Lead Us Not into Temptation

...In his address, the reception of "Economic Justice for All" case in which a priest was wrongly accused, archbishop shared with us several personal (1986), the U.S...

...tar 9th centuries, presenting theirwisdom in a way that can be appreciated by contemporary readers...

...A flamboyant Cajun lawyer for one of the SPRING victims has his private grudges to settle with the church...

...Presuming a passionate desire on God's part for an intimate own, telling the world that he was suffer- relationship with each of us, this gifted spiritual writer ing from Hodgkin's disease rather than EUCHARIST explores some of the consequences...

...Mother Teresa PASSIONATE Edward Le Joly, S.J...

...Nowhere does the book carefully compare the church's record with the experiences of other institutions, like FAITH AND THE HUMAN ENTERPRISE I am sure there were some among us who school systems and the Boy Scouts, other A Post-Vatican II Vision were not so moved) inevitably leads to moprofessions, like psychology and medicine, Rembert G. Weakland ments of critical reflection...

...It was a rare instance of what state of the church provide a framework...

...ing from his background in music to his tee chair...

...Frank, on the other hand, seems genuinely separate from his two would-be protectors, a man eaten by guilt, horriThree good performances could be found in another fied by the life that he has had thrust upon him...

...Moreover, the straight- BOOKS forward narrative structure of the openOF ing section allows him to string side by C IC side the contradictions and ironies, the in- SPECIAL saints iquities and the ambiguities without having to force them into any explanatory grid...

...The appearand other religious groups with married, Orbis Books, $14.95, 168 pp...

...It is a work, too, that indicates that Friel needs first monologues contradict one another on large and small de- neither dialogue nor shared scenes to show the attachment of tails, particularly on Grace's losing her child and on the last characters to one another...

...A lapsed Mormon who converted to Catholicism, he GOD S became a psychiatrist and researcher in sex- A WOMAN IN LOVE...

...Irish play recently when the People's Light and They all agree on his greatest triumph-a night in which he Theatre Company, one of the Philadelphia area's apparently cured all his audience/congregation-and on the horlong-established professional companies, revived ror of that last night...

...His and rightly in some cases, of sensational- Such a moment of enthusiasm (though prophetic righteousness is itself balanced 18: 12 March 1993 Commonweal...

...community since 1985, with special emphasis on her fort to priests enslaved to alcohol or sex- and our response spirituality and the love of Jesus which made it all possible...

...He final monologue, it is a kind of release for him...

...The investigation ul- lesting at least ninety-five children in five cred, a fact that makes his betrayal of trust timately implicated a score of other church states between 1963 and 1974, when he and exploitation of authority all the more workers in similar sexual offenses...

...Celebrating its Peterson's sickbed daily, persuaded the Pal Berniar ms Rhythms in our Lives priest to acknowledge his illness, and Paul Bernier, SSS presided over his funeral with 150 white- Offers creative insights to restore the Eucharist to its rightful central role as the "source and summit" of Christian robed priests in attendance...

...church have shifted in understanding these Milwaukee's Archbishop Many chapters discuss the writing and matters...

...When Berry moves on, in the second 0-87793-505-X April 160 pages, $6.95 half of the book, to explore the overall problem of sexual abuse of minors by priests Available from your local bookstore, or Notre 9 287-28311N 4fi55fi as it has surfaced across the United States AVE MARIA PRESS 21 and Canada, his reporting remains eye- In Canada: B. 8roughton Co., Ltd., 2105 0anforth Ave., Toronto, ON M4C 1K1 opening but his efforts to detect causes and Commonweal 12 March 1993: 17 shows how often the media have been reluctant to report what it knows will incense Catholic readers and nervous advertisers...

...It was Archbishop (now Cardinal) 0-87793-500-9 March 144 pages, $6.95 James Hickey of Washington, a strict de- Rhythms fender of orthodoxy, who visited Father inOurlares EUCHARIST...

...Certainly it was my appreciation of the actors indifference to or anger at him most of the time, and Teddy's not the play that I carried out of the theater last December and unspoken love for Grace and his devotion to Frank even as he that has stayed with me...

...left the priesthood-and already found abhorrent...

...life...

...AIDS...

