The Coming Catholic Church: How the Faithful are Shaping a New American Catholicism

Catholic New Times, Dec 18, 2005

The Coming Catholic Church: How the Faithful are Shaping a New American Catholicism by David Gibson HarperSanFrancisco, 2004. Quite simply, convert David Gibson has written the best book yet on the forces that are changing the church forever. Counting as his mentor, the brilliant Jesuit journalist Raymond Schroth, Gibson ranges far and wide over the many topics "on the boil" in the Catholic world.

Often critical but seldom angry, Gibson begins with "the perfect storm" inherent in the Boston sex abuse/clerical enablement scandal of 2002--the forces clashing like tectonic plates--the laity, the clergy and the hierarchy" and moves outward. Part one deals with the laity, from "pray, pay and obey" he takes us up to the "revolution from below," the reform groups who are demanding change. Part two deals with the priesthood and all the problems confronting it: celibacy, sexual abuse, clericalism and the changing face of the priesthood. Part three shows the author at his best as he describes the tensions among the hierarchy. A wealth of scholarship beautifully presented which ends with the wise words of Romano Guardini that "one must live in a state of permanent dissatisfaction with the church."