Our Lady of the Rockies: Marian Devotion in the Post-Industrial West

Brennan Keegan

Industrial decline and environmental degradation have left their mark on Butte, Montana, a “black heart” of the American West. Once producing more copper ore than any mine in the world, the mines ceased all operations in 1983. Two years later, a 90-foot tall, 48-foot wide, 51-ton statue of the Virgin Mary, named Our Lady of the Rockies, was airlifted in five massive pieces to her resting place 8,500 feet above sea level, where she now stands guard over the city and the toxic wasteland mining left behind. Our Lady offers a dramatic focal object for Butte’s survival in a postindustrial setting. She invites viewers’ engagement through seeing and devotion, acting as a sacred site of pilgrimage and credited by many for healing physical ail- ments and reopening Butte’s mining sector. As a material link to the sacred, Our Lady provides believers with a path toward the transcendent and away from the deteriorating industrial city.

Keywords: Our Lady of the Rockies; Butte, Montana; Marian devotion; American West

estled in the Rocky Mountains, astride the Continental Divide, N stands Butte, Montana. Industrial decline and environmental degradation have left their mark on this “black heart” of the American West—an industrial city surrounded by pastoral cattle ranches and wheat fields. Technological advances, continuous labor struggles, and an influx of European immigrants transformed Butte from a nineteenth-century placer gold camp into an urban industrial center. By the turn of the twentieth century, Butte was producing a tenth of the world’s supply of copper. A single corporate giant controlled its extraction: The Anaconda Copper Mining Company. When company mining ventures in Chile were nationalized in 1969, a decreased output from Butte followed and the company shut down underground operations, leaving thousands of miners unemployed. The abandoned mine would soon be designated an Environmental Protection

23 24 U.S. Catholic Historian

Our Lady of the Rockies overlooking Butte, Montana (Courtesy of Butte Silver-Bow Public Archives, Butte, Montana).

Agency Superfund site.1 In 1985, two years after the mines ceased all oper- ation, a 90-foot tall, 48-foot wide, 51-ton statue of the Virgin Mary was airlifted in five massive pieces to her resting place 8,500 feet above sea level.

Known as Our Lady of the Rockies, the statue is as a dramatic focal object mediating Butte’s efforts to survive in a postindustrial setting. As such, she embodies a vast network of industry, history, and Catholic life, enabling onlookers to enter into relation with her as a bodily representation of this network. Her construction and the rise of popular devotional practices, such as pilgrimage and veneration, enable access to the sacred outside of a church context and serve to unite Butte’s Catholic community. Our Lady is not merely inert matter nor a symbolic expression, but an agentive force, imbued with presence by her builders, viewers, and visitors. As an interactive device, she has the power to influence and captivate human actors and provides believers with a material link to the supernatural.2 Today, Our Lady of the

1. Pat Kearney, Butte Voices: Mining, Neighborhoods, People (Butte, MT: Skyhigh Com- munications, 1998), 37. 2. As Carl Mitcham explains, technological objects are not just made by human beings, but are “objects that influence human experience.” Carl Mitcham, Thinking through Technol- ogy: The Path between Engineering and Philosophy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994), 76. OUR LADY OF THE ROCKIES 25

Rockies stands guard over the city, arms open and beckoning, offering renewal and redemption to the toxic wasteland mining has left behind.3

Catholic Butte

In the nineteenth century, the American West was perceived as a place of economic and spiritual renewal for the industrializing East, the safety valve for Eastern U.S. manufacturing and urban inequity. Broadsides, dime novels, and the brushes of artists such as Charles Russell and George Catlin constructed a western landscape steeped in folklore and myth, celebrating stories of individual advancement in the frontier wilderness. For over a century, Western history was romantically narrated as the heroic expansion of Amer- ican democracy, liberty, and free-market capitalism across vast and open landscapes—the term “urban West” would have been regarded as an amus- ing oxymoron.4 Yet, nineteenth-century Butte, Montana stood as the anti- myth. The history of copper and labor politics in Butte has been covered extensively.5 Yet, the rich Catholic history of the city remains relatively unex-

3. While significant literature has sketched the union and copper history of Butte, very few scholars have turned their attention to the city’s Catholic history, with fewer still directly address Our Lady of the Rockies. Two self-published local histories provide a description of those who built the statue and how it came to completion; see LeRoy Lee, Our Lady Builds a Statue (Butte, MT: LeRoy Lee, 1992) and Pat Kearney, Miracle on the East Ridge (Butte, MT: Skyhigh Communications, 1990). Two scholarly articles have turned their attention to Our Lady: Pat Munday, “Mining Cultures and Mary Cults: Where the Sacred Meets the Profane,” Technology and Culture 57, no. 1 (January 2016): 1–23, places her within a 4,000-year history of virgin shrines, arguing for a gendered interpretation of Mother Earth and female violation through mining, and Harry Eiss, “Our Lady of the Rockies,” Journal of Popular Culture 30, no. 4 (Spring 1997): 33–50, argues Our Lady’s construction was a symbol of community unity in time of economic decline. Both articles only offer cursory nods to Catholicism. This article expends on the work of Eiss by attending to Butte’s rich Catholic history and the role of Marian devotional practices in helping foster Catholic life and experiences of the supernatural. 4. Anne Butler, “Not Only Wide Open Spaces: Urban History and the American West,” Journal of Urban History 37, no. 1 (January 2011): 124. In the 1990s, “New West” historians began to stress the grittier, material conquests of the region and the stories of the forgotten working-class people. See Patricia Limerick, The Legacy of Conquest: The Unbroken Past of the American West (New York: W.W. Norton, 1987); Richard White, “It’s Your Misfortune and None of My Own”: A New History of the American West (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1993); and Donald Worster, Rivers of Empire: Water, Aridity, and the Growth of the American West (New York: Pantheon, 1985). 5. See Michael Punke, Fire and Brimstone: The North Butte Mining Disaster of 1917 (New York: Hachette Books, Reprint, 2007); David M. Emmons, The Butte Irish: Class and Ethnicity in an American Mining Town, 1875–1925 (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, Reprint, 1989); Michael P. Malone, The Battle for Butte: Mining and Politics on the Northern Frontier, 1864-1906 (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1981); Mary Murphy, Mining Cultures: Men, Women, and Leisure in Butte, 1914–41 (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1997); Carl B. Glasscock, The War of the Copper Kings: Greed, Power, and Politics; The Billion- 26 U.S. Catholic Historian amined. As an urban Catholic center in the American West, Butte’s analysis contributes to an expanded study of American Catholicism and the complex ways in which the Catholic Church and Catholics contributed to Western U.S. economic development, politics, and religious life. As this article will show, Our Lady of the Rockies acts as a representation and agent for this history and points to the continued influence of Catholicism in Butte.

