“I do not have any religious beliefs, but like the story about religion!Like 'Joan'!”
“Pope Joan has engaged the minds and talents of other authors -- Laurence Durrell for one. I tend to think that Pope Joan existed. Why else would the story be suppressed and called a hoax by the Catholic establishment. Maybe 'Joan' was a particularly feminine John, or similar. A similar figure, Hildegarde of Bingen, did have enormous power in the Church and though she was never Pope, she reported only to the Pope, not the regional Bishops. Did anyone else notice that the costume depicted on the cover of this book is about 5 centuries later. And the hair seems more Elizabethean than Dark Ages.”
“Anyone have any book suggestions about other "Joans" of that time?? i.e Joan of Arc???”
“Even if the story of Pope Joan is not true and simply a "cautionary tale" for the female population of that era, it is such a great story outlining the hardships of that time. A woman who actually was able to transend the muck and mire of poverty, living in a shack, having child after child, losing all of her teeth and dying at the age of thirty. What a wonderful tale instead of a woman who lived in a clean, scholarly environment able to indulge in the rare opportunity of education and expansion of her world. Perhaps she was even able to love whom she pleased but in the end paying the consequences of that time. I loved this book!! ”
“Did some quick research to see whether Pope Joan was real. Here's a link to an article I found from Primetime:http://abcnews.go.com/Primetime/Story?id=1453197&page=1”
“A lot of things have not changed in 1200 years: people in general still operate on repetitive behavior and are in general risistant to change and suspicious of any new ways of thinking; the poor settlement of rome has been replace with a multi-billion dollar global slum; the 'entitled' of the world have little more understanding on the implications of their behavior (i.e. carbon footprint) as the doctor's of joan's time did when 'curing' the sick....”
“one of the greatest catholic church controversies”
“seems like a really good book and am planning to read it”