...It might wife Grace, an Englishwoman who gave up her upper-class home have been a triumph if it were not that his release binds Grace to follow him, and by Teddy, a cockney showman who has given and Teddy more strongly to his and their pain...

...A tireless source of aid and com- DESIRE...

...public scrutiny, or blind themselves to is- a growing number of homosexuals, some A Lousianan whose personal and fam- sues of sexuality...

...Catholic church had "a secret just be- Not even the sexual abuse of children by tween Father and the altar boys...

...That Catholics in leadership positions-and by of court testimony, anecdote, rumor, and makes the sexual deviations of its celibate anyone still tempted to dismiss this probopinion is too imposing to dismiss them, clergy hard to set aside as not newswor- lem as a media creation or simply "a few and yet too unsystematic to test them...

...that he is far more certain about them than is possible when an apostolic leader ex- Although there is some unavoidable I could be...

...The information on the characters that I give here parting audience with ideas about the giving, the resisting, the should be taken with a soupcon of suspicion because the three accepting of gifts...

...Although them...

...Opening and closthe same testimony as Berry...

...Welcome home...

...Yet when we get that last terrible night in Frank's often as not, does not work but which he cannot give up...

...the face of the ugly deeds he repeatedly confronted...

...One is the media's role in exposing and experiences of moderate-to-liberal Here his concern for the poor balances off sexual abuse...

...Nowhere does Berry report on a Rembert Weakland...

...the last by Frank, the titular faith healer...

...ultimate cause is the church's rule of celof church authorities, the self-protective At various points Berry blames these ibacy for its priests...

...ual pathologies, Peterson was a voice for 0-87793-496-7 February 192 pages, illustrated, $7.85 WILLIAM A. BARRY, 5...

...I would not only enthusiastic...

...They convey powerfully 16: 12 March 1993 Commonweal the climate of massive denial on the part suggest solutions are far less compelling...

...These a collection of the archbishop's talks and matters are discussed in passing if at all, RDennis M. Doyle articles written over the last decade, ofinserted into the flow of sordid revelations, fers such an opportunity...

...For reasons both good and rage that both informs and at points detion of priestly vows to be anything but bad, the Catholic church has become a sym- forms this book, but that was probably tolerant of sexual misdeeds with minors...

...These explanations are provocative, Certainly the church is a leading advocate This book should be read by all but are they true...

...Three impressive performances is not insists that his connection with them is only a professional ata bad haul for a theatergoer...

...bol of traditional restraints on the libido...

...candor and compassion, challenging the ignorance and repression about sexuality GOD'S PASSIONATE DESIRE that prevailed in many church circles...

...ual disorders, then sought ordination to the Chronicles the astounding growth of her religious priesthood...

...Here is an "ecclesiasti- of whom have created a gay clerical subily ties gave him an entree with bayou fam- cal culture in decay," he argues, and the culture, sexually active, frequently predailies, New Orleans lawyers, and Catholic priests, Jason Berry gives this story the force, the depth, the density-in short, the truth-of a novel...

...A secret church-con- 1993 nected source, code-named "Chalice," supplies Berry with the names of childWISDOM OF THE CELTIC SAINTS molesting priests-and later dies in prison Edward C. Seilner after being convicted for sexually mo- The lives and legacies of twenty Celtic saints of the 6th to lesting teen-agers himself...

...He is the faith healer at last, healings in tiny halls, and he is accompanied (looked after) by his ing himself of the darkness that he has carried with him...

...These pieces, along with some In two instances, this writer has inter- hopes and dreams for the church...

...Peter Steinfels their parents, a much more frequent ocTwo years later, the Rev...

...The material on religion and public policy, form viewed some of the same people and read standing ovation that he received was not the heart of the book...

...MERIT The infamous Gauthe, for example, turns out to be a pathetic Milquetoast...

...For the Catholic church nationally, guilty in one case occurring after his lai- The first 170 pages of this book are a Gauthe's case seemed to open a new era cization...

...It consists of four monologues, the first and wheelchair, is beaten to death by the group...

...Michael Peterson...

...his penchant for abstract analysis...

...The second subtheme is the author's own struggle, as a committed Catholic, to J6_ d . maintain some religious equanimity in "But this is ridiculous...

...the clerThe Diocese of Lafayette and its insurers Porter, who has been named in criminal gyman, by contrast, has been chosen and paid more than $20 million to victims for charges or civil suits with sexually mo- consecrated as a representative of the satherapy and damages...

