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Religion in action: How Marian apparitions may become true

Publication |
2022

Abstract

According to Latour, religion and science have nothing in common. The two are successful (or failing) in quite different ways.

Religiousness is not aimed at fact-making, but at presence-making, he says. To critically reconsider these ideas, I discuss the case study of Marian apparitions in Litmanová.

The study suggests a more complicated picture by not focusing on pure and ready-made religion, but rather on religion in the making, a kind of "almost-religion." It shows how the reality of apparitions, initially of quite unclear status, was becoming more and more religious. Fact-making and fact-checking clearly belonged to this trajectory and have never stopped being relevant.

Nonethless, together with how the apparition was progressively becoming truly religious (or religiously true), Latourian presence-making was gaining in importance.