The Faithful Departed: The Collapse of Boston's Catholic Culture | Philip F. Lawler

The Faithful Departed: The Collapse of Boston's Catholic Culture | Philip F. Lawler | Facts & Analysis on Target

books:

The Faithful Depar...

	The Faithful Departed: The Collapse of Boston's Catholic Culture Philip F. Lawler Encounter Books, 2008 - 280 pages average customer review:based on 17 reviews view larger image
	for more information click here

highly recommended

Faithful Departed traces the rise and fall of the Catholic Church in Boston, showing how the Massachusetts experience set a pattern that echoed throughout the United States as religious institutions lost influence in the face of rising secularization. The collapse of Catholicism in Boston became apparent with the explosion of the sex-abuse crisis. Lawler shows that the sex-abuse scandal was neither the cause nor the beginning of Catholicism's decline in Boston.

Thoughtful, well researched

Well written, well researched and carefully thought out book proposing the hypothesis that the sex abuse scandal in the Catholic Church was only the most visible manifestation of a general malaise in moral leadership among the hierarchy.
I would have liked footnotes to many of the assertions in the book.

for more information click here

Facts & Analysis on Target

Lawler uses the failings of the Boston Archdiocese not only recently but over its history as a platform to review the scandals besetting the Catholic Church in America that have been so much in the news.

He rejects the notion that the sex abuse scandal was a series of aberrations, but had at its root the unwillingness of bishops and priests to be faithful to Catholic dogmas and discipline. Outstanding analysis - and a critically important book for understanding not only the sex abuse scandal but also the contemporary situation of the Catholic Church in America today.

for more information click here

An Essential Book but only if you're Catholic

This book really exceeded my expectations. It was interesting, well written and had the best anecdotes- like the disappearance of the Cardinal's dog on the day of his death, fascinating. There is a blog discussing the book ([...]) and its current black listing by some/most religious bookstores.

If you are like me and like history but find most of it dead boring, you'll like this book because it is a way to learn history and be entertained at the same time.

Best of all it is hopeful.

Stinging truth

The author sees the basic problem clearly, the effort in Boston to "make it" by Catholics as if they constituted a sort of race rather than a religion. I think he errs in suiggesting that this atttude was universal in the USA.

for more information click here

fire the editor

The book was well written and the author's arguments were well developed. However, the editing (eg.,mistakes in tense and agreement) was shameful. To charge good money for such a sloppily produced product does not reflect well on the publishing house. If I were the author, I'd lodge a strong protest.

reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4

products you might be interested in