Customer Reviews

Catholic Means Universal: Integrating Spirituality and Religion

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Dave Richo has not only clarified for me the true meaning of religion, but has validated the mystic in me who was still attempting to weave the religious thread into her reality. He has brought home to me the beauty of symbol, ritual, sacrament and community that I have always treasured in my Catholic religious tradition. I especially appreciate Dr. Richo's talent for combining religion, soul psychology, Eastern philosophy and western Christianity in his writing. This book is definitely a must for Catholics seeking a more mature spiritual life and a deeper meaning in their religious tradition.

This book delivered exactly what the title says... I am not a Catholic, however I attended 5 years at a Catholic Covent for schooling, and was made to sit through cathechism and masses. David Richo has taken his formal experience as a Catholic and bridged the gap, or filled the empty spot that I believe so many Catholics feel from their religious upbringing. I know many "recovering" Catholics who are bitter and have turned away from anything that resembles religion or spirituality. This book is a salve for that wound.

THIS BOOK helped me see that there is room in my Catholic soul for my new appreciation of the world and of how God works in it. thanks to dr. richo's compassionate and clear presentation, i now see how all i learned in catholic school had a deeper meaning once it was no longer caught up in literalism and superstition. now i can have an up-to-date mind and still have a catholic, that is, universal view of life. i found this book profoundly moving and even life-changing. now i see that all i learned about God was a way of knowing my own inner life. i also now see that being a catholic means being open not closed, being welcoming not exclusive, being myself not a repressed, scared, guy. is this what love is about?

If your rage is always ready to boil over, if you need to think of yourself as a Catholic but really despise most human beings, if blind obedience makes you feel really smart and snide, this is certainly not the book for you. But if you have persisted in believing that Catholicism has mainly to do with love, if human beings searching for wisdom and peace of heart touch your heart, if you've been needing some reassurance lately that emotional maturity and Catholic faith really are deeply compatible, then this book might give you solace, courage, patience, even smiles. Remember: even Jesus sometimes felt like calling the furiously self-righteous & those who suffer from irrational certitude -- "hypocrites," "brood of vipers," and "whitewashed tombs." This winter too will turn into spring.

Catholic Means Universal is Richo's masterpiece, a distilled product of decades of personal absorption with the search for meaning within the Roman Catholic heritage and incorporating what is authentic in other disciplines. The application is truly universal: Catholic Means Universal will benefit everyone, Roman Catholic, Christian or otherwise, who has found that religion, as doled out by the organized churches, has become too stifling, too "organized", too dwarfed, too impoverished to have any real significance. The richness of the book is such that its myriad treasures cannot be unearthed in a single reading.

This book is elegant and touching to my heart. We all struggle for language to describe the incarnation of divinity, and have found it! Emerging out of the great tradition of Catholicism, David Richo has come as a spiritual pioneer. "Catholic Means Universal" carries the truth and wisdom of Christianity into its universal phase, deepening its meaning for all of us in the 21st century. Through his insights the essential meaning of Christ and God reawakens in our hearts and guides us in the application of our vast new powers for the benefit of Earth life. -Barbara Marx-Hubbard, author of Conscious Evolution

Sorry, but Catholic means believing in Scripture, Tradition, the teaching authority of the Church. This woozy spiritual text so expands the definition of Catholicism that it means anything at all.

If you're interested in finding out what Catholic means, read the Catholic Catechism.

Be forewarned. Despite the Catholic trappings, this book is an anti-Catholic delight. It rages against Church authority, tradition, Scripture. All the predictable moral buttons are pushed. Everything authentically Catholic is dimissed as narrow, repressive, etc.

What we're left with is a "Catholicism" so vague that Oprah's book club looks firmer.

In the old days when people no longer believed in what the Catholic Church taught, they had the honesty to leave and either: a)join no church; 2) join another church; 3) start their own...hey, it's a free country! Unfortunately, the author is one of those people still claiming to be "Catholic" but who wants nothing to do with Catholic dogma and Catholic ethics.

The result is a slick piece of spiritual consumerism for the upper middle-class: creedless, rule-less, but with plenty of spiritual warm fuzzies to help your self-esteem. Catholicism it's not.

If you want the real thing, buy a rosary instead.