The Last Secret

When a book about Mary strays from the Mary of the New Testament, it risks running wild. When a book about Mary takes seriously what non-scriptural sources say about her, it risks becoming parody, merely catering to Marian enthusiasts. Brown's book is among the latter. The author takes legends at face value and accepts reports of apparitions and messages from the Virgin, some apocalyptic in nature, with a less than critical eye. The line between fact and fiction blurs considerably in this book as Brown tells the stories of Marian apparitions down through the centuries, whether approved by church authorities or not. The Mary of the visions reported in this survey is less the human mother of Jesus than a divinely perfect creature who pleads with her son to be more like God. Brown's portrait of the Blessed Virgin fails to achieve a critical distance from his subject, producing a hagiography useful mostly to those who already believe the most far-fetched tales of Mary's intercession in human affairs. (Mar.)