It is 1972, in San Jose, California, and 10 year old Veronica’s parents believe that Vatican II has corrupted the Catholic Church, inviting the Holy Chastisement—an apocalypse prophesied by three shepherds in Fatima, Portugal. Pitting himself against the Church and modern America, her 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 Veronica and her siblings run feral on the streets, liberated from school and church, as their parents pray for a miracle and the family falls into poverty. Forced to return to the Bay Area broke and disappointed, they attend the Latin Mass in truck garages, backyards, and abandoned buildings, and join the Catholic counter-revolution—an underground network of warrior monks trained to think and fight like the Christian crusaders of the twelfth century. As Veronica comes of age on the fringes of the American Dream, she is forbidden to enjoy anything modern—clothes, movies, and music—but learns to think for herself through journal-writing and poetry, and ultimately rebels against a fanaticism that has long since stopped making sense. |
