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Peggy Stanton’s richly illustrated guide invites readers on a state-by-state pilgrimage to churches, shrines and holy sites that tell the story of Catholicism in America

The United “Saints” of America has arrived at the perfect time — it’s a travel book for Catholics to celebrate the 250th anniversary of our country, chronicling from the time when Catholics had to live in the shadows to becoming the largest single Christian body in the United States. Offering an “armchair tour,” the book hints at how the Church has grown not just in population but also in the numbers of shrines and religious sites.

This book is beautifully done and loaded with gorgeous pictures throughout to help readers “visit” these blessed stops in all 50 states. Some may be familiar, but many are not.

Author Peggy Stanton is well-versed to guide this Americana pilgrimage. She is the author of From the White House to the White Cross: Confessions of a TV News Correspondent, among other works. She was ABC TV’s first female news correspondent in Washington and has traveled the world with her husband, U.S. Rep. Bill Stanton, R-Ohio, and converted from “a cultural Catholic to a committed Catholic” after a trip to Medjugorje.

The book is not just a tour from shrine to shrine and church to church. There’s no rigorous travel-agency schedule inside. This is a tour that brings the faith to life — enlightening the eye and the mind. And the soul.

“The distinctiveness of Peggy Stanton’s book is that she seeks to let our travel nourish our souls, too. Her recommendations are not for tourism but for faith-nourishing pilgrimages to the Catholic shrines found in each of the 50 states,” writes Father Mitch Pacwa, host of EWTN Live, in his foreword. “At the outset she reminds us American Catholics that our national Patroness is the Blessed Virgin Mary under her title of the Immaculate Conception. … That refocus on the Blessed Virgin as our national Patroness sets the stage for understanding the wide variety of shrines dedicated to the Blessed Mother throughout each of the states.”

“In addition,” he adds, “she points out the Catholic history of the United States by describing and recommending the many shrines of the growing number of canonized and beatified Americans, both natives to our land and naturalized citizens.”

Stanton takes readers through the states alphabetically, from Alabama to Wyoming, with the District of Columbia as a coda.

She begins by setting the tone: “Since our nation’s founding, Mary has been a very popular lady in the country.”