Priests And Politics

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A Matter of Discretion

Author : Brian R. Calfano
Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN 13 : 1442237252
Total Pages : 223 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (422 download)

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Book Synopsis A Matter of Discretion by : Brian R. Calfano

Download or read book A Matter of Discretion written by Brian R. Calfano and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2017-04-12 with total page 223 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Clergy are pillars of local religious communities, and Roman Catholic priests are perhaps the quintessential examples of pastors functioning as political elites. The political science literature demonstrates that priests (indeed, clergy more generally) are well-positioned to influence the faithful, even if this influence is somewhat inconsistent. At their core, priests are opinion leaders and representatives of their church to both the faithful and their local communities. But exactly how Catholic priests determine the political acts and attitudes associated with their elite role remains a puzzle. We suggest it is the product of an interactive institutional, social, and psychological milieu, the complexity of which has not been fully assessed in the extant literature. Though some might prefer to think of priests as profiles in courage operating above the political fray, the institutional and personal realities of priest life often forces them to deal with the political realm. In doing so, priests are variably responsive to different principals, or reference groups, that represent specific dimensions of their professional context. Drawing on a series of randomized experiments on samples of Roman Catholic priests in the US and Ireland, we find that priests cognitively draw on varying professional and personal cues in responding to their employer’s institutional preferences. Furthermore, how priests represent their church's political preferences to parishioners appears to be a matter of individual-level discretion.

Politics in the Parish

Author : Gregory Allen Smith
Publisher : Georgetown University Press
ISBN 13 : 1589013891
Total Pages : 273 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (89 download)

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Book Synopsis Politics in the Parish by : Gregory Allen Smith

Download or read book Politics in the Parish written by Gregory Allen Smith and published by Georgetown University Press. This book was released on 2008-03-29 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For well over a century the Catholic Church has articulated clear positions on many issues of public concern, particularly economics, capital punishment, foreign affairs, sexual morality, and abortion. Yet the fact that some of the Church's positions do not mesh well with the platforms of either of the two major political parties in the U.S. may make it difficult for Americans to look to Catholic doctrine for political guidance. Scholars of religion and politics have long recognized the potential for clergy to play an important role in shaping the voting decisions and political attitudes of their congregations, yet these assumptions of political influence have gone largely untested and undemonstrated. Politics in the Parish is the first empirical examination of the role Catholic clergy play in shaping the political views of their congregations. Gregory Allen Smith draws from recent scholarship on political communication, and the comprehensive Notre Dame Study of Parish Life, as well as case studies he conducted in nine parishes in the mid-Atlantic region, to investigate the extent to which and the circumstances under which Catholic priests are influential in shaping the politics of their parishioners. Smith is able to verify that clergy do exercise political influence, but he makes clear that such influence is likely to be nuanced, limited in magnitude, and exercised indirectly by shaping parishioner religious attitudes that in turn affect political behavior. He shows that the messages that priests deliver vary widely, even radically, from parish to parish and priest to priest. Consequently, he warns that scholars should exercise caution when making any global assumptions about the political influence that Catholic clergy affect upon their congregations.

Priests of the French Revolution

Author : Joseph F. Byrnes
Publisher : Penn State Press
ISBN 13 : 0271064900
Total Pages : 342 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (71 download)

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Book Synopsis Priests of the French Revolution by : Joseph F. Byrnes

Download or read book Priests of the French Revolution written by Joseph F. Byrnes and published by Penn State Press. This book was released on 2015-02-05 with total page 342 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The 115,000 priests on French territory in 1789 belonged to an evolving tradition of priesthood. The challenge of making sense of the Christian tradition can be formidable in any era, but this was especially true for those priests required at the very beginning of 1791 to take an oath of loyalty to the new government—and thereby accept the religious reforms promoted in a new Civil Constitution of the Clergy. More than half did so at the beginning, and those who were subsequently consecrated bishops became the new official hierarchy of France. In Priests of the French Revolution, Joseph Byrnes shows how these priests and bishops who embraced the Revolution creatively followed or destructively rejected traditional versions of priestly ministry. Their writings, public testimony, and recorded private confidences furnish the story of a national Catholic church. This is a history of the religious attitudes and psychological experiences underpinning the behavior of representative bishops and priests. Byrnes plays individual ideologies against group action, and religious teachings against political action, to produce a balanced story of saints and renegades within a Catholic tradition.

