cover image Double Crossed: Uncovering the Catholic Church's Betrayal of American Nuns

Double Crossed: Uncovering the Catholic Church's Betrayal of American Nuns

Kenneth A. Briggs, . . Doubleday, $24.95 (258pp) ISBN 978-0-385-51636-5

Briggs, a former New York Times religion editor, spent eight years researching and writing this report on the disappearance of Catholic nuns from the American church scene. During that time, some 25,000 sisters died and the number of American nuns fell to under 70,000, compared with 185,000 in 1965. In setting out to learn what happened to cause this marked decline, Briggs interviewed legions of nuns who lived through the cataclysmic Second Vatican Council of 1962–1965, which brought major reforms to the church and religious life. Although nuns were largely excluded from the council, Briggs suggests that it gave sisters a mandate to renew their communities and the freedom to determine how. But when bishops, priests and eventually the Vatican stood in their way, the sisters were "double-crossed." Briggs believes that had the sisters been allowed to interpret Vatican II as they understood it, their decline might not have been so sharp. However, he also points to cultural shifts and church politics as factors that affected the sisterhood's vitality. Moreover, he observes that the sisters may have contributed to their own demise by remaining loyal to church authority. Readers sympathetic to the cause of sisters who sought greater reform than was achieved will most appreciate Briggs's work on this important topic. (June 20)