Two
families, an ocean apart, reunited by St. Gaetano
By NADIA MARIA SMITH
CS&T Staff Writer
Not many people can say they have a cousin for a saint.
But Justin Catanoso can, and he writes about it in his first
book, “My Cousin the Saint: A Search for Faith, Family
and Miracles.”
The book vividly brings to life one of the Church’s
newest canonized saints, Saint Gaetano Catanoso, a parish
priest from a poor, mafia-run Calabrian town where most
of the people were illiterate and desperately poor.
Padre Gaetano lived a life of extraordinary virtue, inspiring
the men, women and children he cared for to do the same.
“Padre Gaetano came to believe he could do no less
than to love with the same kind of intensity that Jesus
loved. How else could he soften so many hardened souls?”
Catanoso writes in his book. “Like St. Veronica, herself,
Padre Gaetano would fall in step with the many, many poor
hobbling all around him. He would wipe their faces of tears
and blood. He would love them blindly, radically, unconditionally.”
In his book, Catanoso uncovers the paths of his sainted
cousin and that of his great-grandfather, Carmelo. The only
Catanoso family member to emigrate to the United States,
Carmelo established the American branch of the family in
this country.
The 2005 canonization of Padre Gaetano spurred a grand family
reunion and set Catanoso on a personal journey of faith.
Until then, he had been a self-described lapsed-Catholic,
more of a cultural Catholic than anything else.
“I remember sitting there, in the middle of St. Peter’s
Square, at this most extraordinary ceremony on this picture
perfect day with 100,000 people in the square, thinking,
‘The faith is so palpable in the square and I am a
spectator to it. That’s not good enough. I am going
to give this a try,’” Catanoso recalled.
At that moment, he said, he promised himself he would start
going to church and understanding the Mass, which was so
central to Padre Gaetano’s life.
As he began that spiritual journey, he was approached to
write a book about his cousin. So Catanoso, a Pulitzer Prize-nominated
journalist and journalism instructor at Wake Forest University,
set off in “search of faith, family and miracles.”
The resulting book has been hailed as “a glorious
book,” by Jesuit Father James Martin, the author of
“My Life with the Saints.”
“Part spiritual journey, part detective story, part
travelogue, Justin Catanoso’s engrossing new memoir
shows how discovering God always leads to discovering yourself,”
Father Martin wrote in his review of the book.
Msgr. Gregory Parlante, the pastor of St. Cornelius Parish
in Chadds Ford, attended Padre Gaetano’s canonization
with Msgr. James McDonough, who is the director of the Office
of the Society for the Propagation of the Faith. His family
is related to the Catanosos through marriage. Msgr. Parlante
has invited the author to his church to speak about his
cousin, his family and his faith at 7 p.m. Thursday, May
29. A question-and-answer session will follow. Copies of
the book will be on sale and he will autograph them after
the talk.
St. Cornelius Church is located at 160 Ridge Road, Chadds
Ford, PA 19317.
For more information call Msgr. Parlante at 610-459-2502.
CS&T staff writer Nadia Maria Smith can be reached
at npozo@adphila.org or (215) 965-4614.