At the site of the Vatican Pavilion at the old World's Fair grounds in Queens, New York, where the late Veronica Lueken for years came to receive messages from the Blessed Virgin Mary, her followers still gather with apocalyptic expectancy before a portable statue of the Virgin. They are convinced that virtually the entire world, including the great majority of Catholics, will soon perish in a horrible chastisement, and that they alone will be saved. In the theological underground of American Catholicism, mostly hidden from public view, the followers of Veronica are just a few among the many who regard both the broader society and the broader church as irredeemably corrupt. Now, Michael Cuneo's The Smoke of Satan brings these groups vividly to life, shedding valuable light on the current state of Catholicism in North America--and, more generally, on religion in our society. Images on television and in the popular media have made the Christian right a household concept--but what that usually means is the Protestant Christian right. Cuneo's insightful, provocative study highlights the equally vigorous though less well-known Catholic counterpart. Ranging from the Marianists, such as the followers of "Blessed Veronica" of Bayside, to picketers at abortion clinics across the United States and Canada (militant lay Catholics who believe that "public witness" is a vocational enterprise of the highest order, one which the vast majority of bishops, priests, and nuns are too lacking in faith and nerve to perform themselves); from separatists who believe that even Rome itself has fallen and that true Catholics should withdraw and form alternate communities, to Latin Mass advocates who believe the reforms of Vatican II are the work of Satan himself; these American Catholics are united by a common conviction: in the space of just three decades, the mainstream Catholic church in the United States and elsewhere has fallen into alarming decline, and the task of preserving authentic Catholicism (and thus Christianity itself) from outright extinction has fallen to small bands of the truly faithful. As Cuneo draws striking portraits of these faithful few, he also provides some fascinating asides on contemporary issues, including an innovative analysis of the ideological relationship of right-wing Catholic groups with the militia movement and a provocative assessment of militant Catholic pro-life activism. In 1972, speaking in the aftermath of Vatican II, Pope Paul VI said "the smoke of Satan has entered by some crack into the temple of God." In this first full-scale account of Roman Catholic fundamentalism, Cuneo details what these dissenters believe the "smoke of Satan" to be, and what they plan to do to halt its spread. Cuneo's profiles of these right-wing groups and the various strategies they have adopted in attempting to carry out this task makes for one of the most fascinating stories in contemporary American religion.

The Smoke of Satan: Conservative and Traditionalist Dissent in Contemporary American Catholicism

Business & Money

Cuneo, Michael W.

Economics

Oxford University Press

Alec Krieder knew his best friend's family never locked their doors―making Kevin Haines and his family the perfect targets for a crime. One night, he waited until they were asleep…then entered the house with a knife. Alec burst into the master bedroom and stabbed Tom and Lisa Haines first. Then he attacked Kevin, who fought for his life. Meanwhile, at the end of the hall, Kevin's sister Maggie awoke to the sound of violence―and was the only one who made it out alive. Clean-cut and academically gifted, Alec seemed to have no motives, no history of psychosis―and no remorse. Some believed he was a serial killer in the making, a soulless monster plagued by "demons." Now, for the first time, acclaimed author Michael W. Cuneo shares the inside story―with shocking details of Alec's confession to his father, disturbing messages to his classmates, and chilling excerpts from his diaries―and takes you inside the dark, troubled mind of this teenage killer.

A Need to Kill: Confessions of a Teen Murderer

Biographies & Memoirs

True Crime

St. Martin's True Crime

FROM ADULTERY… Ex-Marine and bodyguard Chris Coleman was a family man with a secret: He wanted to leave his wife for another woman, Tara Lintz. But as head of security for the world-famous Joyce Meyer Ministries―an evangelical organization that frowns on divorce―Coleman had to make other plans. TO MURDER… On May 5, 2009, Illinois police received a call from Coleman, who claimed he was unable to contact his family. When investigators arrived at his home, they found Coleman's wife and two sons strangled in bed. Across the walls, spray-painted in red, were various obscenities―the word punished among them. TO LIFE―OR DEATH. Who could have done something so sinister? As Coleman played the part of a grieving husband, forensic evidence at the crime scene told a different story. Key testimony from Lintz afforded yet more evidence of Coleman's guilt―and soon a jury would find him guilty of three counts of murder in the first degree.

