Being Catholic Now: Prominent Americans Talk About Change in the Church and the Quest for Meaning (Hardcover)

~ Kerry Kennedy (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Sheer star power should draw a broad range of readers to this volume of 37 interviews, in which Catholics from diverse fields reflect on their church. Kennedy, daughter of the late Robert Kennedy, invited luminaries from politics, entertainment, media and the church itself to talk about their Catholic origins, current beliefs and what they would do if they could be pope for a year. Writer Anna Quindlen would ordain women and lift the ban on artificial birth control. Comedian Bill Maher, who confesses to hating religion, would end the church, while Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, former archbishop of Washington, D.C., would resign right away and get a good guy in there. Other interviewees include Cokie Roberts, Susan Sarandon, Allouisa May Thames, Thomas Monaghan and Douglas Brinkley. In the preface, Kennedy adds her own views, explaining why she remains a Catholic despite differences with the church on issues like abortion and homosexuality. The collection makes for interesting reading, though at times the interviews, which consist wholly of the subjects' responses, seem disjointed and rambling without the context of questions. (Sept.) ""
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From The Washington Post

From The Washington Post's Book World/washingtonpost.com In Finnegans Wake, James Joyce refers (cryptically, of course) to Catholicism as "Here Comes Everybody," but since the 1960s it's been more like, "Where'd They Go?" Kerry Kennedy's collection of 37 interviews, Being Catholic Now, is one answer: They're still here, more or less. And it is often less rather than more, as Kennedy includes the likes of bestselling author Frank McCourt and religion-razing Bill Maher, who ruefully, or gleefully, would qualify as ex-Catholics or even anti-Catholics, if only Holy Mother Church could let them go, or vice-versa. "Maybe I was damaged by it for a long time -- we all were," McCourt says of Catholicism, "but I can make use of it and that's the gift." Balancing such diffidence are other Catholics, from the pious to the powerful, who raise objections even as they pledge fealty to the church. This critical stance, especially from lay people, is a hallmark of Catholicism since the Second Vatican Council. Bill O'Reilly donates "a lot of money" to the church but blasts bishops who "screwed it up." Former pizza magnate and Catholic traditionalist Tom Monaghan loves the church but regrets sending his kids to parochial schools "because they tend to undermine the faith." Celebrities offer more heft than expected (though some ordinary souls, especially sexual abuse survivor Dan McNevin, provide the real ballast), with actors Susan Sarandon and Martin Sheen leading the pack. Dan Aykroyd is nearly off the Catholic reservation (and never mind that he is Canadian), but without his Catholic boyhood "The Blues Brothers" movie wouldn't exist. The unifying theme of all the interviews is a once-formidable Catholic culture that left a mark as indelible as any sacrament, pushing Catholics to contend with a church that has betrayed or consoled them, or both. The contributors who firmly believe and deeply question give the book its poignancy, with the most affecting essay coming from Kennedy herself; she is one of Robert and Ethel Kennedy's 11 children and a prayerful believer who struggles with the faith but refuses to abandon ship. (Andrew Sullivan, Peggy Noonan, Donna Brazile and E.J. Dionne Jr. also have noteworthy entries.) In the 4th century, Saint Ambrose spoke of the church as a "casta meretrix," a chaste prostitute, for her indiscriminate welcome. A few decades ago, the Catholic convert Dorothy Day added, "She's a whore, but she's my mother." The challenge today is that the Catholic culture that gave birth to Ambrose, Day and the folks in Kennedy's book is threadbare to the point that it's hard to imagine rounding up a similar cast for a sequel. Catholics today are more likely to see the church as a sainted virgin or duplicitous harlot rather than to contend with the paradoxes that are inherent in any major religion and vital to the creative tension at the heart of any culture worthy of the name.
Copyright 2008, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Crown (September 9, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0307346846
• ISBN-13: 978-0307346841
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.2 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (37 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #39,889 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

75 of 108 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent, September 12, 2008

By	JacMac - See all my reviews

I was riveted by this book. I am a practicing Catholic struggling to make peace with some of the Church's teaching. Kennedy presents her own journey, as well as those of other Catholics - practicing, non-practicing & somewhere in between.

