The Universal Day of Mating, by Michael Pakaluk

By Michael Pakaluk, The Catholic Thing, February 14, 2025

Michael Pakaluk, an Aristotle scholar and Ordinarius of the Pontifical Academy of St. Thomas Aquinas, is a professor in the Busch School of Business at the Catholic University of America. He lives in Hyattsville, MD with his wife Catherine, also a professor at the Busch School, and their eight children. His acclaimed book on the Gospel of Mark is The Memoirs of St Peter. …

Should Catholics celebrate St. Valentine’s Day?  The best recommendation for celebrating it at all, I think, is that in our tradition three different martyred saints have been called “Valentine,” and the feast day for all three of them is February 14th.

At least so states the Catholic Encyclopedia, in an article by judicious scholar, Fr. Herbert Thurston, S.J., famous for his skepticism about legends:

One is described as a priest at Rome, another as bishop of Interamna (modern Terni), and these two seem both to have suffered in the second half of the third century and to have been buried on the Flaminian Way, but at different distances from the city. . . .Of both these St. Valentines some sort of Acta are preserved but they are of relatively late date and of no historical value. Of the third Saint Valentine, who suffered in Africa with a number of companions, nothing further is known. …