NCR Book Club

Author seeks snapshot of modern Catholics in parishioners’ resistance to closings

NO CLOSURE: CATHOLIC PRACTICE AND BOSTON’S PARISH SHUTDOWNS
By John C. Seitz
Published by Harvard University Press, $39.95

In 2004, two years after Boston archdiocese Catholics were rocked by the clerical sexual abuse revelation and the hierarchy’s cover-up, they were told more than 80 parishes would need to merge or close. The reasons included changing demographics, financially unstable parishes, and some churches in disrepair. Though the majority of the 28,000 affected Catholics quietly moved to their assigned “receiving” parishes or found other spiritual homes, some chose not to obey the archdiocese’s closure decrees. Resisters in nine parishes took physical custody of their beloved churches and began an occupation that would continue, in some cases, until today.

WOMEN DEACONS: PAST, PRESENT, FUTURE
By Gary Macy, William T. Ditewig and Phyllis Zagano
Published by Paulist Press, $14.95

Women Deacons: Past, Present, Future is an eminently reasonable book. Plain and simple, at only 128 pages, it is a distillation of answers to the essential questions. To wit: Were there ever women deacons in the Catholic church? Is it presently possible to ordain women according to church teaching and the Second Vatican Council vision of the restored diaconate? What would the church look like with women deacons?

CATHOLICISM: A JOURNEY TO THE HEART OF THE FAITH
By Robert Barron
Published by Image Books, $27

There is much to admire in Fr. Robert Barron’s latest book, Catholicism, a companion to his 10-part video series of the same name aired nationally on a select number of television stations. Its limitations also help to point out the serious challenges facing the church’s missionary outreach to billions of people outside the church and to the millions of Catholics who have left.

THE ART OF AMERICANIZATION AT THE CARLISLE INDIAN SCHOOL
By Hayes Peter Mauro
Published by University of New Mexico Press, $45

The body is the temple of the spirit. Clothes make the man. A picture is worth a thousand words. Nowadays these old axioms might elicit a groan. Not so, however, in the American Gilded Age, when each of these aphorisms represented unquestioned truth distilled down to verbal snapshots. This was when our country was structured upon a belief in the absolute truth that the pinnacle of civilized society was Anglo-American white Protestant capitalism.

THE POPE’S WAR: WHY RATZINGER’S SECRET CRUSADE HAS IMPERILED THE CHURCH AND HOW IT CAN BE SAVED
By Matthew Fox
Published by Sterling Ethos, $22.95

Matthew Fox, ordained a Dominican priest in 1967, is the author of more than 30 books and founder of movements that combine the scriptures, tradition, mystics and prophets into his personal vision called creation spirituality. It is a “green” theology in which protecting nature is considered a sacrament.

HOLY WAR: HOW VASCO DA GAMA’S EPIC VOYAGES TURNED THE TIDE IN A CENTURIES-OLD CLASH OF CIVILIZATIONS
By Nigel Cliff
Published by HarperCollins, $29.99

God and Mammon, medieval power plays, and the role of sheer firepower in carrying the faith to Asia in the 15th century. Holy War is a great tale. There’s more: the lure of gold and spices, and royal privilege -- vast lands and manor houses. Far more: the role of the papacy in promoting those voyages.

CHRISTIANS & JEWS -- FAITH TO FAITH: TRAGIC HISTORY, PROMISING PRESENT, FRAGILE FUTURE
By Rabbi James Rudin
Published by Jewish Lights Publishing, $24.99

“Christians and Jews.” Those three words alone recall unimaginable human suffering, yet contain reassuring potential for deep common cause. No other two religions have quite the same shared stake in the Almighty, nor in the murderous hatred that can envelop siblings.

A PEOPLE OF HOPE: ARCHBISHOP TIMOTHY DOLAN IN CONVERSATION WITH JOHN L. ALLEN JR.
By John L. Allen Jr.
Published by Image Books, $25

This book is a series of conversations between NCR senior correspondent John Allen and Archbishop Timothy Dolan of New York. It’s built on the premise that Dolan is a leader to watch in the arena of hierarchical politics. As Allen puts it in his introduction, Dolan has had “an eye-popping run of promotions, honors, papal votes of confidence, and signs of growing celebrity” in his rise to become the archbishop of New York. Allen believes he’s a “measure of where the church is headed.” And he obviously admires Dolan’s welcoming personality, his non-punitive style of leadership and his media savvy.

THE EMERGING CATHOLIC CHURCH: A COMMUNITY’S SEARCH FOR ITSELF
By Tom Roberts
Published by Orbis, $24

“Those who have left Catholicism outnumber those who have joined the church by an almost four to one margin.” That’s just one of the many gloomy statistics cited by Tom Roberts in The Emerging Catholic Church. As Roberts sees it, the church is in dire straits: U.S. Catholics are living through difficult times caused by various forces, including reforms of the Second Vatican Council (1962-65), demographic shifts, the women’s movement, gay-lesbian issues, enforced celibacy for priests and religious, and the inadequacy of the hierarchy, especially in regard to its handling of the sex abuse crisis.

THE NEW DEAL: A MODERN HISTORY
By Michael Hiltzik
Published by Free Press, $30

There is no question that we Americans find ourselves in the midst of a pressing economic crisis. High unemployment, a tsunami of home foreclosures, massive teacher layoffs, and a myriad of other problems tear at our social fabric. What does seem up for debate is the appropriate response to this crisis. How aggressive should the federal government be in trying to resolve these problems? That we cannot agree on the proper way forward makes Michael Hiltzik’s The New Deal: A Modern History timely and instructive. He suggests implicitly that today’s federal response is pretty tepid in comparison to the bold federal efforts that Franklin Delano Roosevelt led in the 1930s. Hiltzik reminds readers that Depression-era Americans established for the first time that their government “should serve the people, all the people, and that none should be forgotten.”