The book's contributors vary widely in their experiences, as we all do. This book is for all Catholics - and those interested in Catholicism. It is a great way to begin to understand how & why Catholics believe what they do & act as they do.

Don't dismiss this book as anti-Catholic or pro-Catholic. Nothing could be further from the truth. The author presents many views, many journeys; and, the book challenges each of us to look at the Church and determine if it is truly following the teachings of Christ.

If you're a devout, practicing Catholic, don't be afraid to try reading this book. If you have left the Church, don't be afraid to try reading this book. It may open your mind to a better understanding of others (and isn't that one of the basic teachings of Christ?).

I read the book. It is especially insulting to read a review from someone who hasn't even read the book. This is a terrific and timely book.

36 of 52 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Heresy dressed in compassionate clothing, January 14, 2009

By	Achilles (California) - See all my reviews

Ms. Kennedy is perhaps the poorest Catholic representative willing to commit such simplistic logical fallacies to print. She is a spectacle in that she shamelessly flaunts her ignorance of Catholicism and her obvious inability to understand and differentiate scientific, epistemic, philosophical, logical, rational and revelatory thought systems. She typifies Chesterton's comment about materialists who have "a superiority complex coupled with arrested development." She says at church "I was confronted with words and symbols that were anathema
to my values." A truthful examination of the roots of her assumptions would be very painful and would require an honesty that she has not yet cultivated. It would reveal a set of assumptions rooted in the new values of egalitarianism, feminism, multiculturalism, inclusivism, individualism and relativism. These new values are anathema to and mutually exclusive from our traditional values of wisdom, courage, justice, moderation, Faith, Hope, and Love. I would guess that Ms. Kennedy and her ilk would argue that they have the monumental intellectual capacity to reconcile this mass of cognitive dissonance into a coherent world view, but such ignorant arrogance is why we are in the mess we are in now.

Many of her stories speak of the victimization of people at the hands of the institute of Catholicism. While some are truly sad and unjust, more are just inane narcissism and childish self-centeredness, promoted in large part by our secular society. In an interview with the Boston Globe one of her glaring hyperboles is "I am a Catholic.' And what I found is that absolutely everybody disagrees with the church. The cardinals disagree with the church, and the nuns and the priests......... It's just not a monolith at all." This is absurd. She uses quite a broad and bold stroke that belies an unparalleled arrogance with ghastly lack of insight, an atrophied intellect and a defunct self criticism mechanism. There are countless great souls that agree implicitly with the Church and her teachings.

She goes on to say, with apparently no remorse or embarrassment, the Catholic Church is "an enormous organism with a lot of moving parts and people with strong opinions and I think that that's good." She has a scientific and material approach that is not only anathema to sense, but of the sophisticated and intricate relationship between faith and reason. Pope John Paul II addresses Ms. Kennedy's ignorance in his wonderful encyclical Fides et Ratio. There is little doubt that Ms. Kennedy would be uninterested if not incapable of integrating the great Pope's philosophical explications.

She also confidently states "I also think that Catholicism is inherently about contradiction. So much of the New Testament is about Christ arguing with the Pharisees and with the scribes and with the Jewish leaders of the day...." It seems terrifying that her family and friends would allow her to embarrass herself with a comment so disconnected from reality. It is as if Ms. Kennedy
exits a public restroom with a string of toilet paper streaming behind her stuck to her skirt and no one says anything to her. There should be laws about this type of familial neglect. The contradictions she is so seemingly perceptive in noticing are probably closer to noticing the paradoxes that arise and can only be understood in the context of Plato's three dimensions of being human, the belly, head and heart. In her current state of intellectual bankruptcy coupled with the false assurance of "correct thinking" even a close reading of Plato would be unlikely to penetrate the postmodern relativistic victimized shell she has so painstakingly constructed around her ideology.

Most of the opinions stated by the largely egoistic, narcissistic, self interested self promoting, self righteous celebrities are nonsensical material statements of ignorance not just about Catholicism but most significantly about reality itself. Susan Sarandon gives us an excellent example with the idiotic: "I'd sell off most of that stuff that's in the Vatican and eradicate poverty and disease." Those who would agree with such a ludicrous statement would not be able to grasp that economics is not as much science as it is philosophy. The backwardness of the idea that if the Vatican were to materially impoverish itself it would "eradicate poverty" is an insult to anyone with the cognitive ability beyond jr. high. There is not shortage of material wealth in our world. It is a material/socialistic world view and a misunderstanding of wealth and health that leads to such a preposterous and uneducated conclusion. If you would like an educated and intelligent explanation of Catholic Social Teaching look into the work of Oxford's Jesuit Father Rodger Charles.