In the 1840s, Jesuit priest Pierre-Jean de Smet built the first permanent Euro-American settlement in what would become Montana as a mission out- post to the Flathead Indians, one of twelve indigenous communities native to the area.6 Cattle ranches began to flourish on the eastern plains in the 1860s, but the early gold rush towns of mountainous southwestern Montana rarely proved lasting until copper’s discovery. As Patricia Limerick notes, mining in the western interior was markedly different from the California Gold Rush, in part due to the dramatically rougher landscape and climate.7 Additionally, and unlike the other Rocky Mountain States, Montana did not contain portions of the Oregon, Mormon, Santa Fe, or California Trails. The lack of white movement through the territory limited the need for trading outposts, which in other western territories eventually grew to be the first Euro-American towns and cities. As Elliot West explains, although the seizure of California during the Mexican War and the California Gold Rush redefined national visions of the United States, the heart of the nation remained empty: “The national destiny reached out over the continent, but it did not yet cover the continent.”8 The Pike’s Peak Gold Rush began the process of filling in the center, but Montana remained north of the center for another two decades. Thus, the mining centers of Bannack, Butte, Virginia City, Garnet, Pony, and Last Chance Gulch (later Helena), marked the first large-scale intrusion of white migrants to the territory in the 1860s and 1870s.

Butte emerged as a placer gold camp in 1864—a loose gathering of individual miners and temporary housing. With the discovery of a major copper lode in 1878, however, Butte began a colossal transformation. It was the beginning of the electrical age and Thomas Edison’s new electric lighting dollar Battle for Butte, Montana, the Richest Hill on Earth (Helena, MT: Riverbend Publish- ing, 2002). 6. Archeological evidence indicates a human presence in Montana beginning about 5,000 BC, as well as the migration of Plains Indians to the region in the seventeenth century following migratory wildlife. See Montana Indians: Their History and Location (Helena, MT: Division of Indian Education, Montana Office of Public Instruction, 2007). 7. Patricia Nelson Limerick, “The Gold Rush and the Shaping of the American West,” California History 77, no. 1 (Spring 1998), 34. 8. Elliot West, “Golden Dreams: Colorado, California, and The Reimagining of Amer- ica,” Montana: The Magazine of Western History (Autumn 1999), 6. OUR LADY OF THE ROCKIES 27 transmitted currents through copper cable, increasing the national demand for the metal. Between 1895 and 1916, Butte produced 5.4 billion pounds of copper, 31% of all copper mined in that era.9 Mining operations drove thousands of immigrants to the more than 7,000 miles of underground tunnels, resulting in their fierce defense of ethnic neighborhoods and a burgeon- ing industrial city known for gambling, prostitution, and drink.

Butte attracted immigrants from around the world and each ethnic group brought their own traditions and religious practices with them. Inside the ten-block radius of Butte’s Central Business District existed places of worship for Methodists, Christian Scientists, Baptists, Lutherans, Presbyterians, Jews, Serbian Orthodox, and Catholics. The Catholic Church’s presence, however, stood out. Butte was an “overwhelmingly Catholic” city; Irish-Catholic immigrants comprised a majority of the underground labor.10 In 1884, 26% of Butte’s population was Irish-born or the children of Irish immigrants, an even higher percentage than in Boston. Ninety percent of the Irish who came to Butte worked for the mines, with two-thirds working in the toughest and most dangerous jobs in the deep mines.11 As Bob McCarthy, a Butte historian, states: “The Irish controlled city hall which meant jobs for their fellow immigrants as police officers, fireman and city workers. The Irish had an influence on almost every phase of life in Butte.”12 From 1890 to 1900, the city’s population increased by 184%; almost all new arrivals were foreign-born. By 1917, the population had risen to nearly 100,000 people.13

The Catholic Church was deeply entwined in Butte’s mining culture. In a 1917 history of St. Mary’s Parish, Father Michael Hannan recorded, “Every family with the exception of two, depends on the mines for a living.”14 Churches offered Mass around the three mining shifts. Of the five Masses held on Sunday at St. Mary’s, for example, two were solely scheduled to accommodate the work schedule of parish miners.15 In a nod to the Catholicism of the immigrant miners, waste in the mines was even denoted “Protestant ore.”16 Economic displacement and migration to an environ-

9. Kearney, Butte Voices, 6; Jerry W. Calvert, The Gibraltar: Socialism and Labor in Butte, Montana, 1895–1920 (Helena, MT: Montana Historical Society Press, 1988), 3. 10. Emmons, The Butte Irish, 95. 11. Emmons, The Butte Irish, 2, 13. 12. Bob McCarthy, quoted in Kearney, Butte Voices, 128. 13. Emmons, The Butte Irish, 13. 14. Michael J. Hannan, Father English and St. Mary’s Parish, Butte, Montana: The Miners Catholic Church and Parish (1917), 18, Archives of the Diocese of Helena, Helena, Montana. 15. Emmons, The Butte Irish, 96. 16. Calvert, The Gibraltar, 3–4; George Everett, “The Miners of Beara and Butte,” World of Hibernia 6, no. 3 (Winter 2000): 126. 28 U.S. Catholic Historian ment far removed from the temperate western shores of Ireland put added emphasis on religious identities in order to foster community, keep families intact, and reinforce an ethic of mutual aid.17 To support the growing working-class population, Butte residents built ten parishes, nine parochial schools, two Catholic high schools, and eight convents.18 The liturgical cal- endar, communion, confession, baptisms, confirmations, marriages, and last rites, as well as auxiliary groups and church socials structured the daily lives of Butte miners.19 In the early twentieth century, Catholic steeples were as much a part of the Butte landscape as were the iron headframes which low- ered miners to their stations below the surface. As historian David Emmons relates of Butte, “It would be difficult to overstate the importance of the churches.”20

Mining Butte

By 1914 the Anaconda Copper Mining Company, standing as the nation’s fourth-largest corporation, owned the railroad, timber company, smelter works, the majority of the land in Butte, and even the newspapers.21 The company, however, provided little beyond employment for Butte’s residents. Company officials bought off city officials and territorial representatives seeking the bottom line over all else and leaving Butte residents without basic services or even funds to support public education.22 As one trade unionist reported, “The average wage slave’s home is a miserable, dingy, dirty board shack . . . there are no sewers anywhere and everyone throws their slops, garbage, or waste of any kind out of the front of, or behind the house.”23 Framed by the stunning Rocky Mountains and rich in red metal, Butte gained the slogan “The Richest Hill on Earth”—although miners rarely benefited.

