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My Cousin the Saint: A Search for Faith, Family, and Miracles
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Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 282.092
EAN: 9780061231025
Edition: 1
ISBN: 0061231029
Label: William Morrow
Manufacturer: William Morrow
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 352
Publication Date: June 01, 2008
Publisher: William Morrow
Release Date: May 20, 2008
Studio: William Morrow
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Editorial Review:
An inspiring story of faith and family across two continents
Like millions of other Italians in the early twentieth century, Justin Catanoso's grandfather immigrated to America to escape poverty and hardship. Nearly a hundred years later, Justin, born and raised in New Jersey, knows little of his family beyond the Garden State.
That changes in 2001 when he discovers that his grandfather's cousin, Padre Gaetano Catanoso, is a Vatican-certified miracle worker. After a life of serving the poor and founding an order of nuns, Gaetano had been approved by Pope John Paul II to become a saint, the first priest from Calabria ever to be canonized. A typically lapsed American Catholic, Justin embarks on a quest to connect with his extended family in southern Italy and, ultimately, to awaken his slumbering faith.
My Cousin the Saint charts the parallel history of two relatives—Justin's grandfather, Carmelo, and his sainted cousin, Gaetano. While Carmelo leaves his homeland to pursue New World prosperity, Gaetano stays behind to relieve Old World misery. Justin reunites the two halves of a sundered family by both exploring the life of the saint in Calabria and uncovering the untold story of his grandfather's family, raised in New Jersey between two world wars.
Justin confronts his own tenuous spiritual moorings in the process. After meeting with Vatican officials in Rome, he is astonished by the complexity of saint-making. After hearing one miracle story after another, he struggles with the line between the mystical and the divine. After seeing his brother fall ill with terminal cancer, he questions the value of prayer. And after reveling in the charm and generosity of his newfound Italian relatives, he comes to learn what it means to have a saint in the family.
A compelling narrative written with grace and honesty, My Cousin the Saint is a testament to the challenge of being Catholic in twenty-first-century America. More than a biography, more than an immigrant memoir, more than a chronicle of renewed faith, it is a love letter to a family now reunited across oceans and years.
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating: - A really great read! Appeals on so many levels
When I first came across this book, I read a few reviews and thought it sounded like a delightful story. I grabbed a copy of it as soon as I could get my hands on one and since finishing it, I've recommended the book over and over again. It may be the only book I've ever read that appeals to so many people for so many different reasons.
It's a wonderful story of a young Italian American man learning more about his family (both here and there) and one very special, sainted relative; it's ... Read More
Rating: - A joyful celebration of the power of familial love.
I stumbled upon this book by accident, and in spite of that, or perhaps because if it, I have been deeply touched. I do not search out religious literature, and would not normally seek out a book about a saint. Instead it was given to me by a friend. While My Cousin the Saint is nominally about Padre Gaetano Catanoso, a recently canonized saint from the Italian region of Calabria, the story is deeper and more personal. Author Justin Catanoso tells the story that all children of immigrant families want ... Read More
Rating: - My Cousin The Saint
This could have been a boring read, even as a Catholic and who shares a common upbringing, I was worried it might take me a bit to get through. I was wrong. The story is told as if Justin is sitting in your living room sharing this with you. You don't have to be a Catholic or someone who was raised in similar circumstances to enjoy My Cousin The Saint. Buy this book and sit back and enjoy a trip through Southern Italy and Southern Jew Jersey.
Rating: - A Marvelous Saga of a Family with 2 Branches
"My Cousin the Saint" is a terrific account of both branches of a family from Calabria, the part of Southern Italy that is in the tip of "boot" on the map. One from the side of the author's grandfather, Carmelo Catanoso, who emigrated to America in 1903 when he was 16 years old, and all his descendants, and the other branch that remained in Italy, and included the pious priest, Padre Gaetano Catanoso, who died in 1963 and was canonized in 2005.
It is the author Justin Catanoso who has brought ... Read More
Rating: - A fascinating look at religion, spirituality, and family
My Cousin the Saint is provocative--it's impossible to read this book and not contemplate your own faith and the meaning of family. I consider myself far too practical and rational to be religious. So it was interesting reading about how someone with the same self-image started believing. Or at least trying to.
Furthermore Catanoso's vivid descriptions of his family in the United States and in Italy provides an interesting contrast of the social norms in those two countries.
Growing ... Read More
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