Michael Carroll is the first to bring psychoanalytic theory to bear on a range of Catholic cults and devotions, including the Rosary, the Angelus, the Stations of the Cross, the Blood Miracles of Naples, the Stigmata, the Forty Hours, the Brown Scapular, and the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Carroll assembles a great deal of historical information that until now has been widely scattered in obscure publications. He suggests why such devotions are absent from the Protestant tradition and argues for a new and more subtle appreciation of the role that Italian Catholicism played in shaping Catholicism generally.
