A Church in Search of Itself
Benedict XVI and the Battle for the Future
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- $10.99
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- $10.99
Publisher Description
A deeply informed look at the intensifying struggle over the future of the Catholic Church.
Robert Blair Kaiser examines the most important and divisive issues confronting the Church: the sex abuse scandal, a shortage of priests due to the insistence upon celibacy, the ban on contraception, the roles of women in the Church, the increased participation of laypeople in Church affairs. He gives us an in-depth and behind-the-scenes view of six of the cardinals who gathered in Rome in April 2005 to choose a new pope and through them makes clear why Catholics worldwide are increasingly leaving the Church or defying Church doctrine. With passion and heartfelt concern, Robert Blair Kaiser brilliantly illuminates the issues and the combatants in the battle for the soul of the Catholic world.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The Second Vatican Council initiated a revolution from which the Catholic Church is still reeling. This is the message that Kaiser, a former Jesuit who covered the most recent papal election for Newsweek, enunciates in this proficient book. Kaiser interviewed an eclectic mix of church hierarchy and Catholic laity working for grassroots change around the world. These profiles, set within the context of the latest papal election, accentuate the discord between those in the church who want change and those who prefer tradition. Kaiser's narrative illustrates that the Catholic Church, once entrenched in an old-world European style, is being flavored with cultural influences from around the globe. He highlights cardinals from Honduras, Nigeria and Indonesia, all of whom approach ecclesiastical authority, and their own exercise of it, very differently. Kaiser is not afraid to argue for change within the structures of the church, astutely noting that "because the Church was human, it was always in need of reform." Kaiser is a master of the Catholic world.. Those interested in the future of the Catholic Church would do well to pay careful attention to Kaiser's work.
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