Was the Ripper choosing to kill on dates devoted to Patron Saints?

[Richard Patterson]

How many practicing Catholics actually know which saints map on to which professions? Major saints are often the patrons of a dozen things.

I don't know how many Catholics. I do know that, of the things that Major saints are the patrons of, very few include the type of suspect that the police were seeking, people whose jobs required knives and a working knowledge of anatomy.

[Pcdunn]

How many practicing Catholics actually know which saints map on to which professions? Major saints are often the patrons of a dozen things.

Very good points. However, Butler's Lives of the Saints was first published in the mid-eighteenth century, and a Victorian Catholic of the correct means could have purchased a set of the books. (Though Thompson seems to have been rather poor, sometimes.)

[Richard Patterson]

Very good points. However, Butler's Lives of the Saints was first published in the mid-eighteenth century, and a Victorian Catholic of the correct means could have purchased a set of the books. (Though Thompson seems to have been rather poor, sometimes.)

Thanks. I was waiting for someone to bring up the book 'Butler's Lives of the Saints'.

Point 1:
Thompson studied as a priest at Ushaw College. This college had one of the largest Catholic libraries in the country that was resplendent with rare manuscripts. Thompson spent many hours and years, reading from old church histories, hidden behind mountains of books.

Point 2: Butlers Lives of the Saints was published by Burns & Oates. This firm were designated publishers to the Holy See’ by Pope Leo XIII. These same publishers were instrumental in the sale of books by Francis Thompson.
It was they that printed the, ‘Works of Francis Thompson’ Thompson’s ‘Works’ was posthumously released, in three volumes of green cloth and gold gilt, they were what Viola Meynell, the daughter of Thompson’s publisher, would come to call,

'The bringing into existence of the complete counterpart of the man, the body of his mind made whole and perfect.'

Wilfrid Meynell, Thompson’s friend and publisher was literary adviser to Burns and Oates. It was they who funded the Burns Library in Boston College, that holds Thompson’s manuscripts and houses the Francis Thompson room. These manuscripts by him contain many essays he wrote on the lives of the saints, including some that fell on the dates of the Ripper murders. In 1999, I wrote to Paul Burns, the commissioning editor of the firm. He was also the author of several books on Saints and Saint days.

I sent him a copy of my non-fiction book, telling him that their poet, Francis Thompson, probably killed at least five women. Here is his response on June 7 1999,

‘Dear Mr Patterson
Thank you for your letter of 14 May and a copy of 'Paradox.' As you say, this is hardly a potential book for Burns & Oates. I have dipped into it fairly extensively and as yet failed to find any convincing connection between Francis Thompson and Jack the Ripper, but maybe I shall in time. In view of the connections between Burns and Oates and Francis Thompson and the Meynells I hope I might keep this copy as an interesting contribution towards a possible history of the firm. I certainly do not find it in any way lacking in goodwill, sympathy and respect, so please set your mind at rest on that score.
Best wishes.’

[Ally]

Was Jack the Ripper purposely choosing to kill on dates devoted to Patron Saints?


August 31st.
Saint Raymund the patron of the innocent, the falsely accused and midwives.

September 8th.
Saint Adrian the patron saint of Butchers and Soldiers.

September 30th.
Saint Jerome the patron saint of Doctors.

November 9th.
Saint Theodor the patron saint of Butchers and Soldiers.

Hmm, I'd hazard a guess that if a killer was picking murder dates based on Saints, he'd try and stay in the same religion, not cross pick between Roman Catholic saints and Greek Orthodox saints. They don't actually share saints you know, other than a few primary founders of christianity.

[Richard Patterson]

Hmm, I'd hazard a guess that if a killer was picking murder dates based on Saints, he'd try and stay in the same religion, not cross pick between Roman Catholic saints and Greek Orthodox saints. They don't actually share saints you know, other than a few primary founders of christianity.

These saints were found in books on Catholic saints. Did you notice that they are all saints who lived in the East, while Thompson lived in the East End?

