The modern pilgrimage—to sites ranging from Graceland to the veterans’ annual ride to to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial to Jim Morrison’s Paris grave—is intertwined with man’s existential uncertainties in the face of a rapidly changing world. In a climate that reproduces the religious quest in seemingly secular places, it’s no longer clear exactly what the term pilgrimage infers—and Shrines and Pilgrimage in the Modern World critiques our notions of the secular and the sacred, while commenting on the modern media’s multiplication of images that renders the modern pilgrimage a quest without an object. Using new ethnographical and theoretical approaches, this volume offers a surprising new vision on the non-secularity of the “secular” pilgrimage. "This book will be sure to stoke our intellectual fire and heat up the discussion over the highly charged topic of secular pilgrimage.”—Simon Bronner, Penn State University

A tapestry of Catholic life in the United States, this guide takes readers to more than 500 churches, shrines, monuments, schools, & monasteries across the country. Covering popular locations such as Saint Patrick's Cathedral in New York, the Alamo in San Antonio, & the University of Notre Dame, as well as more obscure stops such as the Ursuline Convent in New Orleans, the Grotto in Dickeyville, Wisconsin, & the Shrine of the Snowshoe Priest in L'Anse, Michigan, the book visits both well-known & lesser-known sites from all parts of the U.S. Also included are remarkable stories like that of the Philadelphia church for which Babe Ruth hit a home run, the eight-seat Iowa chapel, & the Texas museum housing the art of a nun whose work the Nazis banned. A cornucopia of fascinating details, The Liguori Guide to Catholic U.S.A. provides brief histories & descriptions of each of the places profiled, as well as addresses & telephone numbers. Photos of more than fifty of the locations are also included. Essential for Catholic travelers & pilgrims, summer vacationers, retired Catholics, college students, armchair travelers, Catholic trivia & history buffs, or anyone interested in places Catholic, this book enables readers to seek out the places that continue to inspire, refresh, & renew the Catholic spirit.

An enlightening history of pilgrimage, journeying into the past and following in the footsteps of travellers who traipsed across the length and breadth of Britain and Ireland. Thomas Chaucer and his Canterbury Tales has made the act of pilgrimage well-known to many people, but what was it like to be a pilgrim in the medieval world? How did they travel, what were the relics they prayed before, and why did they do it? John Adair transports us back over five centuries; exploring the shrines, holy wells, monasteries and monks, inns, churches, and cathedrals that were available for penitential men and women to visit. From Canterbury in the southeast to Iona in the north, The Pilgrims' Way uncovers some of the most fascinating holy sites in Britain and Ireland. Although many of them were destroyed in the reign of Henry VIII and his successors, Adair highlights where we might still be able to find traces of saintly architecture and art. For those features that have long been destroyed Adair draws from a wide variety of sources including medieval accounts of saints' lives, shrine-keepers' books of miracles along with comments made by astute visitors such as Erasmus. "This popular, yet learned, book is delightful." Julia Bolton Holloway, Princeton University, Journal of the American Academy of Religion

Christian Pilgrimage in Modern Western Europe is a commanding exploration of the importance of religious shrines in modern Roman Catholicism. By analyzing more than 6,000 active shrines and contemporary patterns of pilgrimage to them, the authors establish the cultural significance of a religious tradition that today touches the lives of millions of people. Roman Catholic pilgrimage sites in Western Europe range from obscure chapels and holy wells that draw visitors only from their immediate vicinity to the world-famous, often-thronged shrines at Rome, Lourdes, and Fatima. These shrines generate at least 70 million religiously motivated visits each year, with total annual visitation exceeding 100 million. Substantial numbers of pilgrims at major shrines come from the Americas and other areas outside Western Europe. Mary Lee Nolan and Sidney Nolan describe and interpret the dimensions of Western European pilgrimage in time and space, a cultural-geographic approach that reveals regional variations in types of shrines and pilgrimages in the sixteen countries of Western Europe. They examine numerous legends and historical accounts associated with cult images and shrines, showing how these reflect ideas about humanity, divinity, and environment. The Nolans demonstrate that the dynamic fluctuations in Christian pilgrimage activities over the past 2,000 years reflect socioeconomic changes and technological transformations as well as shifting intellectual orientations. Increases and decreases in the number of shrines established coincide with major turning points in European history, for pilgrimage, no less than wars, revolutions, and the advent of urban-industrial society, is an integral part of that history. Pilgrimage traditions have been influenced by -- and have influenced -- science, literature, philosophy, and the arts. Christian Pilgrimage in Modern Western Europe is based on ten years of research. The Nolans collected information on 6,150 shrines from published material, correspondence with bishops and shrine administrators, and interviews. They visited 852 Western European shrines in person. Their book will be of interest to many general readers and of special value to historians, cultural geographers, students of comparative religion, anthropologists, social psychologists, and shrine administrators.

Inviting readers to go on a pilgrimage to more than 50 of the most celebrated U.S. shrines & sanctuaries, this book is a must-have for travelers, Marian enthusiasts, & arm-chair pilgrims of all kinds. Provided are histories of each of the shrines & holy places, telephone numbers, easy-to-follow directions, photographs, & maps - as well as hundreds of other helpful travel tips. More than just a travel guide, Marian Shrines of the United States is a spiritual reference that will inspire & inform readers, including those who wish to enjoy a special pilgrimage without ever leaving home.

Pilgrim shrines were places of healing, holiness, and truth in early modern France. By analyzing the creation of these pilgrim shrines as natural, legendary, and historic places whose authority provided a new foundation for post-Reformation Catholic life, Virginia Reinburg examines the impact of the Reformation and religious wars on French society and the French landscape. Divided into two parts, Part I offers detailed studies of the shrines of Sainte-Reine, Notre-Dame du Puy, Notre-Dame de Garaison, and Notre-Dame de Betharram, showing how nature, antiquity, and images inspired enthusiasm among pilgrims. These chapters also show that the category of 'pilgrim' included a wide variety of motivations, beliefs, and acts. Part II recounts how shrine chaplains authored books employing history, myth, and archives in an attempt to prove that the shrines were authentic, and to show that the truths they exemplified were beyond dispute.