Stefania Tutino is Professor of History at UCLA. She is the author of numerous books and essays on early modern Catholicism.
It is written in an elegant and clear style. It is accessible to non-specialists who are interested in the development of post-Reformation Catholicism, and in how the Church wrestled with the task of holding together the promotion of devotion and the nurturing of faith with careful discernment of some of the wilder claims about supernatural interventions, and offering robust responses to diverse criticisms of church teaching and practices. This book should also prompt readers to question their own awareness of the sources of their beliefs, the influences that shape their assumptions and certainties, the reliability of the authorities they accept, and their usual modes of verifying truth claims. * John Sullivan, The Heythrop Journal * ...recommend this book as a primer on the true intellectual legacy of the Counter-Reformation. * James Lu, Journal of Religious History * It is an intriguing, well-written, and solid piece of research, useful even to those who would hesitate to share an overly benevolent judgement on the disciplinary and repressive institutions of the Tridentine Church. * Vincenzo Lavenia, Church History *