The Miracle Detective: An Investigative Reporter Sets Out To Examine How The Catholic Church Investigates Holy Visions and Discovers His Own Faith

Sullivan, Randall; Randall Sullivan

ISBN 10: 0802141951 / ISBN 13: 9780802141958

Published by Grove Press/An Imprint of Grove-Atlantic, Inc., New York, 2005

About this Item

450 pp. Clean, fresh copy with very light shelf wear, crisp pages and clean text. Publisher's remainder copy with markings on top and bottom edge.

Seller Inventory # 1ivFg0014

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Miracle Detective: An Investigative Reporter Sets Out To Examine How The Catholic Church Investigates Holy Visions and Discovers His Own Faith
• Publisher: Grove Press/An Imprint of Grove-Atlantic, Inc., New York
• Publication Date: 2005
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0802141951
• ISBN 13: 9780802141958
• Binding: Trade Paperback
• Illustrator: The Virgin in Prayer 1640-50 Giovanni Battista Salvi, National Gallery, London (Cover Art)
• Edition: 1st Grove Press Paperback Edition: 2005
• Condition: Like New
• Seller catalogs:
  • Religion, Theology, Christianity, Catholicism
  • Christian & Biblical Studies & Literature & Living
  • Academic, Scholarly, Research

About this title

Synopsis

In a tiny, dilapidated trailer in northeastern Oregon, a young woman saw a vision of the Virgin Mary in an ordinary landscape painting hanging on her bedroom wall. After being met with skepticism from the local parish, the matter was officially placed "under investigation" by the Catholic diocese. Investigative journalist Randall Sullivan wanted to know how, exactly, one might conduct the official inquiry into such an incident, so he set off to interview theologians, historians, and postulators from the Sacred Congregation of the Causes for Saints. These men, dubbed "miracle detectives" by the author, were charged by the Vatican with testing the miraculous and judging the holy.

Sullivan traveled from the Vatican in Rome to the tiny village of Medjugorje in Bosnia-Herzegovina, where six visionaries had been receiving apparitions of the Virgin Mary. Sullivan's quest turns personal and takes him to Scottsdale, Arizona, site of America's largest and most controversial instances of Virgin Mary sightings, culminating an eight-year investigation of predictions of apocalyptic events, false claims of revelation, and the search for a genuine theophany-that is, the ultimate interface between man and God.

About the Author

Randall Sullivan is a contributing editor to both Rolling Stone and Men’s Journal. He is the author of The Price of Experience and LAbyrinth: A detective investigates the murders of Tupac Shakur and Notorious B.I.G., the implications of Death Row Records’ Suge Knight, and the origins of the Los Angeles Police Scandal.