A People of Hope: The Challenges Facing the Catholic Church and the Faith That Can Save It [Paperback]

One of the world's most respected religion journalists profiles New York's Archbishop Timothy Dolan, one of the country's—and possibly the world’s—most important Catholic leaders through lengthy exclusive interviews.
 
Unique among the current leadership of the Catholic Church, Archbishop Dolan shares his insightful perspective in this series of conversations on the present and future of Catholicism.  In these pages Dolan shares a perspective which is typically not part of the information an average person would know through today’s media.  This omission often leaves outsiders with a terribly flawed grasp of what’s actually happening in the Church.  Legitimate stories on, for example, abuse and Church authority can’t be dissolved by reactive conspiracy theories about how the media is out to get the Catholic Church. That said, if these scandals are all there is to the Catholic Church, why would anyone bother being Catholic?

It may not be surprising that there are an estimated 22 million ex-Catholics out there, yet it is revealing that even more people have chosen to remain with the Church.  Tens of millions of Americans, and hundreds of millions more around the world, still turn to the Church for inspiration, for its sacramental life, for its experience of community and service. In every diocese in America you can find parishes that are flourishing.

The faith represented there is not an exaggerated religious frenzy that feeds an uncritical view of the Church. Catholics are nothing if not sober realists about the humanity of their institutions and leaders.  They see the Church not as a debating society or a multinational enterprise, but a family—with all the flaws and dysfunction, but also all the joy and life, of families everywhere.  This is why Archbishop Doll“¬