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Call to Action or Call to Apostasy?: How Dissenters Plan to Remake the Catholic Church in Their Own Image

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Dr. Clowes has presented a good overview of the dissent movement in the Catholic Church. He organizes the book around what Catholics consider the Church's three distinguishing marks: its unity, its holiness, and its apostolic descent. He describes how dissent organizations like Call to Action or the Association for Rights of Catholics in the Church assault these attributes. He demonstrates that many of these organizations make their cases by distorting statistics: for example, though dissenters claim they are addressing the shortage of religious vocations, Clowes shows that more people enter religious vocations in parishes where dissenters are less active.

In looking at Protestant churches, we can see that the things that the dissenters demand lead to decreased interest in religion, whereas fervent evangelical churches have large congregations and enthusiastic converts. Clowes calls Catholics to defend their faith against corruptions that are already proven to be detrimental to religion.

But he should consider producing a new edition. While he shows restraint and never resorts to ranting, his biting humor is unfunny and contrasts with the serious subject. He has a chapter of advice to combat dissenters in local parishes, but the advice is too general and abstract to be helpful; this chapter should be expanded. He discusses what the dissenters want, but his refutations, while good, are not as thorough as they could be. A new, longer volume with a more professional tone is in order.