The church and the seer: Veronica Lueken, the Bayside movement, and the Roman Catholic hierarchy

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Boston UniversityPLEASE NOTE: Boston University Libraries did not receive an Authorization To Manage form for this thesis or dissertation. It is therefore not openly accessible, though it may be available by request. If you are the author or principal advisor of this work and would like to request open access for it, please contact us at open-help@bu.edu. Thank you.The traditionalist Marian movement known as "the Baysiders" began in 1968, when Veronica Lueken, a Catholic housewife from Bayside, Queens, first claimed she was receiving messages from heaven. Thousands flocked to her church to see "the seer of Bayside." Lueken's messages from Mary and other heavenly beings were apocalyptic and described a conspiracy within the Vatican. Church authorities censured Lueken's movement and eventually obtained an injunction banning her vigils from Bayside. However, she continued to appeal to traditionalist Catholics and gave regular prophecies until her death in 1995. Her "Bayside Prophecies" spread across the United States and throughout the world. Though this movement peaked in the 1980s, Baysiders continue to promote Lueken's prophecies today. This dissertation argues that the Bayside movement is best understood relationally-as the result of a dialectic between Lueken, her followers, and Church authorities. Opposition from officials of the Diocese of Greater Brooklyn alienated Lueken from Church authorities, pushing her deeper into her new role as a Marian seer. Similarly, diocesan officials used increasingly confrontational measures to censure Lueken and publicly distance themselves from her movement. This dialectical process led Lueken and her followers to form a new understanding of themselves and their relationship to the Catholic Church, becoming a sectarian movement. The dialectical model employed in this dissertation combines sociological models of charisma and sectarian movements with the reflexive considerations raised by lived religion historiography, which interrogate the assumptions and categorical frameworks of the historian. Religion scholars often frame divergent groups such as the Baysiders by using categories such as "new religious movement" or "folk piety" in ways that quarantine them from the larger religious landscape. This dissertation argues that by emphasizing the dialectic between divergent movements and established religious and secular institutions, it is possible to incorporate such movements into a larger narrative of religious history without entrenching their status as deviant or "other."2031-01-0