Saint: Why I Should Be Canonized Right Away

Two years ago I reviewed Sinner by Lino Rulli which was a very funny and at times serious book and piecemeal autobiography. Lino Rulli who hosts “The Catholic Guy” on Sirius Radio has now written a follow-up book Saint: Why I Should Be Canonized Right Away. This is a very tongue-firmly-in-cheek framework where Lino explains how his life so far qualifies him to be canonized a saint. This is another piecemeal autobiography where he explores parts of his life topically not sequentially.

Along the way behind all the humor there are serious points to be made about living your life as a Catholic. Again what is appealing about his books is the total lack of pretention and the honest look at himself faults and all. Although this is beyond defensive self-deprecating humor and is more along of the lines of simple honesty. The first book contained many funny stories from his life that seemed like almost a running gag punctuated with hard-to-believe facts like that his father left his job to become an organ-grinder. There is even more along that theme in this book involving the circus.

The canonize-me-now framework of the book mostly works as a humor device since you always know it is a device and not pride. So there is some nice comedy regarding this aspect. I especially enjoyed this since I have explored some of the same humor in some of my own posts Saintly Planning and n Planning to be a Doctor of the Church.

One annoying aspect of the book is that I found way to much that I could relate to. I had plenty to commiserate with Lino on. I would rather laugh at Lino struggles, than my own. Still I think many will find points of contact with what he writes. I’ve personally found laughing at my own faults to be a help in both acknowledging them and repenting of them. So I found lots of points of contact, but his later chapter regarding his struggles with his large nose hit too close to home. Although mine is not Italian and more along the lines of W.C. Fields (no surprise I once did him as a character in a show).

I had fun reading this book and it is a nice companion to his first book. Certainly not for everybody, especially those who are sensitive regarding the use of humor alongside of discussions of the faith. I suspect those that read my blog don’t have that problem. Still I occasionally get emails complaining about the mixture of the two.