One Last Kiss: The True Story of a Minister's Bodyguard, His Beautiful Mistress, and a Brutal Triple Homicide

Almost Midnight: An American Story of Murder and Redemption

Darrell Mease grew up in the Ozark Mountains of southern Missouri, in a slice of rural America where religion flourished and tradition thrived. Everyone said he was a good kid: a bit of a clown, maybe not too serious about his studies, but sweet and kind and quick to make friends. When, as a clean-cut teenager, he signed up with the army, the people of Reeds Springs, Missouri, expected to hear nothing but good things about R.J. and Lexie Mease's eldest son. It wouldn't work out that way. Darrell Mease would end up on the front lines of the Vietnam War and would come home a drug addict. Over the personally tumultuous, drifting decades that followed, he'd make a new name for himself in the Ozarks: as a tough drug dealer. Then, in 1987, he gunned down a 69-year-old meth kingpin, his wife, and their 20-year-old paraplegic grandson. After a desperate cross-country escape, he was captured, hauled back to Missouri, and sentenced to death for his crimes. In jail, Mease experienced a religious conversion, and he made a shocking prediction: he would be saved by miraculous intervention. No one believed it would happen. But it did. On January 27, 1999, Pope John Paul II visited St. Louis and spoke to Missouri's then-governor, Mel Carnahan. It was the same date that authorities had set for Mease's execution. The pope asked that he be spared. Carnahan agreed.

St. Martin's Paperbacks

A guided tour through the burgeoning business of exorcism and the darker side of American life. There is no other religious ritual more fascinating, or more disturbing, than exorcism. This is particularly true in America today, where the ancient rite has a surprisingly strong hold on our imagination, and on our popular entertainment industry. We’ve all heard of exorcism, seen the movies and read the books, but few of us have ever experienced it firsthand. Conducted by exorcists officially appointed by Catholic archdioceses and by maverick priests sidestepping Church sanctions, by evangelical ministers and Episcopal charismatics, exorcism is alive and well in the new millennium. Oprah, Diane Sawyer, and Barbara Walters have featured exorcists on their shows. The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Time, and other publications have charted the proliferation of exorcisms across the United States. Last year, the Archdiocese of Chicago appointed its first full-time exorcist in its 160-year history; in New York, four priests have officially investigated about forty cases of suspected possession every year since 1995. American Exorcism is an inside look at this burgeoning phenomenon, written with objectivity, insight, and just the right touch of irony. Michael W. Cuneo attended more than fifty exorcisms and interviewed many of the participants–both the exorcists who performed the rituals and the people from all walks of life who believed they were possessed by the devil. He brings vividly to life the ceremonies themselves, conjuring up memories of Linda Blair’s astonishing performance in the 1973 movie The Exorcist and other bizarre (and sometimes stomach-churning) images. Cuneo dissects, as well, the arguments of such well-known exorcism advocates as Malachi Martin, author of the controversial Hostage to the Devil, self-help guru M. Scott Peck, and self-professed demonologists Ed and Lorraine Warren of Amityville Horror fame. As he explores this netherworld of American life, Cuneo reflects on the meaning of exorcism in the twenty-first century and on the relationship between religious ritual and popular culture. Touching on such provocative topics as the “satanic panics” of the 1980s, repressed memory, and ritual abuse, American Exorcism is a remarkably revealing, consistently entertaining work of cultural commentary.

American Exorcism: Expelling Demons in the Land of Plenty

Religion & Spirituality

Other Religions, Practices & Sacred Texts

DOUBLEDAY

"A fascinating look into a series of subcultures within and adjacent to Roman Catholicism." -- Sociology of Religion

Smoke of Satan: Conservative And Traditionalist Dissent in Contemporary American Catholicism

Christian Books & Bibles

Catholicism

Diane Pub Co.

