Books - For Your Review

Because of the spate of books generated by the ongoing crisis in our Church, a few VOTFers have compiled a short list of books many have read and recommend. As Jim Post says, these are the worst and best of times in at least one respect. "The crisis has created an interest among publishers in the ideas of Catholic scholars, journalists, and learned persons. The result has been a score of new and soon to be published books that illuminate the causes and consequences of the crisis. The analyses by theologians, church historians, sociologists, psychologists, and experts in religion are shedding light on some of the great questions raised by this scandal."

We invite readers to submit reviews of these books and/or others you find helpful and relevant to the achievement of VOTF goals. Send your comments to Peggie Thorp at leaderpub@votf.org.

• Tom Beaudoin (visiting assistant professor of theology at Boston College), Consuming Faith: Integrating Who We Are With What We Buy. While you're at it, read Tom's 10/31 NCR essay "What young theologians owe their elders."

• Peter Steinfels, A People Adrift. Steinfels finds much that called for attention even before the current crisis. The New York Times Religion correspondent considers a broad spectrum of concerns including parish worship, religious education, doctrinal development, Catholic identity and higher education.

• Donald Cozzens, Sacred Silence - see July 2203 issue In the Vineyard

• David Gibson, The Coming Catholic Church: How the Faithful Are Shaping a New American Catholicism. Gibson brings his award-winning religion writing to the task of examining a Church at a crossroad. His CNN documentaries on the Church as well as his years with Vatican Radio in Rome offer readers a unique and thought-provoking perspective.

• John McGreevy, Catholicism and American Freedom - A History. McGreevy is the John A. O'Brien Associate Professor of History at the University of Notre Dame, Indiana. His examination of the role of Catholicism in America's political and intellectual development will be news to many, invaluable to most and worthwhile to all.

• Eugene Kennedy, The Unhealed Wound. A psychologist and former priest and an award-winning author of several books and a column for the Religious News Service, distributed by the New York Times syndicate, Kennedy addresses one of the oldest and greatest stresses of Roman Catholicism: human sexuality. He studies the awkward reconciliation Catholics are supposed to effect between their sexuality and their spirituality. Kennedy suggests that both are to be celebrated. He lives with his wife in Chicago, Illinois, and Naples, Florida.

• Paul Lakeland, The Liberation of the Laity - see July 2003 issue In the Vineyard

• Alan Wolfe, The Transformation of American Religion: How We Actually Live Our Faith. Wolfe is professor of political science and Director of the Boisi Center for Religion and American Public Life at Boston College. His book takes a broad and illuminating look at the larger question of American culture and religion.

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