The Courage To Be Catholic Crisis, Reform And The Future Of The Church

by Weigel, George

• ISBN13: 9780465092611
• ISBN10: 0465092616
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2004-03-03
• Publisher: Basic Books

Summary

When sexual scandals rocked the American Catholic Church, many observers and faithful alike called on the church to abandon its tenets on the vocation of the priesthood and sexuality outside marriage-to, in effect, become more Protestant. Acclaimed theologian and best-selling author George Weigel saw the crisis differently: as a crisis of fidelity to the true essence of Catholicism. In this well-reviewed book that touched a chord with so many practicing Catholics, Weigel examines the scandal in the context of church history, and exposes the patterns of dissent and self-deception that became entrenched in seminaries, among priests, and ultimately among the bishops who failed their flock by thinking like managers instead of apostles.But, Weigel reminds us, in the Biblical world a "crisis" is also a time of great opportunity, an invitation to deeper faith. With honesty and critical rigor, Weigel sets forth an agenda for genuine reform that challenges clergy and laity alike to lead more integrally Catholic lives. More than just a response to recent failures, The Courage to Be Catholic is a bracing, forward-looking call to action, and a passionate embrace of life lived in faith.

Author Biography

George Weigel, a Roman Catholic theologian and one of America's leading commentators on religion and public life, is the author of the acclaimed The Courage to Be Catholic, the international bestseller,Witness to Hope: The Biography of John Paul II, and numerous other books that include The Truth of Catholicism and The Final Revolution. Now a Senior Fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C., where he holds the John M. Olin Chair in Religion and American Democracy, Weigel writes a weekly column, "The Catholic Difference," that is syndicated to more than forty newspapers around the United States. He is an NBC consultant on the Vatican and appears regularly on network and cable television programs as well as national and local radio. Weigel lives with his wife and their three children in North Bethesda, Maryland.

Table of Contents

Introduction	p. 1
What the Crisis Is	p. 9
What the Crisis Is Not	p. 35
How the Crisis Happened	p. 57
Why Bishops Failed	p. 87
Rome and the Crisis	p. 117
Agenda for Reform - Seminaries and Novitiates	p. 147
Agenda for Reform - The Priesthood	p. 173
Agenda for Reform - The Bishops and the Vatican	p. 197
From Crisis to Reform	p. 219
Afterword to Paperback Edition	p. 233
Acknowledgments	p. 247
Index	p. 251
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