I bought this book off the back of reading about it in John D Caputo's What Would Jesus Deconstruct? (story here) and it has been a delight. It is the diary of a Catholic Priest who works in the dodgy end of Philadelphia and is a record of his reflections as he ministers in a parish with very few Catholics, but significant social need. He questions how he spends his time, what the hierarchy of the church are about, why he has such a bad temper, why some of his fellow priests have left the priesthood and he hasn't. I felt that it was a warts and all view of what being a Catholic priest in that place was like, but it also gave an insight about the internal ponderings and worries of priest any time any place anywhere.
Whilst not every priest will have the issues to deal with that he does, I believe that the internal dialogues that he has are worth reading for those training for the priesthood, and for those who don't want to maintain the fiction that priests are perfect christians! And at the time I posted it can be got very cheaply!
Whilst not every priest will have the issues to deal with that he does, I believe that the internal dialogues that he has are worth reading for those training for the priesthood, and for those who don't want to maintain the fiction that priests are perfect christians! And at the time I posted it can be got very cheaply!
I have written a fiction novel (Thy Will Be Done by A M Clarke) My argument is why celibacy is an important necessity for the Catholic priest whether he is or is not able to meet this commitment with grace. If a priest feels able to fulfil his priestly duties and take a wife where is the problem? A contented individual is perhaps better placed to carry out spiritual duties. There seems to be no embargo on how much a Catholic priest can eat or drink and he is even allowed to smoke. Should the Catholic priest therefore also take a vow of abstemiousness generally as well as sexually?
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