Three days a week, visitors from around the world enter the chapel of a small home in Worcester, Massachusetts. They have come to witness the Communion host that suddenly manifested a dark stain of blood during a Mass in this very room. Most of all, they have come to be near Audrey, the teenage girl who lies in a bedroom at the other end of the house.Unable to move or speak after a near-drowning accident when she was three years old, Audrey is believed by many to be the source of the miracles in her home. Her family reports that she suffers the stigmata- the bloody suffering of Christ-- every Lenten season. Pilgrims to the Santo home and to Audrey's annual public "outings" claim to have been healed of cancer and other diseases. Lying in her little room, she is surrounded by medical equipment, including a respirator that keeps her alive, round-the-clock care-- and the prayers of her family and countless thousands who believe she has been touched by God.Audrey Santo, the silent soul at the center of one of America's most famous religious pilgrimage sites, touches the hearts of everyone who hears her story. The doctors who treat her are bewildered by her survival. And her mother, a devout Catholic who has never given up hope that Audrey will fully awaken one day, believes Audrey is "a statement of life in our culture of death."Is Audrey a messenger of God, part of a divine plan to strengthen people's faith? Or is she a severely disabled girl whose devout, loving family has drawn a miraculous circle of belief around her? What are the nonreligious explanations for the strange phenomena occurring in the Santo home? What is the Catholic Church's view, as announced in the first official report of its ongoing investigation? Is Audrey a "victim soul," taking on the illness and suffering of others? Did she receive this sacred call from Mary when her mother took her to the apparition room at Medjugorje? These questions and more are explored in Antonia Felix's Silent Soul, a thoughtful, fascinating journey into one of the world's most compelling modern mysteries.