Priests and Politicians

Author : Osho
Publisher : Osho Media International
ISBN 13 : 0880500700
Total Pages : 192 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (85 download)

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Book Synopsis Priests and Politicians by : Osho

Download or read book Priests and Politicians written by Osho and published by Osho Media International. This book was released on 2016-10-11 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "For five thousand years the politician and the priest have been in the same business." In this provocative volume, Osho invites us to look through his microscope and examine not only the profound influence of religion and politics in society, but also its influence in our inner world. To the extent we have internalized and adopted as our own the values and belief systems of the “powers that be,” he says, we have boxed ourselves in, imprisoned ourselves, and tragically crippled our vision of what is possible. From Occupy Wall Street to the Arab Spring, from the election of the first Black president in the United States to the appointment of a new pope who promises to use St. Francis of Assisi as a role model (following endless scandals involving child abuse) the roles of priests and politicians in our public life have recently captured the attention of our times, often just initiating another round of hope and subsequent disillusionment. In other words, wittingly or unwittingly, we keep digging ourselves deeper into the mess we are in. A new kind of world is possible — but only if we understand clearly how the old has functioned up to now. And, based on that understanding, take the responsibility and the courage to become a new kind of human being. "You have to be aware who the real criminals are. The problem is that those criminals are thought to be great leaders, sages, saints, mahatmas. So I have to expose all these people because they are the causes. For example, it is easier to understand that perhaps politicians are the causes of many problems: wars, murders, massacres, burning people. It is more difficult when it comes to religious leaders, because nobody has raised his hand against them. They have remained respectable for centuries, and as time goes on their respectability goes on growing. The most difficult job for me is to make you aware that these people — knowingly or unknowingly, that does not matter — have created this world."

Priests of Our Democracy

Author : Marjorie Heins
Publisher : NYU Press
ISBN 13 : 0814790518
Total Pages : 384 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (147 download)

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Book Synopsis Priests of Our Democracy by : Marjorie Heins

Download or read book Priests of Our Democracy written by Marjorie Heins and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2013-02-04 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the early 1950s, New York City’s teachers and professors became the targets of massive investigations into their political beliefs and associations. Those who refused to cooperate in the questioning were fired. Some had undoubtedly been communists, and the Communist Party-USA certainly made its share of mistakes, but there was never evidence that the accused teachers had abused their trust. Some were among the most brilliant, popular, and dedicated educators in the city. Priests of Our Democracy tells of the teachers and professors who resisted the witch hunt, those who collaborated, and those whose battles led to landmark Supreme Court decisions. It traces the political fortunes of academic freedom beginning in the late 19th century, both on campus and in the courts. Combining political and legal history with wrenching personal stories, the book details how the anti-communist excesses of the 1950s inspired the Supreme Court to recognize the vital role of teachers and professors in American democracy. The crushing of dissent in the 1950s impoverished political discourse in ways that are still being felt, and First Amendment academic freedom, a product of that period, is in peril today. In compelling terms, this book shows why the issue should matter to every American.

Power of the Priests

Author : Sabine Kubisch
Publisher : Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN 13 : 311067632X
Total Pages : 330 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (16 download)

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Book Synopsis Power of the Priests by : Sabine Kubisch

Download or read book Power of the Priests written by Sabine Kubisch and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2023-12-31 with total page 330 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Religion plays a central role in nearly every aspect in people's life of most pre-modern cultures. Especially the interconnection between religion and politics is a common fact but the details of this relation and interacting processes behind this are not substantially studied. Therefore, this volume does not aim to confirm the linkage of religion and politics in general but to investigate its functionalities in political processes. A focus is placed on the political role of religious personnel beyond their religious and cultic tasks and their influence in pre-modern societies from a cross-cultural perspective. Specialists from various disciplines present their research based on case studies. Thereby this interdisciplinary volume covers a wide geographical and chronological range from ancient Egypt in the Bronze Age until medieval England. These papers are organised according to core functions questioning the instrumentalisation of religious personnel.

Freedom and the Fifth Commandment

Author : Brian Heffernan
Publisher : Manchester University Press
ISBN 13 : 1526117983
Total Pages : 225 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (261 download)

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Book Synopsis Freedom and the Fifth Commandment by : Brian Heffernan

Download or read book Freedom and the Fifth Commandment written by Brian Heffernan and published by Manchester University Press. This book was released on 2016-09-30 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The guerilla war waged between the IRA and the crown forces between 1919 and 1921 was a pivotal episode in the modern history of Ireland. This book addresses the War of Independence from a new perspective by focusing on the attitude of a powerful social elite: the Catholic clergy. The close relationship between Irish nationalism and Catholicism was put to the test when a pugnacious new republicanism emerged after the 1916 Easter rising. When the IRA and the crown forces became involved in a guerilla war between 1919 and 1921, priests had to define their position anew. Using a wealth of source material, much of it newly available, this book assesses the clergy’s response to political violence. It describes how the image of shared victimhood at the hands of the British helped to contain tensions between the clergy and the republican movement, and shows how the links between Catholicism and Irish nationalism were sustained.

