The Stigmatists: Their Gifts, Their Revelations, Their Warnings

Paul Kengor:  This book focuses on Church-approved stigmatists and their visions, revelations, and prophecies and warnings. In some cases, the prophecies and warnings relate to the End Times and Second Coming of Christ. That includes the striking revelations of the likes of Saint Faustina (1905-38), the first canonized saint of the new millennium. One might rightly interpret the mark of the stigmata (sometimes invisible stigmata, as in the cases of Saints Faustina and Catherine of Siena) as a heavenly/Church affirmation of these saints’ authenticity, likewise adding a certain authenticity to their claimed visions.  Notably, not all of these stigmatic saints had visions of the Final Days. They need not to have changed history. Some of the special visions were along the lines of St. Francis’s transformational conversations with Jesus at the San Damiano cross, which nonetheless had a significant larger purpose: “Francesco,” said Jesus, “ripara la mia Chiesa.” (“Francis, repair my Church.”