Rating: 
Summary: Contempt prior to understanding....
Review: More research was needed for this book. Virtually everything in it showed contempt for Catholics. We do not get our faith from the imperfect people that constitute the Church (past or present), but from the Church herself. Religious faith arises from the heart as well as the intellect. This book lacked both.
Rating: 
Summary: But only the Catholic Church?
Review: Ms.Rufus' tongue-in-cheek approach to the Catholic Church's bizarre institution of relic worship is fun in a whacky, morbid way, but seems to miss an important point: Why is the Catholic Church the only one blamed here? I think this behavior extends beyond organized religion and reveals a profound human need. Think of the Beatles, or anyone wildly famous: locks of hair, pieces of clothing, anything of the sort will do to create a "real connection" for an adoring fan. And how can we forget that in Florence's Museum of Science what is reported to be one of Galileo's fingers is encapsuled in an orb-like case to be revered by those other admirers of the Heavens, astronomers...
Rating:
Summary: Attempts to Be Clever, Mostly Boring
Review: The author has obviously expended quite a bit of time and effort to hold an audience with this piece, but it appears to have been somewhat in vain. What is intended to be insightful and witty, comes across as trite and silly for most of the book. The author has clearly done the requisite travel for the topic, but seems to lack the ability to properly convey her experiences in a manner which holds the reader's interest and attention for any long period of time. The author's choppy narration and failure to vividly portray her experiences in a compelling manner, leaves the reader quite bored after awhile. The constant references to inane details grows stale quickly. An OK college-level work, maybe. A solid, well written professional work? Not in my opinion. Strictly amateur night here.
Rating: 
Summary: Contented Catholic and custodian of relic disappointed
Review: The book's perspective has a relentless eye for the grotesque. Even the discriptions of the people encountered on this journey seemed gratuitously snide. The book misconstrues mystical phenomenon, heroic virtue and sacrifice as pathological. Hardly surprising in this day and age. As the author admitted being non-religious, she should be forgiven her failure to grasp what is sacred and holy. Anyone seeking the truth about the Catholic Church's reasons for and views on the veneration of relics and other Catholic sacramentals must read any of the wonderful books by Kevin Orlin Johnson, Ph.D. I was raised to think of the Saints as our advocates and friends. I suspect that the thruth about them lies somewhere between the hagiography of some Catholic writers and the negative focus found in this book. I love the mystery, majesty and miraculous that is the Church and was saddened by this book. Pax Tecum, from a 42 year old with M.S. in Psychology and current custodian of a treasured 2nd class relic of Saint Bernadette.
Rating:
Summary: Good moments, but an overall disappointing journey
Review: There's no question that the ancient practice of venerating relics is hard for modern readers to understand. Any discussion of this topic is going to flounder without a strong historical analysis and discussion of how this practice came into being.Unfortunately, the author gives only the most basic of background information, devoting the majority of her time to journalistic-style reporting of her visits to the various shrines throughout Europe. Her book is essentially a travelogue, with stories of the saints' live thrown in for background. While it's certainly her choice to approach the topic in this way, it does its readers a great disservice. Bottom line, the story of relics is far too complex to treat so superficially. The book ends up making ancient believers -- and even modern Catholics, who admire these saints -- look like idiotic fools. I wish the author had gone more deeply into the emotional resonance of these saints. Clearly, their lives and stories touch an emotional, deeply human chord; this is part of the reason why the Catholic tradition has remained alive throughout the centuries. Her way of reporting on her visits also strikes me as dishonest. She does something that many authors do: she'll describe the details of an experience with a supposedly dispassionate eye, just reporting the facts, in an effort to maintain objectivity. But the details that she includes -- and the way she describes them -- give a clear indication of her bias. For example, she describes tourists as giggling while they light candles at the shrines, and on more than one occasion she reports well-dressed women breezing in to say prayers, and then breezing out again. The implied message seems to be that no truly honest spiritual person would be drawn to these shrines. It's much better when she actually admits to her own struggles with certain saints and their lives, seeing them as unhealthy zealots. While I don't agree with a lot of these observations, it strikes me as being a much more honest way of writing than her pseudo-objectivity. There is some beautiful writing throughout, and the few chapters that are written with sensitivity and without cynicism -- such as the one on poor little St. Germaine of France -- are in fact moving. But on the whole, I felt that this book missed the opportunity to actually do what travel writing is supposed to do: truly explore unfamiliar terrain. In this case, the terrain is the human soul. Maybe that's why the author took the easy road out.
