It may be popular among ordinary Catholics, but the cult of St Thérèse serves the hierarchy’s political purposes well

In his blog post on the visit of the relics of Saint Thérèse of Lisieux to the UK this month, Andrew Brown said that “Thérèse’s cult, though stimulated by her family and convent, grew among ordinary Catholics first” and even die-hard atheist commentators seem to have accepted the idea that the both the wider cult and the ongoing international tour of the remains of Marie-Françoise-Thérèse Martin are characterised by a spontaneous outpouring of devotion amongst the faithful. But far from being a grassroots movement, the tour has been vigorously marketed by a powerful political entity – the Catholic church…

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