Catwoman and St. Theresa Benedicta of the Cross

In the blockbuster The Dark Knight Rises, Anne Hathaway, as Catwoman, steals the movie, despite an ensemble of outstanding performances. She owns every scene in which she appears. First of all, she is as smart as can be: two steps ahead of Batman, the police, and the bad guys. Second, she is tough as nails, effortlessly besting three of four thugs at a time, and then gracefully walking away, every hair in place and serene as can be. Thirdly, she is breathtakingly beautiful, in an elegant gracious manner. She is not sexy in a needy, manipulative, seductive, I-need-a-man way. So, fourthly, she is independent, competent, and self-sufficient without a man. Fifthly, she is good...at the end of the day; although far from perfect. She is, after all, a cat burgler. But most importantly, in regard to the movie, she is light-hearted. There is a heavy, masculine, aggressive tone to most of the movie: the fights, the chases, the soundtrack, the ominous, muscular and dominant villain Bane. But Catwoman brings a distinctively feminine sense of lightness to the entire thing. It is when she appears and makes coy, witty comments that we, as viewers, realize, somewhere in our brains, that this is, after all, a comic strip; it is fun and funny; and we don't really have to grieve too deeply about the diminished potency of Batman or the fate of poor Gotham. Catwoman is an analogue, a image or icon, on a lower level, of our saint for today: St. Theresa Benedicata of the Cross, a.k.a. Edith Stein. She was a towering intellectual. As a protege of the great Husserl, she was considered a brighter light than her classmate Heideggar, who is probably the most influential philosopher of the 20th century. She was courageous: facing martyrdom in a concentration camp with serenity, exuding calm and consolation to her fellow prisoners. Physically, she was lovely to behold. But her spirit was even more splendid. She wrote and spoke brilliantly on the female psyche in a vein similar to that of her fellow mystic-phenomenologist, John Paul II. She was good: a consecrated virgin, a pure soul. But most of all, in regard to the drama that was her life and the life of that dark century, she brought a distinctively feminine lightness, a joy, a radiance of hope into the darkness of the Shaol. Liberated women! You go girl! We love you Catwoman, Anne Hathaway, and Saint Theresa Benedicta of the Cross!