Priests and Politicians

Author : Donald Crummey
Publisher : Tsehai Publishers
ISBN 13 : 9781599070216
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (72 download)

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Book Synopsis Priests and Politicians by : Donald Crummey

Download or read book Priests and Politicians written by Donald Crummey and published by Tsehai Publishers. This book was released on 2007 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The main thematic emphasis of this work is the central role of missionaries in the genesis of modern Afro-European relations and the apparent motives of Ethiopian leaders in dealing with representatives of an alien society.

The Art of Preaching

Author : Daniel Cardo
Publisher : CUA Press
ISBN 13 : 0813234735
Total Pages : 233 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (132 download)

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Book Synopsis The Art of Preaching by : Daniel Cardo

Download or read book The Art of Preaching written by Daniel Cardo and published by CUA Press. This book was released on 2021-08-27 with total page 233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The Art of Preaching: A Theological and Practical Primer explores the theological understanding of the homily, lessons from classical and contemporary rhetoric, the relevance of preaching for the life of the Church, highlighting recent teachings of the Magisterium, and it presents the incarnation as the foundation for preaching, understood as an essential aspect of the priestly life and mission. This primer offers a simple and effective method for the preparation and delivery of homilies. The book also provides a selection of homilies from the great preachers of the Church, organized chronologically, with brief introductions and commentaries that highlight what those homilies teach us for preaching today"--

Hitler's Priests

Author : Kevin Spicer
Publisher : Cornell University Press
ISBN 13 : 1609092422
Total Pages : 362 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (9 download)

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Book Synopsis Hitler's Priests by : Kevin Spicer

Download or read book Hitler's Priests written by Kevin Spicer and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2008-04-14 with total page 362 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Shaken by military defeat and economic depression after War World I, Germans sought to restore their nation's dignity and power. In this context the National Socialist Party, with its promise of a revivified Germany, drew supporters. Among the most zealous were a number of Catholic clergymen known as "brown priests" who volunteered as Nazi propagandists. In this insightful study, Spicer unearths a dark subchapter in Roman Catholic history, introduces the principal clergymen who participated in the Nazi movement, examines their motives, details their advocacy of National Socialism, and explores the consequences of their political activism. Some brown priests, particularly war veterans, advocated National Socialism because it appealed to their patriotic ardor. Others had less laudatory motives: disaffection with clerical life, conflicts with Church superiors, or ambition for personal power and fame. Whatever their individual motives, they employed their skills as orators, writers, and teachers to proclaim the message of Nazism. Especially during the early 1930s, when the Church forbade membership in the party, these clergymen strove to prove that Catholicism was compatible with National Socialism, thereby justifying their support of Nazi ideology. Father Dr. Philipp Haeuser, a scholar and pastor, went so far as to promote antisemitism while deifying Adolf Hitler. The Führer's antisemitism, Spicer argues, did not deter clergymen such as Haeuser because, although the Church officially rejected the Nazis' extreme racism, Catholic teachings tolerated hostility toward Jews by blaming them for Christ's crucifixion. While a handful of brown priests enjoyed the forbearance of their bishops, others endured reprimand or even dismissal; a few found new vocations with the Third Reich. After the fall of the Reich, the most visible brown priests faced trial for their part in the crimes of National Socialism, a movement they had once so earnestly supported. In addition to this intriguing history about clergymen trying to reconcile faith and politics, Spicer provides a master list—verified by extensive research in Church and government archives—of Catholic clergy who publicly supported National Socialism.

Priests of Prosperity

Author : Juliet Johnson
Publisher : Cornell University Press
ISBN 13 : 1501703757
Total Pages : 311 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (17 download)

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Book Synopsis Priests of Prosperity by : Juliet Johnson

Download or read book Priests of Prosperity written by Juliet Johnson and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2016-02-25 with total page 311 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Priests of Prosperity explores the unsung revolutionary campaign to transform postcommunist central banks from command-economy cash cows into Western-style monetary guardians. Juliet Johnson conducted more than 160 interviews in seventeen countries with central bankers, international assistance providers, policymakers, and private-sector finance professionals over the course of fifteen years. She argues that a powerful transnational central banking community concentrated in Western Europe and North America integrated postcommunist central bankers into its network, shaped their ideas about the role of central banks, and helped them develop modern tools of central banking. Johnson's detailed comparative studies of central bank development in Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Russia, and Kyrgyzstan take readers from the birth of the campaign in the late 1980s to the challenges faced by central bankers after the global financial crisis. As the comfortable certainties of the past collapse around them, today’s central bankers in the postcommunist world and beyond find themselves torn between allegiance to their transnational community and its principles on the one hand and their increasingly complex and politicized national roles on the other. Priests of Prosperity will appeal to a diverse audience of scholars in political science, finance, economics, geography, and sociology as well as to central bankers and other policymakers interested in the future of international finance, global governance, and economic development.

