Thursday, January 15, 2009

Being Catholic Now by Kerry Kennedy


I heard an interesting interview with Kerry Kennedy on NPR this fall and wanted to read her book Being Catholic Now. Unfortunately my library did not have a copy, but Ben gave me a copy for Christmas.


Being Catholic now is composed of essays by prominent Catholics about their faith. It had a wide spectrum of believes from liberal to conservative catholics, to practicing, to "C&E," to those that have completely left the church. It discussed hot topic issues such as the priest abuse scandel, birth control, women and married priests, and social justice.


It was a very interesting read and made me think about my faith and values. It also made me happy for the good the church has done on social issues, horrified at descriptions of child abuse by priests that has caused many people to leave the church, and start in wonder that crosses were burning in the yards of Catholics in the 1980's.


While the book was interesting, it could have used better editing. It was obvious that the essays were written based on questions asked (numerous paragraphs started "If I were Pope for an hour", but the questions were not listed. Sometimes people rambled (Dan Akroyd) and it would have served better to have a brief to the point essay. Also some people chosen (Dan Akroyd) seemed to serve no purpose. I liked the essays of people that were of opposing views - it was interesting. The people that were "kind of" Catholic like Ackroyd were just boring.

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