Practicing Catholic James Carroll.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 330-360) and index.

"In Practicing Catholic James Carroll brilliantly shows how Roman Catholic struggles illuminate spiritual quests in all faiths. He wrests meaning from the historical, social, and religious strands of his story to chart the Church's transformation from reactionary monolith to a vital institution in which the deepest aspects of faith are being called into question. Carroll reveals his own part in the story - as a Catholic boy in the 1950s, as a seminarian and young priest in the 1960s and 1970s, as the distinguished writer he is today, and, through it all, as a committed but questioning Catholic - with an emotional impact reminiscent of his An American Requiem." "Practicing Catholic brings vividly to life the great figures who touched Carroll personally and who shaped the age: Pope John XXIII, who wrapped his arms around young Jim Carroll; John F. Kennedy, who inadvertently embodied the heresy of "Americanism"; Cardinal Richard Cushing, whose love for his Jewish brother-in-law overturned a doctrine; the charismatic William Sloane Coffin Jr.; the outspoken monk Thomas Merton; and Martin Luther King Jr., whose proclamation of justice over piety challenged church and state. The abuses of clerical culture in which antisemitism, misogyny, and pederasty thrived are dark sides of this story, and the ascendancy of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger to the papacy casts a separate shadow." "At a time when power structures collapse and authority figures betray us, Carroll's incisive vision for renewal - a thrilling assertion of religious belief and intellectual yearning - feels urgently necessary. Against the fundamentalism of the born-again and of the neo-atheists, Carroll's is a passionate defense of a world faith too precious to be abandoned and too powerful to be underestimated."--BOOK JACKET.