I don’t know about the author.
The Publishing house is still going great guns, IIRC.
I suspect this devotional is one of the top 3 for RC’s if not the top one but I haven’t been able to prove that, yet.
There’s lot of information about the Daughter’s of St. Paul on the internet. It does appear that they are still going in full force.
Someone there had to give approval for that to be published.
Nihil obstat: John G. Hogan, Diocesan Censor
Imprimatur: Richard Cardinal Cushing
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nihil_obstat
Nihil obstat (Latin for “nothing hinders” or “nothing stands in the way”)[1][2] is a declaration of no objection to an initiative or an appointment.
Apart from this general sense, the phrase is used more particularly to mean an “attestation by a church censor that a book contains nothing damaging to faith or morals”.[1] The Censor Librorum delegated by a bishop of the Catholic Church reviews the text in question, but the nihil obstat is not a certification that those granting it agree with the contents, opinions or statements expressed in the work; instead, it merely confirms “that it contains nothing contrary to faith or morals.”[1]
The nihil obstat is the first step in having a book published under Church auspices. If the author is a member of a religious institute and if the book is on questions of religion or morals, the book must also obtain the imprimi potest (”it can be printed”) of the major superior.[3] The final approval is given through the imprimatur (”let it be printed”) of the author’s bishop or of the bishop of the place of publication.[4]
I've never even heard of it until it showed up here. Some (a lot?) of the statements seem bizarre and I have no interest in defending it. In order to properly express my personal opinion on the content of a lot of devotional material I'd have to use language that would get this post deleted. My devotional practices tend more in the direction of the old Divine Office than to anything particularly Marian, I just don't have a Marian spirituality.
The Daughters of St. Paul publish a lot of stuff, most of the mainline Catholic publishing houses have churned out a lot of garbage over the last 40-50 years. Amazon doesn't even stock the Ferraro book and when I searched "rosary meditations" and sorted by bestselling it showed up at #50, it doesn't even seem to be available from Pauline Books.
I spent about an hour writing a post that I subsequently deleted because after all that time and effort I'd only made it through the first few items. I junked it because what we do believe is so likely to send people into orbit that I wonder what the point is. So many people are already convinced that we never actually mean what we say and are inclined to jump on the worst possible interpretation that I'm not sure it's worth the effort.
I will say I wouldn't waste my money on that book.
I’ve never seen it.