'Saint Catherine' is a 2025 graphic novel about religious trauma, guilt and shame, and the first one I've read concerning that subject matter.
More than anything, it is an adult slice-of-life, coming-of-age drama, about the meaning of faith, questioning what you have always been taught to believe, not sticking to a rigid routine if it doesn't make you happy, learning not to live on a knife's edge of mentally ingrained guilt and shame, and learning not to get stuck in your own head all the time, and be free to live your life as you want, with the people who love you as you are, and who make you happy. There's also living by your own moral code, and how being a good person is about how you affect the lives of others around you, not just your own. Then there's how being good and honest don't mean much if you're doing it out of selfishness, self-satisfaction, relieving your own guilt, and trying to impress some higher or lower being with how "good" you are.
Genuine care, thoughtfulness, and attention to people's feelings are key.
There is absolutely more to 'Saint Catherine' than its surface level religious horror thematic. You can bet there are metaphors and symbolism. Ultimately, and in a realistic context, it involves exorcising the demons of guilt, familial or self-imposed...
How its literal demons are drawn is in a kind of cute, funny, childish, cartoony way. There is a reason for it. They look and act like a mixture of Bill Cipher from 'Gravity Falls' and Luci from 'Disenchantment'.
'Saint Catherine' is all at once creepy, bizarre, mad, grounded, sad, subtle, gentle, cathartic, and clever.
It is a very human story, and an easygoing and effective look into religious trauma, that anyone of any religion, or lack thereof, can understand and take to heart.
It has one of the best plot twists I have ever seen in a comic, and Joan of Arc and the historical Saint Catherine imagery and symbolism.
The protagonist, Catherine, a twenty-something redhaired "recovering" Irish American Catholic with religious mummy issues, is a very relatable sweetheart. She tries her best to be "good", and she simultaneously and paradoxically does and says whatever she wants, when "doing everything right" isn't enough, isn't working out, isn't making her happy and satisfied, even with her childhood-ingrained fear of going to hell. That's human. That's living. She's indecisive. She has much to learn and unlearn.
Catherine mostly has boyfriend troubles, but on a bigger, deeper, more subconscious level, there's her uber religious, judgemental mother, who unintentionally made her daughter grow up scared from her beliefs.
(And I don't know why the mum doesn't like Catherine's boyfriend Manolo. Is it because he has tattoos? Is it the sex before marriage life choice? It could be anything, really. She makes it clear she doesn't like Catherine's friends', ugh, lifestyle choices. *screams in rage*)
Catherine's girl friends, Kim, Marta, and Olga - two or more of whom make up the story's LBGTQ+ rep - stay the best throughout. She is lucky to have these pals in her life, and they are great and fun characters in their own right. They are podcasters and medics, and Catherine is an editor.
Well, in following towards something resembling a conclusion, 'Saint Catherine' isn't what I expected, but it is a fine graphic novel containing important themes. Beneath the demonic horror and "silliness" is a lovely and heartbreakingly real character piece. The religious trauma is the true horror here, and it is felt. Anna Meyer based some of it on personal experience, and you can absolutely tell. Her Afterword is worthy, vital reading.
'Saint Catherine' could be life changing, and life saving.
For why should religion be about making you feel guilt, shame, and fear? If it's about love, then why is that love conditional, and why does it require you to sacrifice your very personhood to it? Why shouldn't it make allowances for being human and making mistakes, which literally everyone makes? Should it really be prioritised above everything and everyone, if it makes you feel miserable and trapped, the exact opposite of how it's supposed to make you feel?
Learn to live, love, and be free, with or without any religion and faith, that should lift you up, not weigh you down and limit you and your prospects.
'Saint Catherine' could have done more to explore how religion is widely, disturbingly and horrifically used as an excuse for hypocrisy and evil, malicious, and bigoted acts, which persist to this day. Catherine definitely ought to see a therapist, also. But overall, I love it.
Catherine mends some of her relationships, and ends others, and again, that's life. No one and nothing can be measured and judged through a simple, childish, black and white morality.
Final noteworthy credit I have to give 'Saint Catherine': Its plot twist is made obvious from its cover. Seriously. Read the whole book and then look at the cover. You'll know why a certain detail is there. I won't reveal anything more, but wow is the graphic novel clever enough that it will make you feel like an idiot for not getting it from first looking at it.
Bless you, Catherine, and Anna Meyer.
Whether or not salvation is obtainable in the long run, you deserve happiness, love and enlightenment, which are never out of reach for anyone.
Final Score: 4/5
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