My Son, the Priest: A Mother’s Crisis of Faith

Journalist Gilger (coauthor of There’s No Crying in Newsrooms) recounts in her candid memoir how her son’s Jesuit ordination shaped her belief. Patrick decided in college to join the Jesuit order—a surprise for the author, a self-professed skeptic who’d grown up Catholic but raised her son mostly in the Episcopal church. As he progressed through his training, mother and son negotiated the damages wrought by the Catholic church, including its sex abuse scandals, and considered its worth as an imperfect institution that nonetheless provides “a scaffolding and community” for a Jesus-centered way of life. Gilger also grappled with the complex reasoning behind priestly celibacy, the place of ritual, and the role of women in the church. Her eventual return to Catholicism, she writes, was less a wholehearted embrace of the faith than a recognition of its value despite its flaws. Throughout, Gilger critiques Catholicism while leaving room for its mysteries (“I’ve given up trying to know everything, and I’m beginning to accept what I can’t possibly know yet deeply feel”). Most affecting is the depiction of a mother’s unflinching willingness to follow her son into unexpected places (“We went with Patrick, haltingly and stumbling at times, but we went with him”). This will strike a chord with Catholics who have questioned their own faith. (Dec.)