Our Fathers: The Secret Life of the Catholic Church in an Age of Scandal (Hardcover)

by David France (Author) "WATERTOWN, MASSACHUSETTS- It was near midnight, uncommonly dark..." (more)
Key Phrases: meeting anecdote, abusive priests, gay priests, Paul Shanley, Cardinal Law, Voice of the Faithful (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
This epic account of the hidden sexual abuse and the scandal that rocked the foundation of the Catholic Church reads like The Perfect Storm. Using a riveting, being-there narrative device, France recounts 50 years worth of real-life characters, events, and institutional policies that created the breeding ground for the horrendous sexual abuse and ensuing scandal. Ultimately, this is an indictment of the Church--revealing how its institutional condemnation of homosexuality led to it predatory deviance and deplorable cover-up.

The structure--dated vignettes in chronological order--seems like a logical device for organizing France's extensive research. Although these vignettes offer excellent character sketches, scene work, and vivid, heartbreaking details (such as the smell of the musty bare mattress where one teenage boy was raped by his priest); this tight chronological structure has limitations. For instance, readers are never given an introductory or concluding discussion in which France makes overall sense of the scandal. Rather, readers are asked to piece together date-by-date entries and glean conclusions and insights through the unfolding chain of events along with France's occasional melodramatic assertions. ("It was the church's worst nightmare and it had come to pass. As the flock knew, the shepherds had struck themselves"). While France has tackled an important trauma, and has meticulously noted and indexed all his research, he could have used a more heavy-handed editor--weeding out the extraneous entries and forcing France to step forward more as the informed narrator. --Gail Hudson

From Publishers Weekly
France, who covered the Catholic Church sex scandal as an investigative editor at Newsweek, delivers a huge volume that offers reasons for the scandal and humanizes those involved-victims, perpetrators and hierarchy. Apart from interviews with some participants that are woven into a sweeping 40-year-long chronology of events, there isn't a great deal of factually new material in this tome, as copious footnotes drawing on others' reporting and analysis show. But the author dramatizes the story with you-are-there intimacy, from the opening vignette that confusingly narrates a movie scene; through "the soft deep heat" of an adolescent kiss experienced by a sexually confused teenager "who once was struck by love" (and who grows into a self-hating gay priest); and on through interior views of a victim's devastated mother. The 672-page book isn't all adjectival color, but especially in its early chapters, which reach back to the 1950s to recreate incidents, France's tone is sometimes melodramatic, which some may appreciate as storytelling, while others may perceive as sensationalizing. The author argues that the cause of the scandal is an antiquated misunderstanding of human sexuality, with a view of homosexuality that is pernicious, a thesis that gives the church the burden of societal homophobia. So readers get a side tour of the 1969 Stonewall bar riot, Vatican-driven suppression of advocates for gay Catholics and other anecdotes, including that of a gay Italian man who in 1998 immolated himself in St. Peter's Square. Although France sees them as essential, such episodes lengthen the book and dilute its focus on what happened in rectories, chanceries and family living rooms.
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Product Details

• Hardcover: 672 pages
• Publisher: Broadway; 1st edition (January 20, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0767914309
• ISBN-13: 978-0767914307
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (29 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #806,261 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Thought provoking and behind the headlines, May 2, 2004

By	J. J. Kwashnak "voracious reader" (Atlanta, GA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

David France has done an interesting job of bringing together many threads in a very complex story. He starts well back with the seminary days of some of the figures that will come to be players in this story. Much of what he does is to place this story in context - in context of the church during this period, and of society in general. Was the non-celibacy of priests a problem that came to light in the past decade an aberration? Was it a product of the sexual revolution? Was it a reflection of society in general? Or was it an exposed side of a more deeply rooted problem? France leans towards the latter, but gives each of these ideas some thought.

Upon first glance, one would assume it is about the recent priest child molestation cases. But the author moves beyond this, to note a range of sexuality related problems, not only with the child molester, but also with the priest engaged in illicit sexual affairs, and the self identified gay priests. I give France high kudos for his work sifting through thousands and thousands of pages of legal records and history to distill the important points into his narrative. The book is anything but dry. While not light reading, it is captivating and introduces you to a whole spectrum of players in this drama.

No, the book is not positive. In fact very few from within the church leadership come across in much positive light, though there are some. Rather the positive light is shone upon the laity, trying to take back the church and correct the wrongs that have been perpetrated. It's the David and Goliath story of people moved to bring change facing an entrenched bureaucracy, and one that for many is unassailable. A bureaucracy that could and would not see a pattern until too late, and then would be too tied up in the problem to face the issue. French has done a very good job trying to show all the sides in these issues, and try to find where the motivation for their reactions come from. While he is sympathetic to the victims, he does not blindly anoint them with right. Rather he does entertain the possibility of some mistaken "memories" that came about from supposed 'repressed memory' therapy. No one in this story is above reproach.

As a lapsed Catholic, the most common reaction I had as I read this was sadness. Sadness for what had happened, and what had been allowed to happen. And anger at how it was allowed to happen. The second half of the book is centered around Cardinal Bernard Law, and how his actions, and inactions, while not causing the scandal, certainly helped bring about the eventual explosion of allegations, and his lack of reaction fueled the fire of anger burning within the victims, and many members of the church.

This is a sad story, and a sad chapter in history. This book helps to tries to bring together what happened, and to try and untangle the threads that make the story so complex. A must read for anyone who wants to try and understand what happened in the Catholic Church, and hope that it cannot happen again.

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Truth Behind the Collar, April 11, 2004

By	James Hiller (Beaverton, OR) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

It all started back in the 1950's, and the story and horror of what happened to thousands of boys across the country is simply unimaginable. Somehow, David France's book "Our Fathers" manages to encapsulate the events into a very approachable, readable tome that documents thoroughly the eventual unmasking of the American Catholic church in its response to child abuse.

The scope of abuse in the Catholic church, and the equally vile attempts to cover it up, rivals the atrocities of Watergate. Certain priests, who violated boys, some even in there own homes, were merely reassigned to another parish to start victimizing a new batch of boys. Some were sent to a wayward house, and after spending a few months there, deemed themselves "cured" and then were foisted out on more unsuspecting parishoners. France details these accounts accurately and honestly, including the total destruction these boys and in some cases girls faced in their lives, without going into too graphic descriptions.

Painstakingly researched, France has made this huge topic extremely accessible. One great problem with reading non-ficiton books is that there are usually a host of characters, all with important roles, and it's very easy to confuse one with another. France goes out of his way in this book to delinate between the different priests, and often will remind you of a certain trait or habit of a priest to trigger your memory. I never once was confused as to who was who, thanks to France's effort.

This is a must read book for anyone; part mystery, part historical record, you are rooting for the vicitms to have their day, and when the last page is turned, you are somewhat releaved as to the results, but still enraged that anything like this happened; and hopefully enraged enough to ensure it will never happen again.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Read...for a better understanding, March 1, 2004

By A Customer

David France did an excellent job getting the story out. Until now, I heard only fragments of the fifty year span. He brought the history of my childhood and adulthood together into perspective in relation to the Catholic church which I belong. Everything makes much better sense to me. Hopeless is not understanding. Understanding is power. Thank you David.