Rating:
Summary: dreadful waste of time and trees
Review: This dreadful book is so fraught with errors that it is stunning - a veritable work of art in the dubious category of bad writing. The prose is stiff at best, the attitude is undeservedly condescending, and many of the details that are presented as "fact" can easily be found to be wrong.
I have read this book and all of the reviews posted with great interest. I am interested to find that there are essentially two camps - those find this book's tone (and facts) to be irresponsible and/or misleading, and those who eagerly swallow everything that the author asserts. The author's own response to the reviewer from Denton, TX reveals her arrogance and ignorance of the issues. As Ms. Rufus is not even able to grasp the points made by the reviewer, it underscores her abject inability to write on this topic in an intelligent and informed manner. Sure, she asserts that she is a "traveller" not a scholar (that is apparant!), but she has the audacity to write a book on a topic that she does not even seem interested in researching - shame on you, Anneli Rufus - your readers deserve better. You have insulted your readers by implying that they are too stupid or too lazy to care about your gross inaccuracies. There are way too many books out there to bother reading trash like this!!!!!!!!!!!!
Rating: 
Summary: The Middle ages were not about Honesty and Miracles....
Review: This is not another book about the shroud of Tourin, nor does it pretend to be. The middle ages were a time when relics abounded and DNA testing was not the order of the day. You could do a lucretive trade in goat bones and call them the remains of saints....and many people did. The Catholic Church doesn't even know how many saints it has so who was to argue whether the finger of Saint Margo was real? Or even if there was a saint Margo. This book takes a humorous look at the myths and tall tales that surround some of these relics and yes some very questionable relics are still venerated today...
Rating:
Summary: Magnificent Ignorance
Review: This was the most poorly written, poorly researched, offensive book that I have had the displeasure of reading in a long time! The "author's" contempt for the subject apprears to have prevented her from actually doing any research on the topic. This author clearly knows nothing about the topic of her book. This is an insult to all readers. What a shame! What a waste! The author ought to be ashamed of herself. This book does not even deserve one star (how about negative five stars).
Rating:
Summary: Hilarious!
Review: This weird little book made me laugh to no end. I had no idea the Catholic Church was THIS ludicrous! It's amazing to realize that so many of these saints life stories are based on outright lies and deceptions. The author's description of Margaret Mary, the nut-bucket who ate feces to make herself more humble before God, and who waited for Christ to come and "penetrate her" would be funny, if it weren't so pathetic! Rufus notes that this "Saint" had visions where God called her "an abyss of ignorance," and "my little nothing." Hysterical! She also had visions of God taking his heart out of his chest and putting a crown of thorns on it so that it would bleed profusely.Talk about something out of the "Night of The Living Dead!" That a so-called enlightened institution could allow such pathetic desecration of bodies, much less canonize some of the utter loo-loos that passed for saints...I tell you, I never laughed so hard in my life.If any one book proves that religion is just one superstition heaped upon another, this one is IT! Read it. You will laugh like a raving lunatic and probably get mistaken for a "Saint!"
Rating:
Summary: Magnificent Revelations!
Review: This work is absolutely marvelous! I'll never forget picking up a copy of the Rufus/Lawson book "Goddes Sites" a couple of years ago in Monterey and being blown away by the sheer wit, insight, and fascinating information. This book is just as good! Here, Rufus points her wit at the utterly macabre, morbid, and frankly disgusting penchant of the European Catholic tradition to hack up, dismember, and disgrace the bodies of its alleged "saints" to satisfy the superstitious fixations of the clergy and people. I just spent several months traveling in Europe, and I can tell you that her portrayal of the various churches, practices, and sights are dead-on(no pun intended!). Her style of writing is wonderfully funny and at times even poetic.As a reluctant Catholic, I thrilled to her descriptions of the various churches. I would dare EVERY Roman Catholic to read this book and face the fact that so many of the people the church has pompously(and foolishly) lifted up as "saints" were nothing more than sado-masochistic, psychotic, demented nut-cases! Rufus' historical research is great and I am rightly embarrassed to be a Roman Catholic right now! But who cares?-- I couldn't have laughed more or enjoyed this book more! You MUST read it. It's quirky and superb! One of the most unique travel accounts you'll ever read--just like her "Goddess Sites!" Well done!
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