As someone brought up in the Catholic tradition and as someone who has spent time in India, I found this book offensive and insincere. The position of women in Christianity and in particular Catholicism is nothing to write home about: everything from the wholesale burning of women as witches in medieval Europe and America to the notion that women do not have souls and are therefore not equal to men, have persistently emphasised the second-class position of women in Christian theo-politics. The extreme patriachal nature of Christianity is not in doubt. What I have observed in my time in India is that there are undoubted prejudices against women there too, but on a theological basis, their female deities are far more equal. Catholics have attempted to create Madonna cults in India, just as they have successful done via Lourdes and Guadaloupe in Europe and Latin America. However, this is mostly a conversion tactic. There is no comparison between the status of goddesses in India (high) and of Mary in Christian tradition (dubious); therefore this book is an attempt to cynically use the relatively good theological treatment of females in India and argue that therefore women are well-treated in Christianity as well.

It is extraordinary that a Theology Professor should be talking politics. The book's dedication proclaims: "to women everywhere who have been silenced, ignored, denied their rightful place and voice..." How benign! I recommend that Clooney teach geopolitics in Harvard Divinity School instead of wasting time on Mary and those 'goddesses' with two d's. It looks as though the learned professor is trying to define a new discipline called Comparative Theology without understanding either comparison or theology. It is a pity that trash gets dished out as scholarship from Harvard. Woe unto Harvard which has fallen to such depths.