Customer Reviews

The Church Confronts Modernity: Catholicism Since 1950 in the United States, Ireland, and Quebec

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This book is a "must read" for anyone who wonders why organized religion operates as it does. "Church" is much more than a place where rituals take place. "Church" has a profound impact on peoples' lives and this impact is both negative and positive. This book presents a very insightful study into the way the Catholic Church has influenced the Irish, French Canadian and American cultures and in turn, how the mix of sociological and cultural changes of the sixties influenced the Church in those countries. This book is especially helpful for those who wonder why and how organized Catholicism has been able to have so much destructive influence in society. It also offers enlightening reasons into the causes of the present conservative trend among younger clergy and Catholic hierarchy juxtaposed with the increasing loss of interest in the Catholic Church among the lay population. The book is well read and not peppered with unintelligible (to the outsider) sociological jargon. It's a book that will end up with a lot of highlighting and scribbled notes...which says that it means something.