A few other insane remarks: Anna Quindlen: "Then I would lift the ban on artificial birth control..." Andrew Sullivan: "...I'm openly gay because I'm Catholic, because I was taught not to lie..." Cokie Roberts: "The first thing I would do if I were pope is ordain women and then married men." Donna Brazile: "As far as the pro-life/pro-choice issue...I believe it's essential for women to have a choice." Nancy Pelosi: "I've always been pro-choice." You don't need to be a church doctor to see these asinine statements as heretical, but if you agree with them you must admit that you are informed by post modern, liberal, socialistic, progressive world view that can be best understood by Plato's allegory of the cave. These statements are statements of shadows on the back of the cave wall, not about reality.


Poor Ms Kennedy gives her critics a cornucopia of ammunition against her with other ridiculous statements like: "Pope Benedict said, it's a quest for the truth. And so if you're going to have a quest for the truth, you're going to have a lot of questioning of authority." She is helplessly trapped by a severely stunted intellect if she can't differentiate her way out of this one. It is a terrible misuse of the Holy Father's words. This illogical leap from going on a quest for truth to questioning the authority of the Church is infantile. Father James V. Schall wrote The Order of Things, if she were able to read and understand, she would learn about some of the errors of her thinking. Pope John Paul II states in Fides et Ratio "The truth is not consensus, but the convergence of the mind and reality."

The bottom line is that Ms. Kennedy represents a growing number of Catholics who have been encouraged to adopt a moral relativism and consider that their opinion is more important than the truth or the honest quest towards the truth. She evidences a radical individualism that has its roots in narcissism and pride.
The truths of the church are timeless and unchanging and not subject to our approval or disapproval. Any evidence to the contrary is contextualized in a materialistic/scientific worldview that has corrupted so many intellects. This is not to say that we are not to ask questions, it is our sacred duty to ask the right questions and to arrive at conclusions using our reason and our faith as our guides, but to do so with humility and the requisite wonder and awe that accompany these questions. The quest is a glorious one that is full of danger and excitement, but to attack your own pillars as Kennedy does is as foolish as destroying your own fortress. We do not argue for these Catholic truths, we argue from them.

Worse still was that fact that she gathered a group of celebrities and "successful" people who like herself are inclined to narcissism and self interest instead of clear thinking. How many warnings have we been given? Be in the world and not of the world. All the opinions expressed in this ridiculous collection of muddleheaded and unimportant conjectures is not a flea bite on the bottom of the shoe of the truth that IS the Roman Catholic Church. No ranting or raving will change that, but we would be wise to not endorse this kind of detritus, there are children present that need our good sense and guidance.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Heresy right from the forward of the book!, October 21, 2009

By	Krystina Madej "Kryst" (Medford, MA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I was dismayed from the get-go after reading the forward and first chapter of the book. I did not read past the third chapter because I felt as if I were reading about self-absorbed celebrities and their sophmoric and dim philosophies on life. After reading Kerry Kennedy's own walk in her faith I realized this book was not for the devout Catholic. The Kennedys in general have done so much harm to what it means to be an authentic Catholic and this book has perpetuated that cycle. I was deeply saddened that her mother would take all the children and leave church because the sermons were too long. To me that shows incredible disrespect for the word of God and the beginning perhaps of why most Kennedys do not live out their faith. I couldn't understand how she came up with some of her conclusions especially with her anger toward the church and Bishops because Cardinal Law wouldn't marry her sibling on the beach instead of in a church where the tabernacle resides - marriage is sacramental Kerry! Reading just the first few chapters was painful and I felt I was reading a book about how these alleged Catholics/pseudo-famous people understand and live out their faith - in disobedience and on their OWN TERMS! Let's remember that in sacred scripture that Christ was obedient - even until death. Let that be an example for us. People....wake up...study your faith....test it....grapple with...pray on it...Christ will answer you and you will find truth if you look hard enough - you just have to open your eyes!