Butte miners realized early that the best defense against the pervasive con- trol of the Anaconda Copper Mining Company was banding together. The Butte Miners’ Union formed on June 13, 1878 as the Butte Working Men’s Union (BMU), followed by the creation of the Western Federation of Miners

17. Patrick Kearney, Butte’s Catholic Family (Butte, MT: Skyhigh Communications, 2010), 103–104. 18. John Mihelich, “An Ethnographic Account of Industrial Capitalism, Religion, and Community” (Ph.D. dissertation, Washington State University, 1999), 201. 19. Jon Gjerde, Catholicism and the Shaping of Nineteenth-Century America, edited by S. Deborah Kang (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 86, 236. 20. Emmons, The Butte Irish, 97. 21. Murphy, Mining Cultures, xv. 22. Calvert, The Gibraltar, 4–5. 23. J.A. Stromquist, “Letter to the Editor,” Industrial Union Bulletin (Chicago: Indus- trial Workers of the World), Vol. 2, March 24, 1908. OUR LADY OF THE ROCKIES 29

(WFM) in 1893. By 1900, Butte boasted 18,000 union members, with thirty- four different unions representing local trades.24 The Butte miners did not seek to entirely overturn the American system of industrial capitalism—they participated in the economic system by seeking economic security through wages. But the miners also realized that in unity there was power to end exploitative practices, create safe working conditions, and earn a living wage. And as the city grew, Catholicism offered theological support for action.25

Nineteen years before Pope Leo XIII’s economic encyclical Rerum Novarum, unionist and lay Catholic William Sylvis explained that he found no conflict in his support for unions and his belief that the worker’s “task” was “to found the universal family—to build up the City of God” through unions, which Sylvis called an “association of souls” formed by “the Sons of God.”26 In 1891, the Church, through Rerum Novarum, officially sanc- tioned workers’ efforts to organize trade unions in resistance to the greed of capitalists. This was expounded upon by Butte’s Catholic leaders through local publications such as the Catholic Monthly and sermons at Mass. In 1912, Father Adalbert wrote in the Butte Miner:

If we are asked what are the remedies to the wrongs under which the working classes groan, we should reply: a virtuous Christian life, education, fru- gality, temperance, the organization of the forces of the working classes, and attainment of their lawful and just demands by those just and peaceful methods which bring to their aid the sympathy of the community.27

Ten years later, Father Hannan, in continuity with Pope Leo XIII’s encyclical, described “capitalist[s]” as “brute[s]” and “the worst sort of a vul- ture.”28 In Butte, miner, unionist, and Catholic, were often synonymous.

In the 1950s, American consumerism grew exponentially, and the demand for copper once again soared. Open-pit mining emerged as a more efficient means of extraction than the dense, honeycomb of tunnels under Butte. By 1959 the company’s workforce had dropped from 4,586 in 1955

24. Pat Hill, “A Labor Movement Born in Butte,” The Montana Pioneer, October 3, 2011, http://www.mtpioneer.com/2011-Oct-labor-butte.html. 25. Butte Miners’ Union No. 1, “Constitution and By-Laws, Wage Scale and Agree- ment,” 4, Vertical File, Labor History/Miners’ Union, Butte-Silver Bow Public Archives, Butte, Montana. 26. William Sylvis, The Life, Speeches, Labors and Essays of William H. Sylvis: Late Presi- dent of the Iron-Moulders’ International Union; and also of The National Labor Union (Philadelphia: Claxton, Remsen & Haffelfinger, 1872), 117. 27. Father Adalbert, November 5, 1912, Butte Miner, quoted in Calvert, The Gibraltar, 64. 28. Michael Hannan, “Father Michael Hannan Diary,” February 13, 1922, April 1, 1922, April 3, 1922, Butte-Silver Bow Public Archives, Butte, Montana. 30 U.S. Catholic Historian

The Berkeley Pit in the late 1950s (Courtesy of Butte Silver-Bow Public Archives, Butte, Montana). to 2,159 employees, while production numbers had climbed from 7,960 tons a day to 8,430 tons.29

Butte miners had lived alongside mining operations for generations, which meant neighborhoods were built on top of rich ore streams. The company owned the majority of the land on which Butte was built, extracting small “ground rents” from residents who owned the structures built on the land; thus, the expansion of the largest pit, Berkeley Pit, never required res- ident approval. Entire neighborhoods were wiped out and residents dis- placed as the expansion project moved closer to the Butte Central Business District, composed of historic buildings and the primary commercial district. Former miner Bob Koprivica stated, “As the pit got bigger and bigger it destroyed some of the finest history this town has to offer. It just shows you what greed without conscience can do to people like officials from The Ana- conda Company.”30 Although seen as a savior to the declining mining operations, the Berkeley Pit came at great cost to the community as Congressman Mike Mansfield observed in 1949, copper “rule[d] the roost politically, sometimes with grim results.”31 By 1980, the neighborhoods of McQueen,

29. Leech, “Protest, Power, and the Pit,” 41. 30. Bob Koprivica, quoted in Kearney, Butte Voices, 191. 31. Mike Mansfield,People’s Voice, August 5, 1949. OUR LADY OF THE ROCKIES 31

Holy Savior Catholic Church in Butte, Montana, buried in 1974 to make way for the expansion of the Berkeley Pit, an open pit copper mine (Courtesy of the Montana Standard).

