Crown. 304 pages. $24 <\/p>\n
In this increasingly skeptical and secularist age, he has dared to write a story of spiritual quest, set in a world that may seem not only archaic but frankly foreign to many of his readers. <\/p>\n
First, there is the premise. A young woman leading a surpassingly innocuous life, Cynthia Piantedosi, comes to believe God is calling her to become ordained as the first female Roman Catholic priest. <\/p>\n
There's nothing particularly revolutionary about such a premise. Women in the Roman Catholic Church have felt themselves called to ordained ministry for centuries, and in the last few decades, that sense of calling has become an issue within (and without) the church. <\/p>\n
And indeed, Merullo often walks a fine line between advocacy and exploration as he details the soul-altering adventures of a woman who comes to believe over time (though her faith is laced with generous dollops of self-doubt) that she is on a God-sent mission. <\/p>\n
Mining the rich veins of scriptural imagery and the Catholic mystical tradition, the writer poses, in the character of Cynthia, questions that would be familiar to Catholic writers of a previous age. What separates human experience and divine calling? When does faith become extremism, sanity veer into delusion? And who, in the end, is to judge? <\/p>\n
But as Cynthia seeks to fulfill her calling, she is doing it in a church under siege from years of scandal, one in which the forces of liberalization and tradition are fighting a fierce if sometimes secretive battle. <\/p>\n
At first glance, it appears that the life of this 22-year-old nursing student, who lives at home with her widowed father in the working-class Boston suburb of Revere, couldn't be more ordinary. <\/p>\n
A solitary soul with few friends and almost no experience of romance, Cynthia has settled into a life of routines: nursing school classes, subway rides, the occasional walk on the beach, a hot meal made by her taciturn Italian immigrant father, long chats with the parish priest. <\/p>\n
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'Vatican Waltz': Illuminating novel of a plain young woman impelled by her spirituality<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Crown. 304 pages Continue reading