Practicing Catholic
A clear-eyed and personal examination of the Catholic faith, its leaders, and its complicated history by National Book Award–winner James Carroll\ James Carroll turns to the notion of practice—both as a way to learn and a means of improvement—as a lens for this thoughtful and frank look at what it means to be Catholic. He acknowledges the slow and steady transformation of the Church from its darker, medieval roots to a more pluralist and inclusive institution, charting along the way stories...
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At a time when millions of Catholics are questioning the deepest aspects of their faith, James Carroll delivers a tour de force, a searching book about what it means to be a Catholic today. Brilliantly wresting meaning from the historical, social, and religious strands of his personal story, Carroll delivers a loving critique of the Church and offers an incisive vision for renewal. He vividly brings to life the people and events that have shaped American Catholicism—from JFK and Cardinal Richard Cushing to the Second Vatican Council and the ascendancy of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger to the papacy. Catholics and lapsed Catholics alike will recognize their own stories in Carroll’s reflections on his religious upbringing and his journey to discover a new Catholic identity. Practicing Catholic creates space for the millions of practicing, questioning, or doubting Catholics who are looking for a way to reconcile the acts of Church leaders with the faith and the Church they still want to claim as their own. Publishers Weekly Carroll, a former Catholic priest who wrote of his conflict with his father over the Vietnam War in An American Requiem, revisits and expands on that tension in this spiritual memoir infused with church history. Here, Carroll traces his life as a son of the Catholic Church, showing how he and the church changed as he moved from boyhood into adulthood. Ordained a priest in 1968, the year Humanae Vitae, the controversial encyclical on contraception, was released, Carroll discovered by 1974 that he could no longer keep his vow of obedience if it meant heeding teachings with which he disagreed. Leaving the priesthood freed him to pursue more fully his life as a writer, but also to be the kind of Catholic he believes the reformers of his church envisioned in the Second Vatican Council of 1962-1965. Although he laments what he calls the more recent "conservative reaction" to the council, he remains Catholic. Readers who, like Carroll, remain Catholic but wrestle with their church's positions on moral issues will most appreciate his story. (Apr.)Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Introduction: Practicing Catholic 11 Born Catholic 111 Past, Present, Future 112 De Profundis 163 Jimmy Marching 234 Growing Up with Jesus 255 In God Who Is Not There 282 The God of My Youth 341 The Perfect Society 342 Martyr of Conscience 383 No Salvation Outside the Church 434 Infallibility 465 Americanism 526 Isaac Hecker and the Paulists 583 Coming of Age 651 Richard Cushing 652 Leonard Feeney, S.J. 693 Experience over Doctrine 774 John Courtney Murray, S.J. 845 Catholic Camelot 884 The Council 961 Pope John XXIII 962 Entering the Novitiate 1003 Reform and Reunion 1074 The Cuban Missile Crisis 1135 Nostra Aetate: Jesus, a Jew 1166 Religious Liberty 1207 Thomas Merton and Peace 1228 The Death of John F. Kennedy 1255 A New Language 1271 End of Latin 1272 The Bible Told Them So 1313 Copernicus, Galileo, and Darwin 1334 Learning to Read 1395 The Mary Code 1446 The Gospel of Women 1547 Faith of the Fathers 1586 Sex and Power 1621 Unnatural Law 1622 Personally Opposed 1673 Celibacy as Control 1704 Women's Liberation 1725 1968: Howl 1756 Catholic Radical 1817 Martin and Bobby 1858 Humanae Vitae 1887 Thou Art a Priest 1911 A Monk in Love 1912 William Sloane Coffin, Jr. 1963 Public Sinner 2024 The End of the Beginning 2035 Catholic Chaplain 2056 Conscientious Objectors 2117 Cardinal Cushing's Last Hurrah 2178 The Scandal 2201 How I Loved It 2202 This Father Carroll 2233 Paul Shanley and His Protectors 2274 The Basilica of Denial 2335 The Church on Fire 2366 Three Reasons 2387 Hans Küng vs. John Paul II 2408 Ratzinger and Galileo 2469 Religion and Terror 2501 Crusade and Jihad 2502 Catholic Fundamentalism 2533 Member of the Laity 2574 A German Pope 2595 The Negotiation of Values 2666 The West Against the Rest 2687 Monotheism, Violence of 2768 Peace Among the Religions 2809 "Catastrophe" Means "Turning Point" 28310 A Writer's Faith 2871 Bad Catholic 2872 Allen Tate 2903 Death Is the Opening 3004 Language Is God 3025 The Meaning of Meaning 3086 A Second Naïveté 3127 The Catholic Imagination 3168 Far Surpassing Human Hopes 320A Twentieth-Century American Catholic Chronology 323Acknowledgments 328Notes 330Index 361