...book...

...ecently I was part of a flection, with a surprising scarcity of perNowhere, in a book citing offenses large gathering of the- sonal stories or specific examples...

...thy and easy to report in muckracking rotten apples" whose presence in the ranks Nowhere, for example, does the book tones...

...GERALD WEALES BOOKS Needed: A firm purpose of amendment n June 1983, a Cajun family in LEAD US NOT INTO TEMPTATION tute only a tiny fraction of the Catholic clerVermilion Parish, Louisiana, dis- Catholic Priests and the Sexual gy, the victims are far more numerous, and covered exactly what their nine- Abuse of Children the impact on them as well as on the year-old son meant when he said Jason Berry morale of other priests and on the image that the pastor of the local Roman Doubleday, $22.50, 407 pp...

...reflexes of a clerical subculture, the sticky abuses and the failures of church officials This diagnosis may suit today's ideals web of conflicting demands raised by to respond compassionately to victims on of egalitarianism and full sexual exprescompeting therapists, prosecuting and de- the fact that priests and bishops constitute sion...

...El derly examination of what is known and still not known about sexual attraction to minors, the categories researchers and therapists use, the range of misconduct and A PRELATE'S PERSPECTIVE of impact on victims, the current modes of treatment and evidence about their effectiveness...

...There is a depth of moral outtory, and too compromised by the viola- izing this story...

...it was intense and im- ing chapters on Vatican II and the current contradict Berry's conclusions but only say passioned...

...What comes run of the play must lie in the performances of McCowen, Rea, through is Grace's deep love for Frank although she pretends and McDaniel...

...of the priesthood needs no further explaprovide something as elementary as an or- At the same time, Berry's experience nation...

...It is the details in both cases that confuse Brian Friel's 1979 play Faith Healer...

...Gilbert Gauthe currence, shocks us as much as such sexwas sentenced to prison for sexually mo- ual abuse by clergymen...

...and our response He was also living a double life of his William A. Barry, S.J...

...We can't all he investigative journalists...

...The media have been accused, theologians in the U.S...

...ing, at least for now, in the case of James of person can become a parent...

...presses and embodies a vision that har- repetition, the material on the economic Two subthemes wind throughout the monizes with the prevailing convictions pastoral reveals Weakland at his best...

...It is a work that up dog acts and other such legitimate clients to serve as agent resonates long after the house lights come up, teasing the defor Frank...

...This is committed over three decades, is there a ologians, mainly Cathol- a rather heady book, not for those in search clear presentation of how society and the ic, who were honoring of feel-good homilies...

...tachment...

...bishops' pastoral for nor does he even appear to imagine such stories that touched upon subjects rang- which Weakland served as the commita possibility...

...No story is more dizzying than that of 0.87793.492-4 January 208 pages, $10.95 the Rev...

...Recognizing travels through villages outside Ireland (the play begins and what awaits him, he walks toward his murderers with confiends with a litany of place names), holding minuscule meet- dence, perhaps exhilaration...

...Virtually any sort lesting more than thirty-five young boys...

...Berry's accumulation of a strict code of sexual conduct...

...nearly mesmerizing account of the case of widely publicized scandals, culminat- Although the perpetrators may consti- of Father Gauthe...

...ance of Faith and the Human Enterprise, female, or nonhierarchical clergies...

...More, not less, reporting might have served the church well at an early stage in this scandal...

...essential to its writing...

...He is a difficult man, The event drives Teddy into memory-wracked retirement and a drinker, an Irishman uncomfortable with his power which, as Grace to suicide...

...The essays offer always subordinated to Berry's own in- sustained intellectual argument and reterpretations...

...of the church has been highly damaging...

...But Berry is also willing to make the fense lawyers, attorneys for insurance an all-male caste, lack parental experience, politically incorrect charge that the celicompanies, and parents outraged at what wield hierarchical power, operate without bate priesthood has become the reserve of has happened to their children...

...Having come home to Ireland, the three of them join a Jarlath Conroy, Alda Cortese, and Tom Teti did well by the group of young men in the hotel bar and, after Grace and Teddy three characters who comprise the cast, it was the play that was go up to their rooms, Frank, who has failed to cure a man in a most fascinating...