My Bookshelf
From the Publisher:
A hugely informed look at the intensifying struggle over the future of the Catholic Church. Despite the popularity of John Paul II, opposition to many of his policies had hardened among Catholics by the time of his death. The Church had become more doctrinaire, the voices of millions of dissenters ignored. Now 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 and gays in the Church, the failure to reach out sincerely to other faiths, the increased participation of lay people in Church affairs.
He gives us in-depth portraits of six of the cardinals who gathered in Rome in April 2005 to choose a new pope- Ratzinger from Germany, Mahony from the United States, Murphy-O'Connor from Britain, Rodríguez Maradiaga from Honduras, Arinze from Nigeria, and Darmaatmadja from Indonesia- and through them makes clear why Catholics worldwide are increasingly leaving the Church or defying Church doctrine. Finally, he explains why Ratzinger's ascendance was assured, and what this might mean for the future.
With passion and heartfelt concern, Robert Blair Kaiser brilliantly illuminates the issues and the combatants in the battle for the souls of the Catholic world
From the Critics:
R. Scott Appleby - The Washington Post: The highlights of the longtime Vatican-watcher Robert Blair Kaiser's account of the state of the Roman Catholic Church are his vividly drawn profiles of Catholics who perform quietly dramatic acts of compassion, creativity and resistance. These agents of enculturation -- that is, adapting Christian belief and practice to local cultures -- resist not only fundamentalists and secular despots, Kaiser observes, but also Vatican enforcers who attempt to stifle "homegrown" forms of Christianity.
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.
Library Journal: News journalist and columnist Kaiser covered Vatican Council II in the Sixties and has authored or coauthored ten books on contemporary issues. Here he focuses on six cardinals as representative icons of the Catholic church today: Roger Mahoney (United States), Cormac Murphy-O'Connor (United Kingdom), Oscar Rodr guez Maradiaga (Honduras), Francis Arinze (Nigeria), Julius Darmaatmadja (Indonesia), and Joseph Ratzinger (Germany), now the pope. He explores contemporary tensions on controversial matters such as married clergy, abortion, political power, and liberal-conservative positions. References to personal interviews with church insiders abound, but without footnotes or a bibliography. Some negativity and cynicism accompany his views (e.g., he asserts that John Paul II's book The Acting Person sold only 18 copies in English and describes Pope Benedict XVI's eyes as having wolverine rings). Kaiser favors an indigenous church rising from ordinary people and their cultures and is most positive when depicting church representatives as champions of the poor and ecumenism. Recommended with some reservations for public and academic collections.
Kirkus Reviews: A disapproving survey of the current state of Catholicism, lamenting the lost opportunities of the 2005 papal election. If the Vatican can be likened to a Fortune 500 corporation, suggests former Time religion correspondent Kaiser, then that election crushed a stockholders' revolt. Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger lobbied extensively to take over from his deceased benefactor John Paul II, but always behind the scenes; in public, he disavowed wanting the job. His argument was for continuity, "and like the board members of any major international conglomerate, the cardinals voted for a CEO who would give them that continuity." Yet continuity, Kaiser argues, was not what was needed. Kaiser is no admirer of John Paul II, whom he depicts as autocratic and unreceptive to differences of opinion, particularly in light of the needs of the Church outside Italy-in California, for instance, where Cardinal Roger Mahony upheld the official position on abortion while campaigning against the death penalty, and who remarked of a nun, "If I could . . . I'd ordain Sister Edith tomorrow." He couldn't, of course, for John Paul would not entertain the idea that women could be priests-or that priests should be allowed to marry. The conservatism of the Church, Kaiser makes clear, is likely to grow with the election of Ratzinger, who took the name Benedict XVI after graduating from the Office of the Inquisition to the papacy. One of the highlights of this provocative book is Kaiser's account of the voting process, which is supposed to be kept strictly secret; Kaiser holds that Ratzinger lost the first round but lobbied his way to victory. He closes with a prospect sure to interest the pope's former office: thepossibility of creating an autochthonous American church, among others, that would be largely self-governing and that would surely allow what Rome does not. The very antithesis of Peggy Noonan's John Paul the Great (2005).