Silent Soul: The Miracles And Mysteries Of Audrey Santo [Hardcover]

Antonia Felix (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 21, 2001

Three days a week, visitors from around the world enter the chapel of a small home in Worcester, Massachusetts. They have come to witness the Communion host that suddenly manifested a dark stain of blood during a Mass in this very room. Most of all, they have come to be near Audrey, the teenage girl who lies in a bedroom at the other end of the house.

Unable to move or speak after a near-drowning accident when she was three years old, Audrey is believed by many to be the source of the miracles in her home. Her family reports that she suffers the stigmata- the bloody suffering of Christ-- every Lenten season. Pilgrims to the Santo home and to Audrey's annual public "outings" claim to have been healed of cancer and other diseases. Lying in her little room, she is surrounded by medical equipment, including a respirator that keeps her alive, round-the-clock care-- and the prayers of her family and countless thousands who believe she has been touched by God.

Audrey Santo, the silent soul at the center of one of America's most famous religious pilgrimage sites, touches the hearts of everyone who hears her story. The doctors who treat her are bewildered by her survival. And her mother, a devout Catholic who has never given up hope that Audrey will fully awaken one day, believes Audrey is "a statement of life in our culture of death."

Is Audrey a messenger of God, part of a divine plan to strengthen people's faith? Or is she a severely disabled girl whose devout, loving family has drawn a miraculous circle of belief around her? What are the nonreligious explanations for the strange phenomena occurring in the Santo home? What is the Catholic Church's view, as announced in the first official report of its ongoing investigation? Is Audrey a "victim soul," taking on the illness and suffering of others? Did she receive this sacred call from Mary when her mother took her to the apparition room at Medjugorje? These questions and more are explored in Silent Soul, a thoughtful, fascinating journey into one of the world's most compelling modern mysteries.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The compelling story of Audrey Santo, the comatose teen who is regarded by her family as a "victim soul," is by now familiar to devotees of religious phenomena. Audrey, who survived a drowning accident in 1987 at the age of three and is kept alive by medical technology and loving round-the-clock care, continues to attract spiritual seekers while the Catholic Diocese of Worcester, Mass., conducts an investigation into the alleged miracles surrounding her. Felix, who has written biographies of New Jersey Gov. Christine Todd Whitman and Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli, tells Audrey's story from an inquisitor's point of view, attempting to explain, for example, the nature of the stigmata, or sacred wounds, that Audrey supposedly suffers. She also investigates the notion of the "victim soul" and the weeping statues and bleeding communion hosts at the Santo home, by giving readers enough information to draw their own conclusions. Her research appears to be thorough, though the presentation is sometimes ponderous, offering too much detail about tangential topics like the monastery that Audrey's mother, Linda, visited as a girl. A second weakness of the book is the author's lack of access to Linda Santo, who has shielded herself from all but avowedly friendly reporters. Felix has compensated for this admirably by using multiple sources. As a result, her treatise, despite its deficiencies, provides a thoughtful look at the intersection of faith and mystery.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Audrey Santo, a 15-year-old mute and paralyzed girl who has been in her family's care since an accidental near-drowning in 1987, seems to be surrounded by supernatural phenomena. Here, Felix (Wild About Harry, Andrea Bocelli) has made this real-life story both intimate and revelatory through a pilgrimage to Audrey's home in Massachusetts. To understand her subject, Felix interviewed those who claim spiritual or physical healing after visiting the young woman and studied press reports about them. Felix has an ability to share intimate details about individuals without intruding, and although she doesn't come up with any definite answers, her work allows readers to ponder a few important spiritual questions: Do miracles happen? Are natural laws an extension of things manifest in the miracles described? Libraries with patrons interested in modern-day supernatural happenings or collections including mysteries and miracles of contemporary life can add this title with confidence. Its easy reading style is sure to make it a quick browsing pick-up.DLeroy Hommerding, Fort Myers Beach P.L. Dist., FL
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books; First Edition edition (April 21, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312272162
• ISBN-13: 978-0312272166
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.7 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.5 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 1.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,941,161 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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7 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars An Outrage Of The Highest Order, November 22, 2001