[Ausgirl]

These saints were found in books on Catholic saints. Did you notice that they are all saints who lived in the East, while Thompson lived in the East End?

You cannot be serious.

[Richard Patterson]

You cannot be serious.

Francis Thompson was:

'With burnt mouth, red like a lion's, it drank
The blood of the sun as he slaughtered sank,
And dipped its cup in purpurate shine [pupurate-crimson]
When the Eastern conduits ran with wine...
I hang 'mid men my needless head
And my fruit is dreams, as theirs is bread,
The goodly men and the sun-hazed sleeper
Time shall reap, but after the reaper
The world shall glean of me, me the sleeper.'
---
See how there
The cowled Night [cowled-hooded, like a priest’s robes]
Kneels on the Eastern sanctuary-stair
---
‘Lo, in the sancturied East
Day, a dedicated priest...
His sacredotal stoles unvest-

Using the pseudonym of Tancred, Thompson wrote a notice in the January 1891, edition of "Merry England", called "Catholics in Darkest England". The name of Tancred was taken from that an Eastern crusading knight who lived from 1076 to 1112 AD. This Catholic warrior helped capture the eastern city of Jerusalem from the Muslims and was for a short time Prince of Galilee. In his article he told how the unborn poor were prostitutes waiting to happen and suggested throwing their children into the Thames.

'I see upon my right hand a land of lanes and hedgerows, I look upon my left hand and I see another region-is it not rather another universe? A region whose hedgerows have set to brick, whose soil is chilled to stone; where flowers are sold and women, where the men wither and the stars; whose streets to me on the most glittering day are black. For I unveil their secret meanings. I read their human hieroglyphs. I diagnose from a hundred occult signs the disease which perturbs their populous pulses. Misery cries out to me from the kerb-stone, despair passes me by in the ways; I discern limbs laden with fetters impalpable, but not imponderable; I hear the shaking of invisible lashes, I see men dabbled with their own oozing life. ... they are brought up in sin from their cradles,... the boys are ruffians and profligates, the girls harlots in the mother's womb. ... Here, too, has the Assassin left us a weapon which but needs a little practice to adapt it to the necessity of the day? Even so our army is in the midst of us, enrolled under the banner of the Stigmata, For better your children were cast from the bridges of London than they should become as one of those little ones.

[Ally]

These saints were found in books on Catholic saints. Did you notice that they are all saints who lived in the East, while Thompson lived in the East End?

Really and what book was that?

[GUT]

These saints were found in books on Catholic saints. Did you notice that they are all saints who lived in the East, while Thompson lived in the East End?

[Sally]

Richard Patterson,

You should realise, of course, that every day is a saint's day [or more accurately a saints' day] and as such a relationship between murder dates and saint's days is likely to be casual, not causal.

http://medievalist.net/calendar/months.htm

[Robert]

For this theory to even start to work, the Ripper would have to succeed every time. Nights when he missed out are not allowed for, because he would be trying to kill on the 'wrong' day. So the Ripper may have known it was the correct day - but if the prostitutes didn't know, he may have had problems.

[Richard Patterson]

Richard Patterson,

You should realise, of course, that every day is a saint's day [or more accurately a saints' day] and as such a relationship between murder dates and saint's days is likely to be casual, not causal.

http://medievalist.net/calendar/months.htm

I do realise, and thanks for the link. You should realise, from the 1st post in this thread, that I'm referring to only patron saints and saints that were soldiers and doctors of the church. Not the dozen or so saints that might be on any day.

[Richard Patterson]

For this theory to even start to work, the Ripper would have to succeed every time. Nights when he missed out are not allowed for, because he would be trying to kill on the 'wrong' day. So the Ripper may have known it was the correct day - but if the prostitutes didn't know, he may have had problems.

The Ripper did succeed every time. so the theory even starts to work.

[GUT]

The Ripper did succeed every time. so the theory even starts to work.

And we know that how?

[Richard Patterson]

And we know that how?

And we don't know that how?