Patron Saint of Hopeless Causes

Orsi’s position implicit in his analysis of the gender dynamics characteristic of devotion to Jude Father Tort, a Catholic refugee from Mexico where persecution of Catholics was common came to Chicago and sounded a massive Catholic movement. Stationed in Arizona, Father Tort lacked even basic amenities and was gradually becoming hopeless. At a moment of desperation, Tort saw a card with the picture of St. Jude and made inquiries. In response he was informed that: There was a shrine to St. Jude in a Claretian church in Santiago, Chile, where he was venerated as the Patron Saint of Hopeless Causes ; (7). Father Tort began praying to St. Jude and almost immediately his fortunes changed. He even moved to Chicago and founded a large Mexican following. Through amazing fundraising capabilities, Father Tort was able to build a massive religious center for his congregants. Wherever he went, he took St. Jude with him and this is how St. Jude came to be popular in the USA. 

This is how the story of St. Jude began but it does not tell the story of how St. Jude became so famous among Catholic immigrants. This part is inter alia based on why these immigrants came to America in the first place. Catholic immigrants had not come to America to settle. Like many people today, they came with the hope to work, earn enough then return home and live comfortably. Two things, however, hampered this. First was that these immigrants never earned enough and their American dreams remained a mirage. The second was the First World War, which did not end well for their home nations. They, therefore, found themselves stuck in the US. Many of them began getting assimilated to local cultures and way of life, yet still bound by their Catholic ways. The combination of the two was a major complication more so for the ladies to whom most obligation lay from a family and religious perspective. This led many of them to associate with the cause of St. Jude who could give hope in seemingly hopeless situations. According to Orsi: the saint's devout were not drawn from the completely destitute but from the class that was just holding onto, precariously (19). This is how St. Jude, who was erstwhile unknown became so popular, more so at the height of the Great Depression in 1929. 

Orsi has a lot to say about why women followed and were so committed to St. Jude more than any other gender, yet there were also Catholic men immigrants from Europe. These Catholic male immigrants ought to have been disappointed as the women were unable to return home, having only come to the Americas temporarily in search of wealth. Further, these men must have suffered greatly having seen their domiciled country, the USA crush their homes of origin and holy land; Rome. Yet, it was the women who seemed to pay homage more to St. Jude, pray to and through him more and be stronger followers of St. Jude. Implicitly, Orsi clearly implies that St. Jude is more of a clever and very effective money minting project than he was an actual saint to be worshiped. Indeed, St. Jude is shown to have committed many miracles to many women who had a very close relationship with him. 

But one man seemed to have received more miracles from St. Jude than all the women combined. This man was the great Father James Tort. Before Tort came up with the concept of St. Jude, he was headed for oblivion as a refugee in the USA. Once he begins talking about St. Jude, his fortunes change and he launches one of the most successful pecuniary projects in the US Catholic church at the time. Orsi indicates that at the time: The saint was so unfamiliar to North American Catholics that Father Tort could not find a statue of him among Chicago's many retailers of religious objects . Orsi does not mention that Tort uses St. Jude as a money minting machine. He, however, states repeatedly how much financially successful the project was when the entire USA was under depression. 

Then Orsi focuses on how the ladies who were so connected to St. Jude and used to pray through him would recount again and again about how they had received miracles. Further, each and every mention of a miracle by Orsi would be followed by an indication that the miracle came after the ladies made some form of sacrifice or offering to St. Jude, mainly through the purchase of some spiritual paraphernalia developed by Father Tort. It is clear that Orsi is seeking to create a connection between the manifest gullibility of the feminine gender and their devotion to St. Jude. It is this gullibility that the St. Jude movement as inspired by Father Tort takes advantage of, thus creating a massive revenue stream for the organization. The great desperation that came with the Great Depression does not thwart the money-making concept of St. Jude. Instead, the concept of a guardian Angel of lost causes thrives under such circumstances. The little that the ladies could find under the near impossible circumstances of the Great Depression would go to St. Jude, and by extension Father Tort’s organization in the hope that the sacrifice would enable the extenuation of the predicament. The only predicament that would instead be extenuated was that of Father Tort and his organization. Men must also have been pious and as good Catholics as the women. The only difference between the two lies in the ladies gullibility to the wiles of Father Tort. 

Yet, Orsi may also have implied that the situation of the ladies was much worse than that of the men hence their ability to feel that their cause was more desperate, thus aligning with St. Jude the more. When the Catholic immigrants came from Europe in search of fortune in the USA, they found a gender war in America. The push for universal suffrage had created a wedge between the men and women of America. The woman became alienated from the man and had to make her own way, seeking to earn to cater for her children through work while still playing the role of wife and mother. The immigrant men found themselves relieved of the burden of chivalry that they had to carry in Europe thus having a lighter burden. But the immigrant women found themselves having to find their own feet as American women did. Yet, these immigrant women were also bound by their Catholic faith to be excellent wives to their husbands and mothers to their children. These are facts that Orsi dwells on at length in the book. The combined obligation of being both Americanized women and absolute catholic wives must have been impossible for this women. It would actually have seemed like a lost cause and the loss of their homeland must have been heavier than them than their male counterparts. This could explain why it was easier for them as women to associate more closely to St. Jude than the men. 

Orsi is careful to paint the picture of St. Jude as more of a creation of the industrious rather than illustrious Father James Tort. However, Orsi neither comes out directly to condemn Father Tort, nor the concept of St. Jude itself. Yet, a clear effort can be seen implicitly placed in the boot to show that pecuniary interest is behind the entire concept of St. Jude. The success of this venture can also not be lost upon the reader. Perhaps women followed St. Jude more than men because they were more desperate thus feeling a higher connection to a patron saint of lost causes. There is, however, a higher likelihood that the distinction lay in the women’s gullibility.