Being Catholic Now: Prominent Americans Talk About Change in the Church and the Quest for Meaning

In an interview, the author Ms. Kennedy, equated Abortion with Capital Punishment. When asked a second time how she could equate the mass killing of innocents with the very select, very limited capital punishment of convicted murders she said killing was against the Church's principles.

Ms. Kennedy is a selective Democrat Catholic. Like Biden and Pelosi who like to talk about their devout Catholicism in an effort to get votes while supporting laws which kill God's favorites, the innocents. This book is an effort to support liberal Democrats. It is not a book about Catholicism but rather about Democrats contortion of dogma to suit their goals.

I've read selections from the book but won't waste my dollars on it. Kennedy tries, like so many Catholics we know, to re-define the R.Catholic church in her own terms. This is typical of Catholics who learned from Vatican II's uncertainties about foundational Catholic beliefs, as it opened the pandora's box of "anything goes". Papal doctrine provides that
only the Pope can define Catholicism, since he is the "infallible head" of the western Church as created by Charlemagne. For a person to claim they are "Catholic" and be in fact either agnostic or atheist, reveals a lack of self-evaluation which results in delusional, sentimental attachments to the religion of parental family and friends. Guilt has been instilled from early childhood, preventing the conscience from actively asking questions and finding the Truths of the Christian Faith. The first step in their/ our healing is to find forgiveness from the Lord Jesus Christ and then, follow Him to His true Orthodox Faith - the historical Church of the New Testament. "Lumen Orient" shines for all even in the west, as we have discovered personally by grace.

If Kerry Kennedy was truly interested in covering the struggles of Catholics today I would think she would interview faithful Catholics reconciling their Catholic beliefs with the "hot" social issues in our current culture. Instead, she uses as her "examples" of Catholics today, high profile personalities who have either abandoned the Church's teachings, tried to tailor it to fit their own agendas or flat out rejected God. How exactly is that "Being Catholic Now"? She has done nothing more than to jump on the Dawkins/Hitchens pop bandwagon and disguised it as various Catholic opinions. I can assure you; these people do not represent the struggles of the faithful Catholic laity "Now". She assumes (and many will believe her) that her famous name and family's Catholic history assures her credibility. It does not. She is sadly dishonoring and misrepresenting her Catholic heritage and faith.

The people interviewed in this book are pretty interesting choices -- given that many of them are not practicing catholics now.

In Europe, the Catholic church is literally dying. 50 years ago, the vast majority in countries like France and Italy were practicing Catholics -- not any more.

I question why people who do not believe in core Catholic beliefs would have much to do with Being Catholic Now. If instead the title were something like -- The Dying Catholic Church: how America's Catholicism is mirroring that in Europe, it might make more sense.

The book is an interesting read, but I wonder what the point is.

There is really nothing in this book for non Catholics except perhaps satisfying a curiosity about `what is a Catholic"? The answer is so diffuse that it is no answer at all. The thirty eight authors here range from the almost fanatically religious (curiously, a 21 year old young woman) to the almost pathologically angry, a television comedian who says "I hate religion. It is the worse thing in the world." In between these extremes are thoughtful, highly successful individuals from the arts, labor movement, business, journalism, education, and the religious, a broad spectrum that reflects the diversity of the faith. One of the people missing from the book whom I would have liked to have read is the editor's former father in law, Mario Cuomo, who was able to give voice to the contradictions between his beliefs and the actions he had to take. But perhaps they are no longer talking to one another.
The authors do not speak with one voice. There are devout Catholics, Sunday morning mass Catholics (when they can make it), fallen away Catholics who still have a soft spot for the faith. There are men who have been abused by the religious (either sexually or as punishment) and men and women, especially women, who remember the love and devotion of their nuns and priests. Many simply are bitter towards the hierarchy of the church because of its inflexability on contraception and abortion i.e., denying sacrements to individuals who support abortion
While many of the authors are famous, they are all accomplished and successful if unknown to the public. Some have stayed in the faith and continue to find it a major part of their lives. Some seem to have deep seated issues with the Church keeping them away from Mass and even denying they are still Catholics. For others who are no longer in the pews it was simply a matter of the church losing its relevance. Really are you going to denounce contraception in this day and age and think you are not going to be thought a bit loony? But they still remember those incensed filled days when the priest's back was all they saw for most of the Mass and I think that some of them wish those days could return. As is oft repeated in this book, "Once A Catholic, Always a Catholic."
"Being Cathloc Now" is highly recommended.