{"product_id":"our-fathers-the-secret-life-of-the-catholic-church-in-an-age-of-scandal-9780767914062","title":"Our Fathers: The Secret Life of the Catholic Church in an Age of Scandal","description":"\u003cp\u003eOur Fathers is history at its bestas intimate as a diary  as immediate and epic as a novel.  When  in early 2002  a team of Boston Globe reporters broke open the pedophilia scandal around Father John J. Geoghanand then Paul Shanley  Joseph Birmingham  and hundreds of other priests in Boston and across the countrythe entire American Catholic Church spun into crisis. But by that time  the damage was already done. Perhaps a hundred thousand children had already fallen into traps laid by their priests. Every Catholic in the country  and everyone who had ever set foot in a churchfaced troubling questions: Why had this happened? How could the secrets of this abuse have been so widely held  and so closely protected? How could the church have let it happen?  David France takes us back to the church of the 1950s  a time of relative innocence  to look for answers. With deft nuance  he crafts a panoramic portrait of the faithful  encompassing the hopes  dreams  disappointments  and courage of hundreds of Catholic and non-Catholic families over the last fifty years. Based on hundreds of interviews  private correspondence  unpublished scientific probes and secret Vatican documents  and tens of thousands of pages of court records  he shows how the churchs institutional suspicion of human sexuality ironically lit the fuse on the crisis.  Our Fathers braids a heartbreaking narrative from the personal lives of good and bad priests  pious and heartless prelates  self-interested lawyers turned heroes  holy altar boys turned drug-addicts  mothers torn between their children and their faith  hard-bitten investigative reporters reduced to tears  and thousands of church critics who  through this crisis  returned to their faith renewed and invigorated. He shows us the intense history of dissent within the ranks  especially regarding Catholic teachings on sexuality and homosexuality. He tells the heroic stories of whistle-blowing nuns  independent pastors  church insiders trying to do the right thing  andultimatelya group of blue-collar men  all molested by the same priest  who overcame their bitterness and took it upon themselves to try to save their church.  This book is a tribute to those ordinary Catholics called upon to make extraordinary contributions. Our Fathers is the sweeping  authoritative  and gripping work the scandal and its aftermath demand.  From the Hardcover edition.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"My Store","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":45647568109621,"sku":"ByrdShop_0767914066","price":34.62,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0627\/8139\/0901\/files\/9780767914062.jpg?v=1781693255","url":"https:\/\/atxbooks.com\/products\/our-fathers-the-secret-life-of-the-catholic-church-in-an-age-of-scandal-9780767914062","provider":"ATX Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}