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"troytron" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Silent Soul: The Miracles And Mysteries Of Audrey Santo (Hardcover)

This book, along with the pathetic treatise written by Thomas Petrisky(Little Audrey), is a grim sign of the deterioration of Catholic spirituality in the Diocese of Worcester, and a sad commentary on the desperate, tacky world of Catholic "kitsch" devotion. The bishop of Worcester should be reprimanded and harshly castigated by his superiors for being so foolish as to give this transparently fraudulent gaggle of "miracles" the dignity of an "official investigation!" The parents of this child should be publicly horsewhipped, at the very least, for the utterly grotesque violation of their daughter's human dignity and manipulation of the ignorant Catholic populace, all in the name of third-rate "religion." Audrey Santo is a child who fell into a pool and "virtually" drowned as a toddler, and who suffered irreversible brain-damage as a result. Her mother is a certified religious neurotic/psychopath, who claims that her vegetative, paralyzed daughter is a miracle child who "must now take all the sufferings" of the world into her body and spirit, as a "victim soul." It's not enough that Audrey's drowning was a tragedy, and the loss of a functional human life as God intended life to be. Oh no. NOW she becomes, due to the mother's hysteria, a "victim,"--the victim of a God who wishes to heap as much suffering upon an already broken child as He can, all in order to "strengthen" people's faith and convert them. Audrey lies persistently comatose in a bed that has been dolled up like a plush coffin. Hundreds of gaping, gawking people file by her bed to witness how marvelously powerless she has been rendered in order to fulfill her mission as a "sponge" for the sins of the world. They gasp at the various miraculous "poses" that paralyzed Audrey takes from one day to the next. Today her little arms are spread outward on the bed in the manner of Christ on the cross. Tomorrow they are laid across her breast, with hands folded in prayer. Naturally, "angels" have manipulated her position during the night for the edification of the faithful. Even more disturbing, bruises appear on Audrey's body, due to fierce bouts with Satan, who allegedly likes to batter paralyzed children in order to prove his mischievousness. On her hands appear "stigmata" wounds. On the walls, cheap, ugly plaster statues of saints "weep" what investigators have already analyzed in labs as "a simple mixture of olive oil and chicken fat." The Santo home is full of every garish, outmoded, gaudy statue and assortment of religious hexereii in existence. And no one has reported these dastardly, exploitative parents to the proper authorities. Even the bishop of the Diocese allows these mockeries of the true Gospel to trash the name of Christ, what's left of the credibility of the Catholic Church, and the name of a Loving God whose true power is grounded in the miracle of Existence itself---not fourth-rate parlor tricks. This child is a victim, alright--the victim of a dim-witted, religiously psychotic family and their handlers.It's bad enough to exploit and abuse a healthy child: to torture a child who is utterly defenseless is the pinnacle of hell on earth. This hoax pierces to the heaven of heavens in its banal audacity. It cries murderously for a swift and thundering justice. What if this little child, in her semi-comatose state, is truly conscious of what's going on, of all the bizarre happenings and abuses around her? What if she is literally trapped inside the shell of her own body and her own head, unable even to scream for help or beg for release from the warped affectations of her handlers as they beat bruises onto her forehead, or pound hemotomas onto her limbs in order to give the jabbering flocks the impression of a "miracle?" Everyone who partakes of this atrocity brings a condemnation upon themselves---no matter how ignorant. This local bishop's refusal to stand up for the Gospel and loudly condemn this mockery is a stinging disgrace that cries to Heaven for justice. The bishop of Worcester is either a coward or an opportunist, and I pray he's more the former than the latter, for the good of his own soul.This book is chilling in its portrayal of one of the most pathetic displays of religious mania and travesty in America today. God help the Catholic Church, because if this is the epitome of its miracle-awareness, then it is an institution that has fallen farther than anyone might dare to dream. If this whole Audrey bit isn't a case of religiously-manifested Munchaussen's-by-proxy syndrome, I don't know WHAT is.