What God Allows: The Crisis of Faith and Conscience in One Catholic Church

The sweeping social and ecclesiastical changes wrought by Vatican II left American Catholicism awash in a sea of doubt about its identity. In order to show how deeply rooted is the religious schizophrenia of American Catholicism, journalist Shapiro draws a portrait of a year in the life of the members of an ordinary Catholic parish in Kenmore, N.Y. In doing so, he faithfully represents the struggles of various parishioners to weave the dogma of their beloved faith into the fabric of contemporary culture. Moreover, he demonstrates that the crisis of religious identity that characterizes many of these believers arises not out of institutional practice but out of the extent to which Catholic faith and doctrine are embedded in the conscience of the believers themselves. Unfortunately, Shapiro's often condescending tone, which gives the impression that he is silently laughing at his subjects for their inability to relinquish what to him are antiquated views, compromises his narrative. Even so, his story is one of the few to examine honestly the ongoing identity crisis in the American Catholic Church. (Mar.)