Meaderville, and East Butte had been completely consumed. Former resi- dent Bernice Favilla Maki recalled, “When the Pit started, things got pretty rough in McQueen. . . . The trucks used to come within 20 and 30 feet of homes. It was terrible. There was always so much noise and dust.”32

In 1974, in one of the most dramatic acts of expansion, the company buried Holy Savior Catholic Church as a new dumpsite for pit waste. The Bishop of Helena, Raymond Hunthausen, presided over the parish’s final Mass on July 1, 1974. During his sermon, he spoke of the sacrifices the parishioners were making: “I am saddened by this, but let us regard this hap- pening as one of sacrifice—a sacrifice we are all making for the betterment of Butte. Today, you are following Christ in that you are sacrificing for the benefit of others.”33 The next day, as parishioners looked on, the company trucks buried the parish forever, one truckload at a time.

Ultimately a billion tons of ore were mined from the Pit—leaving a scar a mile long, a half mile wide, 1,780 feet deep, and a pool of water with a pH

32. Bernice Favilla Maki, quoted in Kearney, Butte Voices, 211. 33. Bishop Raymond Hunthausen, quoted in Kearney, Butte’s Catholic Family (Butte, MT: Skyhigh Communications, 2010), 107. 32 U.S. Catholic Historian level of 2.5, roughly the acidity of coca-cola.34 As Steve Blodgett, a reclama- tion specialist with the county government, commented, “The Pit is the receptacle for all our sins.”35 By the early 1970s, it had become a normalized part of the landscape, and half of Butte’s population had left the area, most in search of employment.36

Building Our Lady of the Rockies

In 1979, miner Bob O’Bill sat with his wife in the hospital praying to Our Lady of Guadalupe, patroness of the Americas, for the success of his wife’s forthcoming, and risky, cancer surgery. Although he did not consider himself very religious, in that moment, he made “a covenant with God.”37 O’Bill promised the Virgin Mary that if she interceded on behalf of his sick wife, he would build a five-foot-tall statue of her in his garden in thanks. When his wife recovered in 1981, he proposed to his fellow miners the idea of constructing a larger statue on the East Ridge of the Continental Divide. Mining operations continued to abate, leaving greater numbers of community members jobless and unable to pursue their livelihoods.

The Butte mining operations and smelter works comprised some of Ana- conda Copper Company’s largest assets, but they also owned Chile’s two largest mines. When the Chilean mines were nationalized in 1969, the company strug- gled to keep the corporation afloat, selling the Butte mines in 1977 to the Atlantic Richfield Company (ARCO). After a drawn-out series of mine closures and layoffs, all mining operations ceased in Butte in 1983.38 Shortly thereafter, the area in and around Butte, including twenty-six miles of streams and wet- lands, was officially designated an Environmental Protection Agency Superfund site. Since the nineteenth century, mine waste had been dumped in these areas. Mills and smelters released aerial emissions and arsenic while heavy metals con- taminated soil, ground, and surface water. Cleanup is still underway.39

34. Edwin Dobb, “New Life in a Death Trap,” Discover Magazine, December 1, 2000, http://discovermagazine.com/2000/dec/featnewlife. 35. Steve Blodgett, quoted in Edwin Dobb, “Pennies from Hell: In Montana, the Bill for America’s Copper Comes Due,” in Montana Legacy: Essays on History, People, and Place, edited by Harry W. Fritz, Mary Murphy, Robert R. Swartout, Jr. (Helena, MT: Montana His- torical Preservation Society, 2002), 311. 36. Leech, “Protest, Power, and the Pit,” 39. 37. “A 90 Foot Statue in Montana’s Gold West Territory: The Grand Endeavor,” The Prospector (Helena, MT), October 8, 1981. 38. Eiss, “Our Lady of the Rockies,” 33. 39. “Silver Bow Creek/Butte Area Cleanup Activities,” United States Environmental Protection Agency, https://cumulis.epa.gov/supercpad/SiteProfiles/index.cfm?fuseaction= second.Cleanup&id=0800416. OUR LADY OF THE ROCKIES 33

Mining once defined Butte, and its absence left a toxic wasteland and thousands of unemployed miners. As the welder and eventual architect of Our Lady of the Rockies LeRoy Lee explained, “These people had experienced many hardships in the past, but this seemed to be the worst disaster that could happen… Everyone’s faith needed restoring.”40 Within this milieu, Our Lady of the Rockies emerged as a focal node for a significant network of industry, Catholicism, and hope. What began as a personal act of devotion came to include a newly-available team of welders, miners, and engineers united in the construction of a community guardian, overlooking all of Butte and the Berkeley Pit.

In 1980, O’Bill contacted fellow Catholic Joe Roberts of Roberts Rocky Mountain Equipment Company for help. They contacted local metal artist John Mazzola who created a nine-foot model of the proposed statue, which was eventually displayed at the Copper King Inn to solicit support. Plans for the statue’s height grew to 60 feet and then 120 feet until the Montana Department of Transportation’s Aeronautics Division raised concerns that a 120-foot statue on the ridge would be hazardous to aircraft. The statue was ultimately reduced to 90 feet, the third largest statue in the United States. O’Bill and Roberts contacted the U.S. Forest Service and learned the sug- gested location on Saddle Rock was privately owned; a lease was negoti- ated.41 Determining the statue’s location was only the first obstacle. No access road existed to the East Ridge, which stands at an altitude of 8,500 feet above sea level, 3,500 feet above Butte. Heavy snowfall and regular sub- zero temperatures on the ridge made progress slow and challenging for laborers. Mike Cerise, once a heavy equipment operator, and Al Beavis, a former drilling and blasting expert, were enlisted to help with the project shortly after the mines shut down. Their aide was timely as the road to Saddle Rock needed expertise. As Lee explained, “Whatever we need, it seems to be there when we need it. It seems the Lady has each of us picked out for what we know.”42

The network of operations and actors required for the statue’s construction were, on the one hand, a testament to Butte’s community solidarity and refusal to cede decline, and on the other, only made possible by mine clo- sure. ARCO donated $250,000 of unused equipment and fuel toward the project. Recently unemployed miners and skilled technicians donated their time and labor. Laurien Riehl, a retired engineer for the Anaconda Copper

40. Lee, Our Lady Builds a Statue, 36. 41. Our Lady of the Rockies Foundation, “The Story,” https://www.ourladyoftherockies. net/home.html. 42. Lee, Our Lady Builds a Statue, 69. 34 U.S. Catholic Historian

Company, volunteered as the lead structural engineer. Iron from the abandoned headframes that once stood over the bustling mine shafts was salvaged for the statue’s interior web of support beams. Bill LaVelle of LaVelle Powder Company donated blasting equipment. Although on strike, workers at the Trident cement plant in Three Forks, Montana, donated their time to load concrete and truck supplies to Saddle Rock. Community members wrote checks, held bake and rummage sales, benefit concerts, and a telethon.43 The statue was physically constructed from the remnants of Butte’s labor past.

