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The Seer of Bayside: Veronica Lueken & the Struggle to Define Catholicism . By Joseph P. Laycock . New York : Oxford University Press , 2015. xii + 250 pp. $31.95 cloth.
Book Reviews and Notes
The Seer of Bayside tells a lively story with compassion for its subjects and discernment regarding social and organizational forces. It centers on Veronica Lueken, a Roman Catholic from Bayside Hills in Queens, New York who gained an international following because of the spiritual ecstasies and visions of Mary that she reported, from 1968 until her death in 1995. A mother of five who worked as a Red Cross nurse during World War II and whose husband made a modest living as a construction engineer, Lueken became overcome with the scent of roses while praying for Robert Kennedy on the night he was shot. For two years after that, Lueken had visitations from St. Thérèse of Lisieux, whom she had urged to save Kennedy. St. Thérèse gave Lueken a poem about Kennedy kissing Mary and Moses (30). The Virgin Mary then promised to appear to Lueken in a shrine on the grounds of her parish church, St. Robert Bellarmine.
On the appointed day, June 18, 1970, Lueken prayed at the shrine from 9 a.sm. until 1 a.m., with a few supporters. Mary asked her for a basilica and for more vigils of people praying the rosary. As...