Description
Book SynopsisIn 1968, Veronica Lueken, a Catholic housewife in Bayside, Queens, New York, began to experience visions of the Virgin Mary. Over almost three decades, she imparted more than 300 messages from Mary, Jesus, and other heavenly personages. These revelations, which were sent all over the world through newsletters, billboards, and local television, severely criticized the liturgical changes of Vatican II and the wickedness of American society. Unless everyone repented, Lueken warned, a fiery ball would collide with the Earth, causing death and destruction around the world. When Catholic Church authorities tried to dismiss, discredit, and even banish her, Lueken declared Pope Paul VI a communist imposter, accused the Church of being in error since Vatican II, and sought new venues in which to communicate her revelations. Since her death in 1995, her followers have continued to gather in Flushing Meadows Park, Queens, to promote her message. Known as the Baysiders, they believe that St. Rober
Trade ReviewThe Seer of Bayside is an excellent book, and I recommend it highly. Laycock's study has much to offer beyond its obvious contributions to scholarship on American Catholicism and post-Vatican II devotional cultures, however. Indeed, students and scholars alike will find in The Seer of Bayside an exemplary model for engaging with subjugated discourses * Grant Shoffstall, International Journal for the Study of New Religions *
Laycock has written a compelling and perceptive book on the Baysiders' devotional life and their relationship to institutional Roman Catholicism, for which he is to be commended. * Jane Shaw, Times Higher Education *
Joseph Laycock has given us a compelling and very readable account of the drama surrounding one of America's most significant Marian apparition groups. * David G. Bromley, Director, World Religions and Spirituality Project, and Professor of Religious Studies and Sociology, Virginia Commonwealth University *
Joseph Laycock has given us an extraordinarily intimate and insightful picture of one of the most significant contemporary Marian movements, described in a manner that will make it must reading for all students of religion, regardless of discipline. * Michael Barkun, Professor Emeritus of Political Science, Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, Syracuse University *
Laycocks treatment of the apocalyptic movement that grew from Luekens visions is sensitive, sophisticated, and evocative. As with all excellent studies of marginal religious groups, The Seer of Bayside sheds as much light on the center as it does on the fringes. The book offers powerful leverage into abiding questions about Catholics relationship with ecstatic religious experience, sacred places, and modern forms of civil and religious authority. * ohn C. Seitz, author of No Closure: Catholic Practice and Boston's Parish Shutdowns *
Table of ContentsChapter 1: A Walk in the Park ; Chapter 2: When the Roses are in Bloom ; Chapter 3: The Battle of Bayside ; Chapter 4: Flushing Meadows ; Chapter 5: We Have Become A Spectacle to the World ; Chapter 6: After Veronica ; Chapter 7: A New Age of Mary ; Notes ; Index
