St. Mary Magdalene: A saint for our time

SHE could be the saint for our age—though not for the reason many think. Christians have long mistakenly thought St. Mary Magdalene was the same person as the woman of ill-repute who washed Jesus’s feet with her tears in the Pharisee Simon’s home (Luke 7:36-50).

That misimpression, wrongly affirmed in a 1591 sermon by no less than Pope St. Gregory The Great, seems to make the purportedly reformed and forgiven prostitute a sinner-turned-saint for our permissive age, full of sexual transgressions in lifestyles, media, and even in state policy and law.