Saints for Now

by Clare Boothe Luce

Edited by Clare Booth Luce The well-known writer and Catholic convert, Clare Booth Luce, edited this classic on the lives of saints by a group of world-famous authors. She asked twenty writers to contribute a short biography of their favorite saint to this volume. Writers such as Evelyn Waugh, E. I. Watkin, Whittaker Chambers, Thomas Merton, Barbara Ward and Karl Stern wrote stories of saints whose lives and message provided special significance for our times. Saints from every age of the Church are here, including St. Augustine, St. John the Apostle, St. Benedict, St. Francis of Assisi, St. Helena, St. Thomas More, the Curé of Ars, St. Thérèse of Lisieux, and more. Each essay highlights some facet of the timeliness of each saint. As they differ in birth, condition, and talent, so too do the saints differ astoundingly from one another in the modes of expressing their holiness. "The saints present the now of Christianity in the many nows in which it has existed. Saints for Now helps us to explain our time, our now, to ourselves because it tells us how Christian saints lived their `nows.'" - James V. Schall, S.J., Author, Another Sort Of Learning

Genres: Religion

330 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 1993

About the author

Ann Clare Boothe Luce was an American author, politician, U.S. Ambassador (Brazil and Italy) and public conservative figure. She was the first American woman appointed to a major ambassadorial post abroad. She served as a United States congresswoman from the 4th district in Connecticut from 1943 - 1947.

A versatile author, she is best known for her 1936 hit play The Women, which had an all-female cast.

Her writings extended from drama and screen scenarios to fiction, journalism and war reportage. She was the wife of Henry Luce, publisher of Time, Life, Fortune, and Sports Illustrated.

Politically, Luce was a leading conservative in later life and was well known for her anti-communism. In her youth, she briefly aligned herself with the liberalism of President Franklin Roosevelt as a protégé of Bernard Baruch, but later became an outspoken critic of Roosevelt. Although she was a strong supporter of the Anglo-American alliance in World War II, she remained outspokenly critical of British colonialism in India.

Known as a charismatic and forceful public speaker, especially after her conversion to Roman Catholicism in 1946, she campaigned for every Republican presidential candidate from Wendell Willkie to Ronald Reagan.

Luce passed away from brain cancer on October 9, 1987 at the age of eighty-four.