Sorrowful Mysteries

The Shepherd Children of Fatima and the Fate of the Twentieth Century

De: Stephen Harrigan

Narrado por: Mark Bramhall

Part memoir, part mystery: a powerful exploration of the three secrets of Fatima and a man’s journey grappling with his own faith

In 1917, in Fatima, Portugal, three shepherd children claimed that the Virgin Mary appeared before them and spoke the words, “Do not be afraid.”

Stephen Harrigan first heard the story of Our Lady of Fatima when he was a young boy attending a Catholic school in Texas in the 1950s, struggling to come to grips with a religion that simultaneously soothed and terrified him. The question of what actually happened in Fatima in the early part of the twentieth century, one of the most important, and most mysterious, events in the church’s history, captured his young imagination and has stayed with him ever since.

Sorrowful Mysteries is a detailed and extraordinarily compassionate examination of the phenomenon of Our Lady of Fatima, an attempt to unravel and put into perspective the lives of the three children, how this life-altering event changed them and the world they knew, and how it intersected with so many of the signal moments of the twentieth century—pandemics, revolutions, world wars, assassinations, and even skyjackings. It is a sweeping story, but also at its heart a very personal one, about Harrigan’s own relationship with Catholicism and his lifelong struggle to break free from a religion that in so many paradoxical ways shaped and defined him.

©2025 Stephen Harrigan (P)2025 Random House Audio

Reseñas de la Crítica

"Harrigan hopes to offer a clearheaded narrative of the visions and the reverberating events that followed. At the same time, the book is a work of memory, as Harrigan recounts his childhood as a devout Catholic. Well researched and beautifully written, the book concludes with a meticulously detailed account of the author's recent trip to Fatima. Sure to fascinate both the faithful and skeptical alike."—Booklist

"Harrigan looks to the story of the Fatima apparitions as a vehicle for telling his own tale of struggling with faith and especially with his Roman Catholic upbringing. . . . Well-researched and interesting. . . . A profound exploration of faith, centered on famous apparitions."—Kirkus Reviews

"A colorful account of the 1917 appearance of the biblical Mary to three young shepherds in the village of Fátima, Portugal. . . . Harrigan uses the events of Fatima to paint a vivid portrait of Catholicism as an all-consuming faith that played on 20th-century anxieties with supernatural visions, apocalyptic imagery, and tales of eternal torment for sinners. Rendered in novelistic detail, this is a fascinating history of a mysterious event and its complicated legacy."—Publishers Weekly

Axe to grind

I am disappointed with this listen. I bought after reading a review by the NYT.

Full discloser: I am a practicing "cradle to grave" catholic, of a "liberal" sort ( an admirer of Pope Francis and all he stood for, if that is a better guide.) I went to a catholic school, post career I entered a university religious studies Masters program . So I am somewhat informed on what is, and what is not, catholic teaching and/or theology

Mr Harrigan, I grew tired of hearing, is NOT informed. Yes, he was taught, incorrectly, a very conservative form of catholicism, but, the book makes clear, ( at one point in the book he admits this) he knew there were other teachings or approaches to the faith which he "couldn't be bothered" to explore, and instead became an atheist. . Fine, but this criticism of Christianity overall colors his whole approach to the Fatima story. I am NOT saying everything about Fatima should be taken " as is". there is much that should not. But Harrigan;'s exploration is overlain with a tiring sarcasm and scorn of the whole catholic religion overall. Based entirely on his experience. Period.

It was tiresome. Just tell the story without ongoing sarcasm of what wrongs are done to you ( biut which you could not be bothered to correct or explore)

The narration was "weary", without enthusiasm

Overall, I regret the purchase