A guided tour through the burgeoning business of exorcism and the darker side of American life. There is no other religious ritual more fascinating, or more disturbing, than exorcism. This is particularly true in America today, where the ancient rite has a surprisingly strong hold on our imagination, and on our popular entertainment industry. We’ve all heard of exorcism, seen the movies and read the books, but few of us have ever experienced it firsthand. Conducted by exorcists officially appointed by Catholic archdioceses and by maverick priests sidestepping Church sanctions, by evangelical ministers and Episcopal charismatics, exorcism is alive and well in the new millennium. Oprah, Diane Sawyer, and Barbara Walters have featured exorcists on their shows. The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Time, and other publications have charted the proliferation of exorcisms across the United States. Last year, the Archdiocese of Chicago appointed its first full-time exorcist in its 160-year history; in New York, four priests have officially investigated about forty cases of suspected possession every year since 1995. American Exorcism is an inside look at this burgeoning phenomenon, written with objectivity, insight, and just the right touch of irony. Michael W. Cuneo attended more than fifty exorcisms and interviewed many of the participants–both the exorcists who performed the rituals and the people from all walks of life who believed they were possessed by the devil. He brings vividly to life the ceremonies themselves, conjuring up memories of Linda Blair’s astonishing performance in the 1973 movie The Exorcist and other bizarre (and sometimes stomach-churning) images. Cuneo dissects, as well, the arguments of such well-known exorcism advocates as Malachi Martin, author of the controversial Hostage to the Devil, self-help guru M. Scott Peck, and self-professed demonologists Ed and Lorraine Warren of Amityville Horror fame. As he explores this netherworld of American life, Cuneo reflects on the meaning of exorcism in the twenty-first century and on the relationship between religious ritual and popular culture. Touching on such provocative topics as the “satanic panics” of the 1980s, repressed memory, and ritual abuse, American Exorcism is a remarkably revealing, consistently entertaining work of cultural commentary. From the Hardcover edition.

Religious Studies

Broadway

The haunting true story of a triple murder in the Ozarks, two lovers on the lam, and a death-row inmate saved by the pope. On a spring day more than ten years ago, sixty-nine-year-old Lloyd Lawrence was gunned down in rural Missouri. The shooter also turned his twelve-gauge shotgun on Lawrence’s wife and their paraplegic grandson. The crime took place in a region known mostly for Pentecostal fervor, country music, and family-friendly tourism. But soon the murders would expose a dark underbelly in the Ozarks: Lloyd Lawrence was a notoriously violent crystal-meth kingpin, killed by an aspiring drug dealer named Darrell Mease.Capturing the raw circumstances that took Mease from his clean-cut youth to the front lines of Vietnam and an aftermath of drug use, Almost Midnight unites an unforgettable range of characters in some of America’s most peculiar locales. When Mease and his girlfriend fled to the Southwest on a hair-raising road trip, this only brought Mease closer to death row. After his conviction, he claimed to receive a religious revelation guaranteeing that his life would be saved by miraculous intervention, a long-shot prediction that came true. A bizarre twist of fate brought Pope John Paul II to Saint Louis, where he pleaded with Missouri Governor Mel Carnahan to commute the sentence just months before Carnahan’s fatal plane crash. In a triumph of investigative journalism, Michael Cuneo gained unprecedented access to Mease and immersed himself in the culture of the Ozarks, exploring its bucolic farms and seedy strip joints, and the lives of its preachers, cockfighters, and outlaws. By turns chilling and riveting, Almost Midnight brilliantly evokes the life of controversial renegade Mease, and the stranger-than-fiction world he still inhabits.

Politics & Social Sciences

Social Sciences

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Cuneo, Michael W.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Cuneo, Michael W.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Cuneo, Michael W.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The Smoke of Satan: Conservative and Traditionalist Dissent in Contemporary American Catholicism

A Need to Kill: Confessions of a Teen Murderer

One Last Kiss: The True Story of a Minister's Bodyguard, His Beautiful Mistress, and a Brutal Triple Homicide

Almost Midnight: An American Story of Murder and Redemption

American Exorcism: Expelling Demons in the Land of Plenty

Smoke of Satan: Conservative And Traditionalist Dissent in Contemporary American Catholicism

American Exorcism: Expelling Demons in the Land of Plenty

Almost Midnight: An American Story of Murder and Redemption