pazzi (1566-1607) was born into an extremely rich & powerful family, here is some information from Wikipedia: "At nine she learned to meditate from the family confessor. She made her first Communion at the then-early age of 10 and made a vow of virginity one month later. When 16, she entered the Carmelite convent in Florence because she could receive Communion daily there."

The Roman Catholic Church is a sea of moral poison that keeps on giving. Just when you think you've heard it all and no new infomation about it can sicken you, here comes a new item. It's like studying the Nazis.

The girl was under the full pressure of high Italian society and a religion that is totally obsessed with sex. She was either too independent-minded or a bit too crazy for the normal marriage track, so she has her visions and winds up a nun. In the convent (Carmelite Order), she seems to do little other than lay in bed and have mystical visions, which are faithfully recorded by her religious sisters. If this had been a poor kid, she'd be starving and shrieking mad, or dead by this point, but her Daddy is related to the Medici family of Florence, so her rantings become a series of books instead. "She read the thoughts of others and predicted future events. During her lifetime, she appeared to several persons in distant places and cured a number of sick people."

It gets worse. Here is text from a Catholic site:

"One day, when she seemed to be at the last hour of her life, she rose from her sickbed and hastened everywhere throughout the convent, saying during her ecstasy, "O Love! O Love! No one knows You, no one knows You, no one loves You!" For five years [1585-90; ages 19-24] she was tormented by demons with fearful temptations of pride, sensuality, gluttony, despair, blasphemy; they became so violent that she said, "I do not know whether I am a reasonable creature or one without reason; I see nothing in myself but a little good will never to offend the divine Majesty.""

Too bad she was not Amish and born a few centuries later. The Amish have a thing called Rumspringa that might have done the trick here. Anyway, they broke her and she towed the line for another seventeen years:

"God raised her to elevated states of prayer and gave her rare gifts, enabling her to read the thoughts of her novices, and filling her with wisdom to direct them. She was twice chosen mistress of novices, and then made Superior. On her deathbed she asked her Sisters to love only Our Lord Jesus Christ, to place all hope in Him, and be perpetually ardent with desire to suffer for love of Him. God took her to Himself on May 15, 1607. Her body remains incorrupt."

By "incorrupt" they mean that her cadaver did not rot or stink. It's whacky.

Politeness is not called for here. I was raised Catholic, so I can call it just as I please. If it offends anyone they can go to Hell. There seems to be no biographical information on this person other than those who controlled her life and presented her to posterity as a role model. They seem to say, If we broke her, we can break you too.