Sacred Strategy : Canonization as Holocaust Memory Politics in the Roman Catholic Church

Sammanfattning

This thesis examines how the canonization of Holocaust-era figures, each persecuted and killed within distinct historical contexts, functions as a form of Catholic memory politics, arguing that saintly narrative does not simply commemorate the past through veneration, but actively shapes ecclesiastical imperatives of memory work through the convergence of theological and political memory. Employing thematic analysis of hagiography and martyrology across papal documents from the Holy See and Vatican News, this thesis analyzes the cultural memory of Saint Maximilian Kolbe, Saint Edith Stein, and the Blessed Ulma Family. Advancing a three-part analytical toolkit that combines theories of memory with an original concept of “the hybrid witness,” this study demonstrates how the institutional Catholic Church’s selective mnemonic choices produce a memory of the Holocaust that mirrors Polish nationalist memory politics, marginalizes Jewish experience, and prioritizes theological resonance over historical accountability.