A PILGRIMAGE to ETERNITY: FROM CANTERBURY to ROME in SEARCH of a FAITH (audiobook) by Timothy Egan








Published by Penguin Audio in 2019.
Read by the author, Timothy Egan.
Duration: 12 hours, 42 minutes.
Unabridged.

At the beginning of this pilgrimage, author Timothy Egan describes himself as a lapsed Catholic, perhaps even an agnostic. He was raised Catholic in Washington State and decided to go on a long-established pilgrimage route called the Via Francigena to contemplate his faith and how the church has betrayed its own faithful with the ongoing sexual abuse scandal.

The Via Francigena runs from the cathedral at Canterbury in England, through France and Switzerland into Italy and ends in Rome at the Vatican. It is one of the most established pilgrimage routes in Europe, but not as well known as the Pilgrimage of Compostela in Spain. 

 Egan gives the listener little history lessons as he tells the story of his own pilgrimage through Europe. Those are usually interesting and informative. He tells his thoughts about faith and Christianity as he travels as well. When possible, he initiates discussions with the clergy as he travels. Sometimes, that works out well, other times you wonder why the clergyman became a minister. His best discussion is with a Lutheran minister in Switzerland.

While he is a lapsed Catholic, Egan does not focus solely on Catholicism. He discusses the Anglican Church, the French Huguenots, Martin Luther, and John Calvin as well. He is fair with Martin Luther, discussing the good and the bad. John Calvin gets bad marks most of the way around, but that is par for the course (and well-deserved, in my opinion).

While I enjoyed the history lessons, religious discussions, including discussion of Egan's struggles with the faith, his mother's faith and how he saw her relationship with the church and his discussions with his wife and children, I did not enjoy the culinary information that he threw in as well. It was an extra layer of detail that didn't fit with the overall theme of the book. Religion and historu go hand in hand. Religion and discussion of pasta don't. It just bogged the book down, in my opinion.

The audiobook was read by the author, Timothy Egan. He was so good that I didn't realize that he read his own book until I looked up the information to write this review.

I rate this audiobook 4 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: A PILGRIMAGE to ETERNITY: FROM CANTERBURY to ROME in SEARCH of a FAITH by Timothy Egan.

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