\ Publishers WeeklyCarroll, a former Catholic priest who wrote of his conflict with his father over the Vietnam War in An American Requiem, revisits and expands on that tension in this spiritual memoir infused with church history. Here, Carroll traces his life as a son of the Catholic Church, showing how he and the church changed as he moved from boyhood into adulthood. Ordained a priest in 1968, the year Humanae Vitae, the controversial encyclical on contraception, was released, Carroll discovered by 1974 that he could no longer keep his vow of obedience if it meant heeding teachings with which he disagreed. Leaving the priesthood freed him to pursue more fully his life as a writer, but also to be the kind of Catholic he believes the reformers of his church envisioned in the Second Vatican Council of 1962-1965. Although he laments what he calls the more recent "conservative reaction" to the council, he remains Catholic. Readers who, like Carroll, remain Catholic but wrestle with their church's positions on moral issues will most appreciate his story. (Apr.)\ Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.\ \ \ \ \ Library JournalThis book is both a memoir of former priest and writer Carroll's life and a keen analysis of American Catholicism in the late 20th century. Carroll's An American Requiem: God, My Father, and the War That Came Between Us won the National Book Award, and his Constantine's Sword: The Church and the Jews-A History was an acclaimed best seller. Practicing Catholic takes readers through the liberating experience of Vatican II and finishes off with the more restricting trends of current Catholic fundamentalism. Carroll convincingly shows the church's ebbs and flows and parallels them with the era's cultural, political, and economic trends. While Carroll is critical of church leadership and its policies on many fronts, he remains faithful to the core fundamentals of gospel truth. His book is actually a loving critique of a very human institution that is both in need of salvation and simultaneously an agent of grace. Brilliant prose, historically insightful, and sincere passion remain hallmarks of the author's work. The book includes an "American Catholic Chronology" and notes. Recommended for all libraries.\ —John-Leonard Berg\ \ \ \ Kirkus ReviewsEngrossing faith memoir mirrors the changing face of American Catholicism. Novelist and former priest Carroll (House of War: The Pentagon and the Disastrous Rise of American Power, 2006, etc.) sets out to understand and explain the state of Catholicism from the 1940s to the present, using his personal story as a nexus. In his view, the latter half of the 20th century was marked by this revelation: "Catholics came to understand that they themselves-not their priests, bishops, and pope-are the Church." Many would question that assessment, or at least state that it is not a global truth, but the author makes a good case that the "unchanging" Roman Catholic Church can and does change through the sheer will of its adherents. He begins by sharing childhood memories of growing up an Irish-American Catholic in the '40s and '50s, a time when Mass was celebrated in Latin, Catholics and Protestants rarely mixed and the people in the pews had no power or say. Carroll interrupted his undergraduate career at Georgetown to join an overtly American order of priests, the Paulist Fathers. His years at seminary and as a priest coincided with the Second Vatican Council and with one of America's most turbulent periods, a parallel history that the author traces with powerful effect. Becoming personally disenchanted with church teachings on celibacy, contraception, etc., Carroll left the priesthood in 1974. His account of the following decades focuses on the controversial social and religious stances of Pope John Paul II and Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI), as well as the reaction to their policies by Carroll and other lay people. The author's prose is occasionally too weighty-"Kennedy'speroration was my conscription," "implicit contract of coresponsibility"-but overall the book is a page-turner and offers controversial insights on modern American Catholicism. A captivating look at the Church and a call for change from within its numbers. Author tour to New York, Boston, Washington, D.C., Chicago, Milwaukee\ \