Stories of miracles surrounding the construction of Our Lady of the Rockies abound. When inspecting the footing site on Saddle Ridge, it was discovered that a five-foot boulder next to the site resembled a lamb. Joyce O’Bill, the inspiration for Our Lady’s creation, said it was a sign the site was blessed because the Virgin Mary was the mother of “The Lamb of God.”44 When the crew ran out of donated fuel to power the donated heavy machin- ery, the next morning every tank was completely filled.45 Those involved in the statue’s creation believed the Virgin Mary was guiding every step of the process, imbuing them with motivation and purpose.46 As O’Bill remarked, “I just felt that Mary wanted to be on the Continental Divide. . . . I felt that’s where the Lady was supposed to be: on top of the world, for all to see.”47

Not everyone supported her construction, however, including Father Edward Hislop, who wrote in 1981, “Although the statue is on private ground, it is clearly in a public place. The East Ridge has always belonged to the people of Butte and that might be offensive to some and pose difficul- ties.”48 His concerns were echoed by an anonymous letter to a self-help column, in which the statue was derided not only as “another golden calf,” but also anti-American: “To be forced, day in and day out, to look at some-

43. Susan Dunlap, “Financial, in-house contributions put Lady on East Ridge,” Mon- tana Standard, December 20, 2015. 44. Joyce O’Bill, quoted in “The Grand Endeavor.” 45. Matthew Sewell, “‘Our Lady of the Rockies’: The Miraculous Story Behind Mon- tana’s 90-ft Statue of Mary,” ChurchPOP, March 22, 2016, https://churchpop.com/2016/ 03/22/incredible-story-behind-montanas-90-ft-statue-mary/. 46. Kris King, “Our Lady of The Rockies,” Montana: The Magazine of Western History 56, no. 4 (Winter 2006), 72. 47. Bob O’Bill, quoted in Lee, Our Lady Builds a Statue, 57; O’Bill recalled a time when the CAT they were using became lodged in an underground spring, stuck without hope for any movement. O’Bill and companion Mike Cerise knew they could not afford to bring another CAT up to haul it out and so they petitioned Our Lady to intercede. Shortly after, the CAT dislodged. See Lee, Our Lady Builds a Statue, 66–67. 48. Father Edward Hislop, “Our Lady of the Rockies ‘Did You Know?’” Montana Stan- dard, December 20, 2015. OUR LADY OF THE ROCKIES 35 thing one does not believe in is NOT freedom.”49 Because the statue was built from volunteer labor on private land, however, dissenting voices went largely unheard. Over the course of five years, Our Lady was steadily assembled in town, just as her final location was cleared and made ready.

Covered in auto body filler then sandblasted and painted white, the statue was completed on December 20, 1985. Built in pieces, Our Lady was flown to the top of the Continental Divide by a Ch-54 Sikorsky Helicopter Skycrane with the approval of U.S. Defense Secretary Casper Weinberger and President Ronald Reagan.50 President Reagan wrote to Joe Roberts call- ing Our Lady “a splendid expression of the faith and cooperation among the people of Butte.”51 Al Beavis recalled that O’Bill “made the promise and he was determined to keep it and the proof is up on the mountain.”52 Two years later, the National Guard Bureau attempted to charge Butte for the $174,922 cost of the flights, but Montana Senator John Melcher—a Catholic who was pro-energy and pro-union—along with Senate Armed Services Chairman Barry Goldwater convinced the National Guard to call it a training mission and the issue was dropped.53

The December 21, 1985, front-page headline of Butte’s daily newspaper, the Montana Standard read, “Lady Mission Accomplished,” and quoted volunteer Ed Stepan who called the statue “an inspiration for our city.”54 Many community members celebrated the material representation of Butte’s Catholic past and regarded her as a symbol of hope for the declining community.55 The Montana Standard reported, Our Lady was “a new symbol . . . to survive no matter what.”56 When asked in a questionnaire about their feelings on the statue, Butte residents continually mentioned its symbolic representation of Butte’s strength. Vivian McCarthy wrote, “People in the community seemed to all try and help.” Darlene Lloyd thought the statue demonstrates that “people can really work together in this town.”57 What began as a five-

49. “Against It,” Ask Ann Landers, The Daily Register (Harrisburg, IL), March 20, 1985. 50. Mark Ciabattari, “The Fall and Rise of Butte, Mont.,” New York Times Magazine, Lifestyle Section, March 1, 1992. 51. President Ronald Reagan, quoted in “Our Lady of the Rockies Timeline,” Montana Standard, December 20, 2015. 52. Al Beavis quoted in Brook McCarthy, “Montana Treasure: Our Lady of the Rockies is a tribute to love and devotion,” ABC Fox Montana, September 24, 2019. 53. Charles Johnson, “John Melcher ‘benefited farmers, miners, the elderly, the hungry and a constituency of the world’s poor,’” Montana Free Press (Helena, MT), April 13, 2018. 54. “Lady’s mission accomplished,” Montana Standard (Butte, MT), December 25, 1985. 55. Lee, Our Lady Builds a Statue, 12–13. 56. “Lady’s mission accomplished.” 57. Darlene Lloyd, quoted in Eiss, “Our Lady of the Rockies,” 34. 36 U.S. Catholic Historian foot garden statue, culminated in a 90-foot testament to Butte’s industrial and Catholic past. A small non-denominational chapel is now at her base in which the history of miners is celebrated as part of a romanticized industrial past that culminated in the craftsmanship required for the statue’s creation.

Devotion to Our Lady

For those who donated their labor, money, or materials, the project was one of divine guidance and inspiration. As every obstacle was surmounted, the team of workers claimed: “The Lady had been generous again.”58 Lee exclaimed, “I’m so proud of these people of Butte. . . . They are all part of it. For every piece of iron I put in it, there was one person standing behind me. . . . This whole undertaking had been one of God’s miracles to show us what faith, love, and determination can accomplish.”59 Believers attributed Our Lady’s creation to her intervention and guidance.

