Customer Reviews

Divine Mother, Blessed Mother: Hindu Goddesses and the Virgin Mary

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It is always a matter of celebration when Francis Clooney writes a new book. I have a number of his books and have consistently found in them a rich intellectual and spiritual feast. Divine Mother Blessed Mother closely analyzes three texts devoted to three Hindu goddesses and compares them with three Christian texts devoted to Mary. Clooney's close reading brings out the best from each text and makes for fascinating reading. My strong recomendation comes from my position both as a scholar of Hinduism as well as a Hindu nun of 30 years standing. Clooney's treatment of Hindu texts is deeply respectful and enlivened by his profound knowledge of the Hindu traditions. I highly recommend this book for Hindus and Christians who will learn about their own traditions as well as readers who are newly acquainted with each tradition.
Pravrajika Vrajaprana

I read Xavier Clooney's book. I spent my money assuming that author is serious about fostering intellectual inquiry for inter-faith dialogue. However, the whole book was disappointing to say the least. Clooney's intellectual "inquiry" seems to be more of defending the orthodox christian position, rather than a serious exposition of both from their respective positions -conceptualization of Goddess in spiritual terms in Hinduism, and comparing that to Virgin Mary in Christianity. Clooney's work seems to be a hagiography of Virgin Mary, rather than serious comparative theology. I will not recommend this to anyone.

Fr. Cloony takes a few too many liberties with Catholicism here, but many of his observations are very good. I recommend this book if you already have some working understanding of the Vergin Mary and the theology behind her.

This is a book peddled as "interfaith" blah-blah, when it is a thinly-disguised piece of bigoted political propaganda. The author tries to pose as some Savior (Xavior?) of women with a grand dedication to Women's Rights, etc, before going on to paint an unreasonable and false picture of how benighted Bishops really treat women. There is absolutely no justification for comparing "The Virgin Mary" to "Hindu Goddesses" - if THIS is the intellectual standard of Harvard University Religion faculty, there should be a fraud investigation launched. Then again, isn't this the university whose President recently declared that women were mentally inferior ?? The same attitude comes through loud and clear behind the thin veneer of insincere platitudes.

Save your money.

As someone brought up in the Catholic tradition and as someone who has spent time in India, I found this book offensive and insincere. The position of women in Christianity and in particular Catholicism is nothing to write home about: everything from the wholesale burning of women as witches in medieval Europe and America to the notion that women do not have souls and are therefore not equal to men, have persistently emphasised the second-class position of women in Christian theo-politics. The extreme patriachal nature of Christianity is not in doubt. What I have observed in my time in India is that there are undoubted prejudices against women there too, but on a theological basis, their female deities are far more equal. Catholics have attempted to create Madonna cults in India, just as they have successful done via Lourdes and Guadaloupe in Europe and Latin America. However, this is mostly a conversion tactic. There is no comparison between the status of goddesses in India (high) and of Mary in Christian tradition (dubious); therefore this book is an attempt to cynically use the relatively good theological treatment of females in India and argue that therefore women are well-treated in Christianity as well.

It is extraordinary that a Theology Professor should be talking politics. The book's dedication proclaims: "to women everywhere who have been silenced, ignored, denied their rightful place and voice..." How benign! I recommend that Clooney teach geopolitics in Harvard Divinity School instead of wasting time on Mary and those 'goddesses' with two d's. It looks as though the learned professor is trying to define a new discipline called Comparative Theology without understanding either comparison or theology. It is a pity that trash gets dished out as scholarship from Harvard. Woe unto Harvard which has fallen to such depths.