Book excerpt: Pauline Dimech explores whether and to what extent we may attribute authority to the saints, but also how we may ensure that it is the saints, and not the scoundrels, whose influence persists and whose memory endures. The thing that drives her research is the thought that history is full of examples of individuals who held positions of official authority that they did not deserve. Dimech is convinced that Hans Urs von Balthasar can help us clarify the issues surrounding the authority of the saints. Besides establishing Balthasar's involvement with the enterprise, this book tries to establish the theological foundations upon which the authority of the saints would have to be based in theory, and, possibly, already, however implicitly, based in practice.