Waiting for the Apocalypse: A Memoir of Faith and Family

It is 1972, and Veronica Chater's parents believe that Vatican II's liberalization has corrupted the Catholic Church, inviting the Holy Chastisement--an apocalypse prophesied by three shepherds in Fatima, Portugal. To spare his family this horror, Veronica's father quits the highway patrol, sells everything, and moves the family of eight from California to an isolated village near Fatima.

But Portugal is no Catholic utopia, and the family schleps home penniless to join the nascent Catholic counterrevolution: attending the Latin Mass in truck garages and abandoned buildings, serving meals to religious soldiers, breeding a new member of the faithful every year. As Veronica comes of age on the fringes of the American Dream, she rebels against a fanaticism that forbids anything modern--clothes, movies, or music. This is the story, both sad and funny, of a family torn apart by religion and brought back together in spite of the injuries it inflicted on itself.

Binding Type: Hardcover
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Published: 02/01/2009
ISBN: 9780393066036
Pages: 336
Weight: 0.91lbs
Size: 8.40h x 5.82w x 1.16d

Review Citations: Kirkus Reviews 11/01/2008 pg. 1144
Library Journal 11/01/2008 pg. 72
Publishers Weekly 11/17/2008 pg. 51
Entertainment Weekly 02/13/2009 pg. 61
Christian Century 06/14/2009 pg. 39
Shelf Awareness 01/01/0001
Foreword 12/15/2008