Unnatural Frenchmen

Author : E. Claire Cage
Publisher : University of Virginia Press
ISBN 13 : 0813937132
Total Pages : 248 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (139 download)

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Book Synopsis Unnatural Frenchmen by : E. Claire Cage

Download or read book Unnatural Frenchmen written by E. Claire Cage and published by University of Virginia Press. This book was released on 2015-07-01 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Enlightenment and revolutionary France, new and pressing arguments emerged in the long debate over clerical celibacy. Appeals for the abolition of celibacy were couched primarily in the language of nature, social utility, and the patrie. The attack only intensified after the legalization of priestly marriage during the Revolution, as marriage and procreation were considered patriotic duties. Some radical revolutionaries who saw celibacy as a crime against nature and the nation aggressively promoted clerical marriage by threatening unmarried priests with deportation, imprisonment, and even death. After the Revolution, political and religious authorities responded to the vexing problem of reconciling the existence of several thousand married French priests with the formal reestablishment of Roman Catholicism and clerical celibacy. Unnatural Frenchmen examines how this extremely divisive issue shaped religious politics, the lived experience of French clerics, and gendered citizenship. Drawing on a wide base of printed and archival material, including thousands of letters that married priests wrote to the pope, historian Claire Cage highlights individual as well as ideological struggles. Unnatural Frenchmen provides important insights into how conflicts over priestly celibacy and marriage have shaped the relationship between sexuality, religion, and politics from the age of Enlightenment to today, while simultaneously revealing the story of priestly marriage to be an inherently personal and deeply human one.

Priests and Politics

Author : Trevor Beeson
Publisher : SCM Press
ISBN 13 : 0334046572
Total Pages : 228 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (34 download)

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Book Synopsis Priests and Politics by : Trevor Beeson

Download or read book Priests and Politics written by Trevor Beeson and published by SCM Press. This book was released on 2013-09-30 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since Christianity is an ethical as well as a mystical religion and since individuals live in communities, the church is bound to be involved in politics and other social action that determines the quality of human life. So argues Trevor Beeson in this study of how the Church of Englands leaders responded to the radical social changes that transformed life in Britain during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Their response was never prompt and rarely enthusiastic,and all too often the bishops resisted change in society as well as in the church. Nonetheless there were always a few prophets who recognised the need for reform and sometimes led the way to its realisation. Trevor Beeson traces the course of a fascinating period of history, starting from the time when church and state were bonded in an all-embracing unity, then moving through turbulent and and sometimes violent times in which the church struggled to discover a new vocation. Trevor Beeson analyses 18 key issues of the period in his usual robust style together with pen-portraits of the leading figures involved.. He ends with a critical evalualtion of the performances of some recent church leaders and outlines what he believes to be the appropriate basis for the intervention of bishops and other clergy in an increasingly secularised society that no longer recognises their authority. The duty to make pronouncements of Christian principle remains but these must normally point decision-makers in constructive directions rather than offering directives for the solutions of complex social and economic problems.

Prophets, Priests and Politics

Author : Stephen Disraeli
Publisher : Austin Macauley Publishers
ISBN 13 : 1035842890
Total Pages : 265 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (358 download)

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Book Synopsis Prophets, Priests and Politics by : Stephen Disraeli

Download or read book Prophets, Priests and Politics written by Stephen Disraeli and published by Austin Macauley Publishers. This book was released on 2024-03-28 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The prophets of the Old Testament were speaking, in the first instance, to the people of their own time. This means that we need to locate the prophets in the history of their own time, in order to understand them in the first instance. I propose to survey Israel’s history mainly in terms of the work and role of the prophets, from Moses to Malachi. Of course, they were interacting with the temple priesthood and with the disciples of Machiavelli, who cannot be left out of the story. God himself is in the background of this history, pursuing his purposes through these events and making his will known, which brings us back to the prophets. I’ve been a student of history since I was nine years old, a simple transition from an interest in maps. My mind itches, instinctively, to arrange things in chronological order. In fact, I was trying to synchronise the kings and prophets, for my own interest, while I was still at school. However, this will not be an academic work. My chief source of information will be the Old Testament itself. The story is told from a Christian viewpoint, or even a Protestant viewpoint, as will be evident from time to time. Yet faith will not be over-powering the critical spirit. The charioteer will be running these two horses as a team.