The statue’s human builders and designers are important actors in Our Lady’s network, but it extends to include a multitude of viewers standing at various vantage points. The statue’s grandeur—her size and seemingly-precarious location on the East Ridge—inspires an immediate visceral reaction. Journalist Richmond Cohrane remarked:

I cannot put into words the impact the statue had on my seeing it up close. The initial view is from the rear, and its enormous size leaves one breathless. One gets the feeling that without the Lady’s personal intervention, this could never have been achieved.60

Theorist Alfred Gell argues that a technology is regarded as enchanted for the “technical miracle” of its production. Viewers see only the product, which occurs as if by magic, concealing a web of technical systems: it “achieves its effect via the enchantment cast by its technical means, the manner of its coming into being, or, rather the idea which one forms of its coming into being.”61 Michel Callon argues that a single object encapsulates a significant network of human and material relations, which “is not reducible to a purely instrumental dimension.”62 Each element in the net-

58. Lee, Our Lady Builds a Statue, 17. 59. Ibid., 200. 60. Richmond Cohrane, “Our Lady of the Rockies,” Catholic Insight, May 11, 2003. 61. Alfred Gell, “The Technology of Enchantment and the Enchantment of Technol- ogy,” in Jeremy Coote and Anthony Shelton, eds., Anthropology, Art, and Aesthetics (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), reprinted in Alfred Gell, The Art of Anthropology: Essays and Diagrams, ed. E. Hirsch (London: Athlone Press, 1999), 47. 62. Michel Callon, “Actor Network Theory,” in International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences (Amsterdam: Elseveir Science, 2001), 63. OUR LADY OF THE ROCKIES 37 work acts and interacts in a specific way, although viewers may only see the focal object, or as Callon argues, the “black-box” of the collective action of human and nonhuman actors. As a visitor to the statue remarked, “How she was built and how she was delivered to her special place at the top of the mountain is unbelievable. . . . The trip up to see her and to stand [in] her shadow was humbling.”63 Others noted her construction represented a “feat of faith and conviction,” which ordinarily only a Marian apparition could inspire.64 Our Lady is made active through her concealment and embodi- ment of the web of technical maneuvers that went into her creation: the blasting of the road, the equipment loans, the installation of electric wires, the welding of the individual iron sheets, and the military assistance required to fly the pieces to their final location. She stands as a focal object, concealing the background relations of her construction, and instead presenting a uni- fied entity with which viewers create a shared gaze.

Our Lady acts not only as a visual representation of the network of Butte’s labor and Catholic identities, but is an active agent enveloping viewers within an ecology of these factors, engendering “feeling, intuition, dis- cernment, and presence.”65 As such, she serves as an active, material link to the supernatural. Her presence blesses viewers with peace and spiritual guidance. Visitors reported the statue “stands [as] a source of pride for Butte”; “She watches diligently over the valley”; and she is “a beacon for all who travel by Interstate 90.” Many visitors remark about her height: “It is amazing the size of her. From Butte, you can see her on any street. She must be comforting for all the mining families that endure daily dangers.”66 David Morgan and Alfred Gell theorize the agency of “things” as a type of second- ary agency to which human primary agents “distribute their agency . . . and thus render their agency effective.”67 That is, through engagement with Our Lady as a material object, viewers animate her with goals and intentions that, in turn, give human actions meaning and purpose.

63. Magn1, “Amazing Lady watching over the population of the city,” TripAdvisor, July 26, 2014, https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g45106-d538035-Reviews- Our_Lady_of_the_Rockies-Butte_Montana.html. 64. 708teresaf, “Built by volunteers and donations,” TripAdvisor, July 13, 2016, https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g45106-d538035-Reviews-Our_Lady_ of_the_Rockies-Butte_Montana.html; Rod Pangilinan, “Our Lady of the Rockies,” Google Review, April 2016. 65. David Morgan, “The Ecology of Images: Seeing and the Study of Religion,” in Reli- gion and Society 5 (2014): 90. 66. 286natec, “Beautiful,” TripAdvisor, August 24, 2019, https://www.tripadvisor.com/ Attraction_Review-g45106-d538035-Reviews-Our_Lady_of_the_Rockies-Butte_Montana.html. 67. Alfred Gell, “‘Things’ as Social Agents,” in Sandra H. Dudley, ed., Museum Objects: Experiencing the Properties of Things (London: Routledge, 2012), 340; see Morgan, “The Ecology of Images,” 86. 38 U.S. Catholic Historian

Through human engagement, she becomes more than inert matter; she becomes an agent of exchange that affects the viewer’s thoughts, feelings, and behavior. For example, despite his skepticism for the validity of religious phe- nomena, scholar Harry Eiss records, “I swear her head moved and followed the plane into the airport.”68 Eiss is not alone in his perception of Our Lady watching those who drive, fly, or walk into her presence. Her eyes alone are each three feet wide. As she is looked upon, Our Lady seemingly looks back upon the viewer. She is a focal object concealing and, yet, empowered by an extended assemblage of actors. As Morgan argues, a focal object is “the place where all that is unseen becomes visible and interactive.”69 Her material representation enables viewers to enter into relation with the statue and, in turn, be influenced by her presence. One viewer remarked, “If you look to the east and see her standing on top of the mountain you may get a great feeling of peace. I experienced overwhelming joy and that peace when we arrived at her base.”70 This relationship is heightened when she is regarded as a religious object, for she makes the unseen, divine presence visible and active in material form: “The statue of mother Mary is quite [a] beautiful site, standing large, tall, yet graciously overlooking the kingdom, God’s . . . that we may come to understand her Son’s suffering and still saving grace.”71 The grandeur of her materiality, paired with her location above the city, invites inspection and pro- vokes an embodied response.

