CV NEWS FEED // Journalist and Church analyst Francis X. Maier will launch his new book about the “Unseen Challenges of Catholic Life” in Washington, D.C. at the end of February.
Maier’s new book is titled, True Confessions: Voices of Faith from a Life in the Church. Maier and Catholic theologian George Weigel will be speaking at the D.C. book launch on February 28.
Maier is a senior fellow in the Catholic Studies Program at the Ethics and Public Policy Center (EPPC) and a research associate at Notre Dame University. Maier is also the former editor-in-chief for the National Catholic Register.
“Maier’s new book examines the past decade where Rome has been marked with sharp, and often unwarranted, criticism of the Church in the United States and American Catholic life,” stated an email announcement that described the book’s exploration of “unseen challenges”:
But very few of the critics have taken the time to talk, systematically, with a wide range of U.S. Catholics to understand their concerns.
Meier interviewed 103 bishops, clergymen and religious, as well as lay men and women, in the process of writing the book.
True Confessions examines “wide-ranging subject matter,” according to the Catholic Information Center website, “[including] the unseen challenges of life as a bishop,” and “the pressures and satisfactions of the priesthood, the diaconate, and the consecrated life.”
The book also examines “the structural and leadership ingredients of diocesan success and failure; fallout from the Church’s sex-abuse scandals,” as well as “problems in Catholic universities” and “the role of Catholics in the academy and the secular culture….”
True Confessions also includes “the witness of parents who have children with special needs,” and “the testimony of immigrant Americans as they assess their new homeland,” CIC stated:
Finally, the book presents the reasons why so many U.S. Catholics, despite today’s challenges, continue to love the Church and cherish their faith with joy and energy.
The book launching event will begin with Mass, followed by talks given by Weigel and Meier, and then a book signing. The talks will be available on YouTube. Interested attendees can register here.
Weigel is an EPPC Distinguished Senior Fellow. According to the EPPC Catholic Studies program website, “the Catholic Studies program explores the many connections between Catholicism and public life and seeks to clarify and deepen knowledge of modern Catholic social thought.”
