When Vittorio Messori published his first book, Hypotheses about Jesus, it became such an immediate worldwide success that many encouraged him to write Hypotheses about Mary in its wake. He has done so, and, to no one's surprise, Messori has been quickly rewarded with numerous foreign translations and reprints, including this new edition.

This masterful volume of more than sixty reflections may be read piecemeal or from cover to cover. Messori's extensive research forms a lively and colorful mosaic: dogma is united to enthralling anecdotes, biblical exegesis to apparitions, spirituality to little-known histories, theology to mystery. Here you will find scholars, literary figures, visionaries, pilgrims, and the miraculously healed -- saints and sinners, inquisitors and heretics, emperors and peasants, all intertwined.

Messori offers a sometimes-shocking series of investigations into what can be a secret world that he encounters as a declared devotee, although allergic to the syrupy rhetoric of a certain devotionalism. His pages are both rigorous and instructive in evaluating arguments and controversies, reflecting the vivacity and clarity of a great journalist and relentless scholar.

In this stirring work, you will perceive the role of Our Lady not only in Christianity but in Islam and in the secular world, from the earliest centuries. Through apologetics and spiritual insights, you will glean:

How, by entering into intimacy with Jesus, you enter into Mary's home Why true ecumenism involves sharing the treasure of Marian devotion The heart of the mission of this Steadfast Woman, and her titles and intercession worldwide The true, great Miracle of the grotto of Lourdes -- even more amazing than the inexplicable cures that occur there What extensive scientific studies and archaeology show about Marian phenomena Fascinating details of seldom remembered apparitions of Our Lady and St. Joseph

Despite persecutions and trials, Catholics have remained faithful in honoring their Mother throughout the centuries. As you learn about the "Marian deposit" of the Church, you will see how you cannot separate the Son from the Mother. And, above all, you will find in the words of Messori how the Mother defends the Son and how she shields us, her children, in the mantle of her protection.