Promotion of Our Lady as a pilgrimage site was considered early in the construction process. Lee surmised, “If we do this right it would be a Mecca and bring people here from all over the world just to see Our Lady up there on that mountaintop.”72 While Our Lady is clearly visible on the ridge, to visit her up close, one must pay $18 to the Our Lady of the Rockies Foun- dation, which provides maintenance and a twice-daily tour from April to October. Visitors board a yellow school bus in downtown Butte to travel up the private “Hail Mary” road leading to the East Ridge. During the half- hour ride, a guide relates the inspiration and history of Our Lady and celebrates the volunteer labor and miracles associated with her construction. Vis- itors regularly remark on the difficult and precarious drive, a trial that must be overcome to access the site: “The bus trip to the statue is over one of the

68. Eiss, “Our Lady of the Rockies,” 33. 69. Morgan, “The Ecology of Images,” 93. 70. Bilaurel, “Highlight of our 2 week vacation,” TripAdvisor, July 20, 2015, https:// www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g45106-d538035-Reviews-Our_Lady_of_the_ Rockies-Butte_Montana.html. 71. Elise Flanders, comment on Peter LaFave, “Our Lady’s Miracle on the Mountain,” The Christian Review, (May 29, 2015): http://www.thechristianreview.com/our-ladys-miracle- on-the-mountain/. 72. Kearney, Miracle on the East Ridge, 25. OUR LADY OF THE ROCKIES 39 roughest roads in the world, but it’s worth all the bouncing and rattling around.”73 Having overcome the obstacle presented by the road, visitors are rewarded with a view of the valley holding Butte and the Berkeley Pit, as well as the opportunity to stand directly in the statue’s presence. Responses show an experience of spiritual resonance: “The sight of Our Lady was awesome and sobering”; “It was very spiritual to me”; and “It did feel like a pilgrimage to go up there.”74 During the visit, there are frequent reminders of her creation story, not only by the tour guide but through plaques and images displayed in the chapel and gift store. Our Lady, therefore, is a prime example of the ways in which pilgrimages, like sacred spaces, are sometimes made, not revealed. It is through repeated ritualization, visual engagement, and visita- tion that the sacred is kept in place.75

Our Lady of the Rockies stands not only on top of a vast network of builders but is situated within a long history of Marian devotion.76 As Robert Orsi explains, devotion to Mary “constitutes a global web of connections and stories.”77 The hollow interior of Our Lady is covered by petitions for her intervention, notes of gratitude for her aid, and devotional objects from the

73. Richard B, “An Amazing Statue and Story,” TripAdvisor, September 23, 2019, https:// www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g45106-d538035-Reviews-Our_Lady_of_the_ Rockies-Butte_Montana.html. 74. AnnabelleMissoula_MT, “A Must-go,” TripAdvisor, November 9, 2012, https:// www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g45106-d538035-Reviews-Our_Lady_of_the_ Rockies-Butte_Montana.html; Linda Brunner, “Breath takingly beautiful and very spiritual,” TripAdvisor, July 23, 2018, https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g45106- d538035-Reviews-Our_Lady_of_the_Rockies-Butte_Montana.html; Werbrich Family, “Incredible Views and worth the trip,” TripAdvisor, August 4, 2015, https://www.trip advisor.com/Attraction_Review-g45106-d538035-Reviews-Our_Lady_of_the_Rockies-Butte_ Montana.html. 75. Juan Eduardo Campo, “American Pilgrimage Landscapes,” The Annals of the Amer- ican Academy of Political and Social Sciences 558 (July 1998), 42. See American Sacred Space, ed. by David Chidester and Edward T. Linenthal (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995) and Jonathan Z. Smith, To Take Place: Toward Theory in Ritual (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978). 76. Many excellent histories have analyzed the history of Marian devotions; see Suzanne K. Kaufman, Consuming Visions: Mass Culture and the Lourdes Shrine (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2005); Michael P. Carroll, The Cult of the Virgin Mary: Psychological Origins (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1986); Sandra L. Zimdars-Swartz, Encountering Mary: From La Salette to Medjugorje (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1991). Envi- ronmentalist Pat Munday goes a step further by placing Our Lady of the Rockies in a longer history of virgin shrines and mining: “It’s an old story, really: the earth is female, mining is a violation of the earth, and so the miner must pay some sort of tribute.” See Munday, “Mining Cultures and Mary Cults,” 2. 77. Robert Orsi, History and Presence (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2016), 50. 40 U.S. Catholic Historian many thousands of tourists that make pilgrimage to the statue annually. One visitor wrote, “The Lady of the Rockies is just astounding to view, walking inside and looking at all the ways people of Butte have memorialized their loved ones with flowers, notes and letters, pictures, and little mementos.”78 One note of gratitude is from George Nolte, diagnosed with myeloma in Jan- uary 1983. Learning of Nolte’s poor prognosis, LeRoy Lee and his wife Pat dedicated their prayers at Mass that day for George, sending a special petition to Our Lady. A week later, George’s aggressive bone cancer was miraculously gone and he claimed, “It could only be one thing—Our Lady.”79

The act of acknowledging receipt of Our Lady’s aid, such as George affixing his message of gratitude to an interior iron beam, is part of a regulated economy of interaction with the divine, in which the giving and receiving of divine favor is mediated by the Virgin Mary.80 Recall, the statue itself emerged as a work of thanks for Our Lady’s intervention during Joyce O’Bill’s recovery from cancer. Every night the statue is illuminated, for $20 community members may have her lit in honor of a family member or friend. These petitions are printed daily in the Montana Standard in a section entitled, “Our Lady Lights,” consciously enacting Catholicism’s practice of votive candles on a massive scale, while simul- taneously paying the electricity bills. A typical message honors deceased family members, for example, “Our Lady please shine in Memory of Tuck and Elaine McGree. Our hearts know that you celebrate the holiday season together with a watchful eye on all of us.”81 Community members publicly pray to Our Lady to bless loved ones in the same way that others engage with Our Lady by read- ing the memorials and looking to the East Ridge after sunset.

