Being the newest, youngest member of the Kardashian-Jenner dynasty can’t be easy. You’re a baby, you can’t eat, feed or clothe yourself, yet you’re last in a long line of flogging egos, lipstick ranges, bodycon outfits and laxative tea supplements.
You’re a childhood away from getting your first Instagram account and so, in the mean time, must face the potential upset of being cropped out of photos with your mum – sometimes even by your mum!
But when you’re called Saint West? You’ve got even more to live up to. Here are some actual saints and the things they’ve done and what they’re now patrons of. Maybe Saint West will do them, maybe he won’t. What we do know is that the world is full of strange things, ie naming your child Saint.
St Lawrence
He sounds a bit like Saint Laurent, who Kanye has bad history with (he accused head designer Hedi Slimane of plagiarising his work) but Kanye’s wrath towards Hedi is nothing compared to what actual St Larry went through.
This guy spirited the Holy Grail (the chalice Jesus drank from), which had last been seen at the Last Supper in Jerusalem, all the way to Huesca in Spain. He was martyred (aged only 33) as part of the persecution by Emperor Valerian in 258AD, by being grilled alive. Refusing to renounce his Christianity, he yelled, ‘I'm well done. Turn me over!’ to his executors. Sizzling.
St Barbara
Born to a heathen called Dioscorus, when St Babs converted to Christianity, her dad swore he’d behead her with his own hands. On the way back from killing her, he was struck by lightning, proving that the Christian God was just as powerful as Zeus. Barbara is now the patron saint of… fireworks! And yet we call it a Catherine Wheel...
St Lidwina
The Dutch mystic was only 15 when she fell while ice skating, breaking a rib. She became progressively disabled throughout the rest of her life but also fasted loads, not sleeping either, becoming famous as a healer and holy woman. She died aged 53 in 1433, not before shedding parts of her body, eg skin, bones and intestines, according to reports at the time.
She’s now the patron saint of ice skaters and the chronically ill, while medical historians suggest she’s the first reported case of what we know now as multiple sclerosis.
St Margaret of Antioch/Margaret the Virgin
The daughter of a pagan priest called Aedesius, after her mum died she grew up with a nurse as a foster mother far away from home. Olybrius, governer of the Roman Diocese of the East, wanted to marry her, but only if she gave up being a Christian. She refused, so he tortured her. But while she was in prison, Satan turned up in the form of a dragon and swallowed her. The cross around her neck irritated the dragon’s innards, though, helping her to escape. She was still put to death in 304AD. A lot of people have denied the dragon thing...
St Bartholomew
Want to know why this guy’s the saint of leather? After travelling as far east as India to preach about Christ, he was martyred in Armenia. In what just so happens to be Kim Kardashian’s late father’s homeland, he was flayed alive by non-believers. They then crucified him, head downwards. Other accounts have him being beheaded, but it’s this association with skin that has him down as the patron saint of leather!
There are loads more. But it’s all a bit too gory for what’s meant to be a piece celebrating the new birth of Saint West. Let’s hope little baby Saint doesn’t fall foul of any of the above fates, and that the exceptional degree of holiness necessary to being a saint isn’t necessary to be a Saint. There’s something pretty ungodly about dirty nappies, after all.
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.