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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Another catholic in recovery,
By Another Catholic in Recovery "Greenun" (California) - See all my reviews
This review is from: That Undeniable Longing: My Road to and from the Priesthood (Hardcover)
Review of:
That Undeniable Longing My Road to and from the Priesthood By Mark Tedesco I came to reading Mark Tedesco's excellent memoir by a somewhat circuitous route. As a former nun, I have been on my own odyssey, writing about the agony of trying to be perfect in a medieval milieu where I was a misfit from day one - because I could not stop thinking! It was my good fortune to meet Mark's sister, quite by coincidence, on a weekend getaway. She sensed the similarities in our separate struggles and put us in touch through e-mail. After a couple of e-mail exchanges, I ordered the book from Amazon, knowing intuitively that reading it could provide new insights to apply in my writing. I was immediately caught up in Mark's easy style in describing his introduction to Rome and his fascination with exploring the pattern of monastic life to decide whether he could comfortably adapt to such a regime. Simultaneously, his innate love of history, nature and art as he ventured beyond the monastery grounds, is so effectively expressed that the reader is swept along with him. But much more importantly, as he is exposed to the phoniness of many "saints", Mark draws a bead on the terrible injustice perpetrated by Catholic Church authorities in an obsessive need to control the sexual orientation and marital practices of its members. My problem was not the same as Mark's; I was never GAY; I WAS SAD! Because I was molested at age eight and had witnessed the slavery imposed on my female family members due to the church's insistence that wives owed their husbands sexual subservience, I announced at age 5 that no man would ever make a doormat out of me. So what was left to me as a devout Catholic to choose as a meaningful way of life? BE A NUN! The point I am trying to make is that Mark's wonderful book is not just directed to gay men who wish to follow the teachings of Christ and help their fellow Catholics, but are rebuffed by narrow-minded Cardinals who condemn homosexuality. It applies to all the women who are forced into uncontrolled childbearing, not really due to the Catholic Church's devotion to infants, but to an obsessive need to increase its own membership - even if the preservation of an embryo's existence requires the Mother's demise. What kind of "Right to Life" is this? Mark's lengthy, painful quest to resolve his personal dilemma successfully - despite the stigma religion attaches to a way of life it brands as scandalous - can serve as a beacon to many others seeking self realization, love and happiness in the face of social condemnation.
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
One story from the heart.,
By
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: That Undeniable Longing: My Road to and from the Priesthood (Hardcover)
Mark was able to share private, caring and moving times about his life within the Catholic Church. His honesty and insight to what happens behind the confesional is revealing and capitvating and at times angered me. That Undeniable Longing is written in such a manner that I did not want to put the book down, could not wait for the next page to find what it had to reveal about the various players.
The events that Mark writes about and the lack of action from the Catholic Church reminded me as to why I left the Church many years ago myself. The reader does not have to be a catholic to find this book interesting and capitvating, it will capture you before you know it.
3 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Wasting much of your life letting others dictate its path,
By
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: That Undeniable Longing: My Road to and from the Priesthood (Hardcover)
Coming from a dysfunctional family life, including the death of his mother and the remarriage of his emotionally-distant father, Mark Tedesco got involved in his local church as a surrogate "family" of sorts, the forced satisfaction from which he interpreted as a vocation to become a priest. At age 19, he was in a conservative small seminary in Italy, where the school's resident "living saint" told him that God definitely wanted him to become a priest. His growing dissatisfaction with his life, his inability to maintain normal friendships, plus his early inklings that he might be homosexual, manifested themselves in physical illnessnes that plagued him for most of his stay. After a one year leave of absence, the order would not let him back, and he continued his studies at a more liberal seminary in Rome, becoming involved in a growing "Communion and Freedom" activist movement in the church. Subsequent episodes in California and Washington DC eventually led to his realization that he had to stop being a victim of what everyone else told him he should be doing, and instead should follow what his heart is telling him he should do with his life. The road to that conclusion is the major part of the book.
An amazing autobiography by an individual whom many can relate to, aside from his religious vocation, on the basis of having one's environment and influences dictate your feelings. Well-written and intelligent. I give it 4 stars out of 5.
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