Despite this abundance of devotional material, Our Lady of the Rockies was never formally established as a shrine by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. In fact, the Diocese of Helena’s bishop asked Lee to stop spreading stories of Our Lady’s miracles to discourage unwanted pil- grims.82 Yet, as Ingo Swann argues, “The Holy Mother seems to speak in some kind of collective way to the hearts of the grassroots devout. . . . If the devout are responding to Mary’s call, then there is nothing church, science,

78. Geosdar, “Our Lady of the Rockies,” TripAdvisor, March 13, 2017, https://www. tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g45106-d538035-Reviews-Our_Lady_of_the_Rockies- Butte_Montana.html. 79. Lee, Our Lady Builds a Statue, 51. 80. David Morgan, “Aura and the Inversion of Marian Pilgrimage: Fatima and Her Stat- ues,” in Moved By Mary: The Power of Pilgrimage in the Modern World, ed. by Anna-Karina Hermkens, Willy Jansen, and Catrien Notermans (Farnham, UK: Ashgate, 2009), 49. 81. “Our Lady of the Rockies lights for Sunday, Dec. 23,” Montana Standard, Decem- ber 23, 2018. 82. Eiss, “Our Lady of the Rockies,” 44. OUR LADY OF THE ROCKIES 41 or philosophy can do about it.”83 While Our Lady is a material representation of the Virgin Mary, many non-Catholic visitors also come to see the impressive physical feat she represents. The chapel at her base thus celebrates the common heritage of Mary for all Christians and mothers. The outer walls of the chapel are memorials, listing over 15,000 names of deceased mothers submitted by visitors.84 The statue’s builders were concerned that a specifi- cally Catholic shrine would limit the site.85 However, the chapel’s non- denominational nature has been cited as one reason Our Lady of the Rockies is not a recognized Catholic shrine or pilgrimage site.86 Still, websites such as The Catholic Travel Guide include Our Lady of the Rockies: “It is called a tribute to motherhood . . . we suppose to make it politically correct . . . but there is no doubt who it really represents.”87

On average, 10,000 people visit Our Lady every year, bringing their own perceptions and interpretations of the statue.88 To many non-residents, the statue is viewed with amusement or bafflement—a “what will they think of next” attitude, which has often defined Montana’s perception of the industrial city nestled among the state’s cattle ranches and National Parks. Critics call it gaudy, “Our Lady of the Tailings,” or “Darth Virgin.”89 Lee asserts, however, that she has strengthened the faith of Butte’s Catholic community, evidenced by higher Mass attendance and reports of miraculous healings.90 Her gaze on Butte reminds residents of their religious obligations, and her material presence invites devotion.

In 1986, mining operations reopened in Butte under a new owner: Mon- tana Resources. Although offering only a fraction of the previous jobs, many believed Our Lady of the Rockies was responsible for the seemingly miraculous turn of events. Frank Gardner, president of Montana Resources, says it was shortly after the statue was constructed that copper mining resumed in Butte,

83. Ingo Swann, The Great Apparitions of Mary: An Examination of Twenty-Two Supra- normal Appearances (New York: Crossroads Classics, 1996), 15. 84. Kassi Strong, “Our Lady of the Rockies,” Montana Connections, August 8, 2019, http://montanaconnectionspark.com/2019/08/08/our-lady-of-the-rockies/. 85. Kearney, Miracle on the East Ridge, 25. 86. United States Catholic Conference, Catholic Shrines and Places of Pilgrimage in the United States, Jubilee Edition (Washington, DC: Office of Pastoral Care of Migrants and Refugees, 1998). 87. “Butte, Montana: Our Lady of the Rockies,” The Catholic Travel Guide: Great Advice for Catholic Travelers, https://thecatholictravelguide.com/destinations/u-s-a/butte- montana-lady-rockies/. 88. Ciabattari, “The Fall and Rise of Butte.” 89. Ed Marston, “The Impact of Environmentalism,” in Reopening the Western Frontier (Washington, DC: Island Press, 1989), 217. 90. Lee, Our Lady Builds a Statue, 206. 42 U.S. Catholic Historian bringing 325 good-paying jobs. As Peter LaFave writes, “The fruits have been immeasurable. . . . Butte’s economy and spirits vastly improved during construction and the years immediately following.”91 As Lee claims, “We always said that the day the statue went up that the town would turn around.”92

Conclusion

Butte’s rise to industrial glory and the residents’ attempts to cope with the environmental scars left behind reflects the urban-industrial paradigm many Western U.S. towns now deal with as resources run out or new technologies replace human capital. Millions of tons of mine waste are scattered about the remaining Butte neighborhoods, children play near abandoned mines, and the water level in the 1,800-foot-deep Berkeley Pit rises ten feet per month.

Throughout Butte’s history, Catholicism influenced and mediated the relationship between practitioners, union platforms, and the company; Catholic leaders and parishioners offered solace and material support to those affected by strikes or displacement; and the Church structured communal life to offer a network of uplift, support, and hope. In a world where practitioners had to rely on environmental determinism and company politics for material survival and were constantly threatened by death or injury in the workplace, the Church offered meaning for the sufferings of this world. Catholicism helped shape communal solidarity in the face of corporate strug- gle and, as seen in the construction of Our Lady of the Rockies, was instrumental in many residents’ understanding of renewed prosperity.

Our Lady of the Rockies serves as a reminder that the industrial city, created and sustained by corporate capitalism, is not always devoid of the sacred, but can be guided by it. Influencing human actions and self-identities, the statue acts as a focal object for a network of history, industry, belief, and supernatural mediation. She stands for a complex and compelling history of urban Catholicism in the American West. As a visual technology above Butte, and through mutual acts of seeing, she enters into a didactic relationship with residents and visitors. She is not simply static or inert matter, but the visual representation of a shifting assemblage that imbues her with the power to influence her human spectators. Standing above the scars mining left behind, Our Lady of the Rockies offers to heal and directs onlooker’s attention toward an expansive world of history and devotion.

91. Peter LaFave, “Our Lady’s Miracle on the Mountain,” The Christian Review, May 29, 2015, http://www.thechristianreview.com/our-ladys-miracle-on-the-mountain/. 92. “Butte’s Rebirth Linked to Virgin Mary Statue,” Deseret News, December 10, 1995, http://www.deseretnews.com/article/455509/BUTTES-REBIRTH-LINKED-TO- VIRGIN-MARY-STATUE.html. U About This Issue

The assembled essays explore diverse meanings of supernatural experience—from mainstream devotion to the saints to the utilization of spiritu- ally-powerful religious objects or the contemporary intersection of faith and folk religion. These contributions indicate that supernatural experience is a complex and subjective, but powerful phenomenon.

Laura E. Masur is assistant professor of anthropology at the Catholic University of America, Washington, D.C. Sean Gordon Lewis is assistant professor of English at Mount St. Mary’s University in Emmitsburg, Mary- land. Annie Huey is a doctoral student in the Department of Religious Stud- ies at the University of Dayton in Dayton, Ohio. Brennan Keegan is the Ainsworth Visiting Scholar of American Culture in the Department of Reli- gious Studies at Randolph College in Lynchburg, Virginia. James Padilioni, Jr., is assistant professor of religion at Swarthmore College in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania.

—David J. Endres