The Miracle Detective (a review)

Intrigued by news reports from 1994 suggesting that the mother of Jesus had perhaps appeared to farmworkers in eastern Oregon, Rolling Stone contributing editor Randall Sullivan decided to find out how the Catholic church distinguishes between real supernatural phenomena and its counterfeits.

What started for Sullivan as a straightforward investigation gradually became an unwilling spiritual odyssey as well. The result is a fascinating but undisciplined book that lingers in memory without quite achieving greatness.

A nonfiction work needs an index and a firm grasp of chronology, but this one has neither. On the other hand, Sullivan brings formidable research, keen perception, and a refreshingly skeptical mind to the table.

The book is organized like a symphony in three movements. Each movement corresponds to a locale where Sullivan spent lots of time, and the middle (Medjugorje) movement is easily the most demanding. Sullivan has as good a grasp of history in and around Bosnia-Hercegovina as anyone not based there, and much of what he writes about the Marian apparitions in the former Yugoslavian village of Medjugorge is positively soul-stirring.

I'd heard bits about Medjugorje (it's hard to be Catholic and not hear of it), and I know something about how rigorously the Vatican fact-checks reports of the miraculous in order to preserve church crediblity, so those parts of Randall's book didn't impress me as much as they might other readers.

What stayed with me after reading it were not the Medjugorje visions or visionaries and not Sullivan's meticulously fair and often maddening account of civil war in the Balkans, but the people there with whom this miracle dectective struck up friendships. The beautiful Rita Falsetto, the cosmopolitan Nicky Eltz, and the heroically humble Fr. Slavko Barbaric come vividly to life in Sullivan's prose. Their spiritual maturity is perhaps as strong a testimony to Marian influence as the serenity of the visionaries whose stories he tells without condescension.

That Sullivan writes as a non-Catholic, and from the outside looking in, is a strong plus for the book. Lots of pious drivel has been written about the long-running apparitions at Medjugorge, especially, but Sullivan never indulges in the breathless prose that undermines some purportedly inspirational work. His clear-eyed assessment of politicking around apparitions at St. Maria Goretti parish in Scottsdale, Arizona, and willingness to probe those lesser-known visions at some length, is likewise bracing.

Remarkably, Sullivan also avoids tripping over his own skepticism. That openmindedness serves well in the passages where he recounts personal brushes (one positive, one negative) with the supernatural.

Sullivan ends his book conversing with renowned Capuchin friar, author, psychologist and spiritual director Fr. Benedict Groeschel. That's a shrewd if seemingly anticlimactic strategy in keeping with the honesty that made Sullivan's retelling of his first confession raise a lump in my throat.

Having myself heard Fr. Groeschel speak, I can vouch for Sullivan's portrait of the man. If you've ever wondered whether there was something to that "New Age bible" called A Course in Miracles, what Groeschel tells Sullivan about the background and dangers of that course will make your hair stand up.

Other priests and ministers can and do warn fellow Christians against it, but Groeschel "had been a graduate student in psychology at Columbia University during the late 1960s when one of his professors, a woman named Helen Schucman, had written -- 'which is not to say authored'-- A Course in Miracles," and Groeschel's friendship with Schucman gives him insights that few other people can claim.

One gets the impression by the end of The Miracle Detective that Sullivan's own perception of the miraculous is changing in ways that scare him a bit. He puts Groeschel's parting advice on the last page because it's useful for believers and unbelievers alike.

Here's that last paragraph:

He wanted to leave me with two pieces of counsel, Groeschel said in conclusion. "One, I believe that you will serve God and yourself best if you end your book by leaving the question open. Don't try to answer it, because you never will. Two, I hope you come to understand that even if you were capable of making an airtight case about Medjugorje, that wouldn't result in true belief. True belief is a decision. It's also a gift. Accept the gift and you will make the decision."

(Review written especially for Chris, who asked what I thought of Sullivan's book)