Absolute Truth

by Edward Stourton

Book Overview

Drawing on interviews with Catholics at every level, from prelates to the Vatican to the poor in the barrios of Brazil, Stourton tells the story of the Church since the Second Vatican Council in the... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1575001489
• ISBN13: 9781575001487
• Release Date: December 2000
• Publisher: TV Books
• Length: 272 Pages
• Weight: 1.29 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.3" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

The Absolute Truth rings very true.

I have worked in the Catholic Church for 24 years. I have been intimately involved in Church life both on a parish and archdiocesan level. Unlike the previous reviewer, I don't see the author as a "liberal" but rather the guy in the pew who is trying to get a hold, like many people, of how the Church works and why it takes the actions it does. I consider myself a centrist in the spectrum of ultra-orthodoxy to ultra-liberalism. I have seen and have personally experienced the fallout from the political life within the Church. There is as much political intrigue in the Roman Catholic Church as there was in the royal court of Louis XVI. This should come as no surprise for the Church is an institution made up of human beings, and as the Church, itself, attests in the rubrics to the Rite of Penance, it (the institutional Church), in its human dimension, is in need of conversion and penance. While Christ, as its head is sinless, we, both clergy and lay, are made up of saints and sinners on all levels of the hierarchical pyramid. I believe that the good the Catholic Church does far outweighs all its faults and sins. Yes, there is abuse within the structure of the Church and those in the Roman Curia really are in need, as the world's Catholic Bishops so recently stated, to get out of their ivory towers and spend some time in the real world. For all its faults, the Catholic Church remains for many people a beacon of hope that transcends national borders. In the end, the Holy Spirit will lead the Church wherever it needs to go, no matter how much conservatives, liberals, and centrists like myself whine. I highly recommend this book. The "Absolute Truth" really does ring "True."