A Progressive Voice in the Catholic Church in the United States

Author : Arthur J. McDonald
Publisher : Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN 13 : 1532691475
Total Pages : 222 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (326 download)

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Book Synopsis A Progressive Voice in the Catholic Church in the United States by : Arthur J. McDonald

Download or read book A Progressive Voice in the Catholic Church in the United States written by Arthur J. McDonald and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2019-10-29 with total page 222 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the summer of 1966, one year after the conclusion of the Second Vatican Council, a group of nineteen Roman Catholic priests met clandestinely in a church hall in a suburb of Pittsburgh to discuss forming an independent group of ordained clergy. Fearful that meeting publicly might be viewed as a threat to the authority of the local bishop, thus potentially risking sanctioning from him, they used numbers, not names, when circulating the minutes of the first two meetings. Once the word spread among the local clergy that such a group was meeting, and they realized there was widespread interest, they went public and invited all of Pittsburgh’s Catholic clergy, including the bishop, to their third meeting. They chose a name, the Association of Pittsburgh Priests (APP), and the group was launched. Shortly after forming, and with interest from among over two-hundred clergy, APP began advocating for major church renewal and involvement in any number of social justice issues. Regarding church renewal, they grounded themselves in the documents of Vatican II, most especially Gaudium et Spes, Church in the Modern World, and soon lobbied for optional celibacy and married priesthood, women’s ordination, lay empowerment, including the promotion of the early church notion of the priesthood and prophethood of all believers. To this day, APP remains a force for change in the church and in society, ever true to its initial intuition to fully implement the renewal of church and society called for by the bishops at Vatican II.

Priests and Politics

Author : Trevor Beeson
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9780334052760
Total Pages : 228 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (527 download)

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Book Synopsis Priests and Politics by : Trevor Beeson

Download or read book Priests and Politics written by Trevor Beeson and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Priests, Prelates and Politics offers the general reader an account of how the Church of England responded to the most important social and political issues of the twentieth century. After an introductory chapter outlining the Christian foundations of social and political action, the author rebuffs robustly the frequently made assertion that the church should not intervene in these issues but concentrate exclusively on the salvation of individual souls. Following the pattern of his previous books, he then offers brief lives of the churchs chief spokesmen on particular subjects, together with the contributions of others, vivid accounts of the public controversies these usually created and assessments of their influence on attitudes and events. The book concludes with reflections on the likelihood of the church gaining as much attention during the present century and how its influence may best be exerted in a still turbulent and increasingly secularised nation. -- Publisher.

The Truth at the Heart of the Lie

Author : James Carroll
Publisher : Random House
ISBN 13 : 0593134729
Total Pages : 385 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (931 download)

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Book Synopsis The Truth at the Heart of the Lie by : James Carroll

Download or read book The Truth at the Heart of the Lie written by James Carroll and published by Random House. This book was released on 2021-03-23 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Courageous and inspiring.”—Karen Armstrong, author of The Case for God “James Carroll takes us to the heart of one of the great crises of our times.”—Stephen Greenblatt, author of The Swerve An eloquent memoir by a former priest and National Book Award–winning writer who traces the roots of the Catholic sexual abuse scandal back to the power structure of the Church itself, as he explores his own crisis of faith and journey to renewal NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY PUBLISHERS WEEKLY James Carroll weaves together the story of his quest to understand his personal beliefs and his relationship to the Catholic Church with the history of the Church itself. From his first awakening of faith as a boy to his gradual disillusionment as a Catholic, Carroll offers a razor-sharp examination both of himself and of how the Church became an institution that places power and dominance over people through an all-male clergy. Carroll argues that a male-supremacist clericalism is both the root cause and the ongoing enabler of the sexual abuse crisis. The power structure of clericalism poses an existential threat to the Church and compromises the ability of even a progressive pope like Pope Francis to advance change in an institution accountable only to itself. Carroll traces this dilemma back to the Roman Empire and the Middle Ages, when Scripture, Jesus Christ, and His teachings were reinterpreted as the Church became an empire. In a deeply personal re-examination of self, Carroll grapples with his own feelings of being chosen, his experiences as a priest, and the moments of doubt that made him leave the priesthood and embark on a long personal journey toward renewal—including his tenure as an op-ed columnist at The Boston Globe writing about sexual abuse in the Church. Ultimately, Carroll calls on the Church and all reform-minded Catholics to revive the culture from within by embracing anti-clerical, anti-misogynist resistance and staying grounded in the spirit of love that is the essential truth at the heart of Christian belief and Christian life.