The Sign of the Cross

The Sign of the Cross

"The Sign of the Cross: Travels in Catholic Europe" is a non-fiction book published in 1994 by Irish novelist Colm Tóibín.

In the book, Tóibín describes successive Holy Weeks spent in Poland, Seville, Bavaria, Rome, and the Balkans and reflects on the condition of Catholicism in every place making it an intellectual survey of the state of the faith in the new Europe of the 1990s. He also visits post-Communist Catholic Lithuania and Estonia and considers the faith in Ireland and Scotland.

Tóibín, a Catholic by baptism, reckons with the religious demons of his past, the rituals, the pilgrimages, and the shrines. A special chapter is devoted to Toibin's strange and painful session in group therapy, wherein, to his surprise, he experiences the urge to make the sign of the cross in memory of his father, who died when he was a boy. His father's death is also present in some of his novels.

The book was shortlisted for the Waterstone's / Volvo / Esquire Prize for the Best Non-Fiction Book of the Year, 1994.


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  • the sign of the cross — a movement of the hand that forms a cross shape and that is done as an expression of the Christian faith She knelt and made the sign of the cross. • • • Main Entry: ↑sign of the cross …   Useful english dictionary

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  • Sign of the Cross (disambiguation) — Sign of the Cross may refer to:* Sign of the Cross, the ritual hand motion by Christians * The Sign of the Cross: Travels in Catholic Europe , a book by Colm Tóibín * The Sign of the Cross (film) , directed by Cecil B. DeMille * Sign of the Cross …   Wikipedia

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