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Title: The Coming Catholic Church : How the Faithful Are Shaping a New American Catholicism by David Gibson ISBN: 0-06-053070-7 Publisher: Harper SanFrancisco Pub. Date: 01 July, 2003 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $23.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.22 (9 reviews)
Rating: 1
Summary: from a convert
Comment: I am a convert from Protestantism, where my father was a minister, and I cannot tell you how poorly the various Protestant sects have fared in having what is essentially a POLITICAL philosophy, democracy, destroy what unity was left among them over the course of the last century. Luther himself was said to have muttered, late in life, "I set out to bring down one pope and created a hundred popes..."--and this is the onus of "the Protesters", to continue to split exponentially as each dissenting panjandrum reserves the right to interpret Scripture as he or she wishes, regardless of the wishes of Christ as expressed in John 17:20-6.
David Gibson, on the other hand, would have you believe that The Church is too top-heavy a kingdom, even if this is exactly what Jesus Himself described it as--A KINGDOM, not a democracy, and as every school child knows, a KINGDOM has a hierarchy: Christ's Vicar atop, laity at the base. But, oh, how this grates on our very American sensibilities! Nevertheless, do we not stop to consider that the hierarchy are nothing more than LAITY ORDAINED? That the pope himself doesn't come from some elitist aristocracy, but was an orphan and a common student-seminarian like so many of us? Why do we hold authority figures in general in such disdain? To whom did so many turn to whenever the recent scandals broke for answers, for solutions, for redress? Why, the very authority figures they--and this author--hold in contempt, of course! In short, AUTHORITY IS GOOD--any honest parent, teacher, judge, soldier, officer of the law, or any other person would tell you so: and The Church, top-to-bottom, is, spiritually speaking, all of those things. American Catholics should see her for what she is or follow the footsteps of so many found in the footnotes of history--LEAVE the orthodox to worship in peace in THE community of believers Christ Himself founded some twenty centuries ago.
Besides, Gibson betrays his ethnocentrism by the very cover he's chosen for his book, the two flags flanking his prophetic title, as if--as one astute reviewer observed already--the AMERICAN Catholic Church isn't but a fraction of the gargantuan whole, and let's face it: the LEAST observant, the LEAST "catholic" (as in universal) fraction of the whole it is. I would not trade an iota of The Church's authority and autonomy--painfully won through centuries of struggle with emperors and kings and schismatics of old--for a more "democratic" church for all the world, for you can gain the world, dissenters, and still lose your soul.
Rating: 4
Summary: Informative and Provocative
Comment: Gibson, a journalist who covered the Vatican and then converted to Catholicism, offers a rare perspective on the American Catholic Church--one that is at times quite moving. Although the sexual scandal is nominally the focal point of the book, Gibson sees all of its horrors as a symptom of a deeper problem; namely, a Church whose fixation on the structure and form of worship blinds it to the human problems caused by that structure. He examines these human problems and possible solutions as seen from three perspectives: the laity, the priesthood, and the hierarchy. He neatly lays out Church history to show how it has shaped current happenings and conditions. His book is well researched, clearly written, and generally balanced. He is not, however, impartial. He lays most of the blame for the sexual scandal on the American bishops and Vatican Curia, seeing these bodies as arrogant, cut off from the "real world", and protective of their power based in part on centuries-old relationships with priests and the laity that have become dehumanizing and ultimately, unsustainable. As one might expect from an American journalist, Gibson believes the solution is less emphasis on structure, less unquestioned central authority, and more involvement from the laity in Church affairs. As he describes the heartrending experiences of various lay members and priests who have been victimized and ignored by "the system", one begins to feel that Gibson has a point.
Rating: 3
Summary: good, not great.
Comment: Gibson's writing is direct, if almost painfully colloquial at times. His incessant insertion of quips and jokes can lighten the tone but also distract readers from the gravity of the discussion at hand.
His consideration of the three camps in the Church is accurate thought not incredibly balance. The laity, for all their relative powerlessness seem to take an inordinate weight in the text.
The concerns expressed by the reader from Indianapolis are pointed out in the text; in fact the church, especially in Africa, is experiencing clergy power abuses of a different sort which can be solved by a similar system of decentralization of power away from the Vatican.
The need for a stronger, though not necessarily heavier-handed, church leadership at all levels is evident. The solidarity of the priests and bishops and the remoteness of the laity can only be remedied by a resolution among all three factions to move beyond this scandal and to enter a relationship where the respect for all three parties is restored. This final conclusion is brought out only in the very end of Gibson's book.
In all, Gibson provides a well informed, though poorly documented, examination of the paths that have lead all three camps of Catholics to the current impasse and examines possible routes for all of them. His conclusion is optimistic and exhortative, that "the adventure of Catholicism is beginning anew".
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Title: A People Adrift : The Crisis of the Roman Catholic Church in America by Peter Steinfels ISBN: 0684836637 Publisher: Simon & Schuster Pub. Date: 05 August, 2003 List Price(USD): $26.00 |
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Title: The Liberation of the Laity: In Search of an Accountable Church by Paul Lakeland ISBN: 0826414834 Publisher: Continuum Pub Group Pub. Date: May, 2003 List Price(USD): $28.95 |
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Title: Vows of Silence : The Abuse of Power in the Papacy of John Paul II by Jason Berry, Gerald Renner ISBN: 0743244419 Publisher: Free Press Pub. Date: 04 March, 2004 List Price(USD): $26.00 |
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Title: Our Fathers : The Secret Life of the Catholic Church in an Age of Scandal by DAVID FRANCE ISBN: 0767914309 Publisher: Broadway Pub. Date: 20 January, 2004 List Price(USD): $26.95 |
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Title: Catholicism and American Freedom: A History by John T. McGreevy ISBN: 0393047601 Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company Pub. Date: May, 2003 List Price(USD): $26.95 |
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