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Rating: 
Summary: The Heart of the Matter
Review: Goodbye Father attends to the heart of the crisis facing the U.S. Catholic Church-the quality of pastoral care for the people. Schoenherr understands that the religious care of the people revolves around an ordained priesthood and the Mass so the quantity and quality of priests truly matter. For Schoenherr, life is a paschal mystery in that people are involved at every moment in linking their lives to the death and resurrection of Christ. The liturgy makes that connection more powerfully present in people's lives. The limitation of the Catholic priesthood to celibate males denies people who are thirsty for spiritual life an adequate level of religious care. The ordination of married people and women promises a greater number and deeper quality of priests. Goodbye Father is informative of my thinking and formative of my aspirations. It humbly invites us to think more deeply and act more courageously in regard to what may well be the will of God.
Rating:
Summary: The Heart of the Matter
Review: Goodbye Father attends to the heart of the crisis facing the U.S. Catholic Church-the quality of pastoral care for the people. Schoenherr understands that the religious care of the people revolves around an ordained priesthood and the Mass so the quantity and quality of priests truly matter. For Schoenherr, life is a paschal mystery in that people are involved at every moment in linking their lives to the death and resurrection of Christ. The liturgy makes that connection more powerfully present in people's lives. The limitation of the Catholic priesthood to celibate males denies people who are thirsty for spiritual life an adequate level of religious care. The ordination of married people and women promises a greater number and deeper quality of priests. Goodbye Father is informative of my thinking and formative of my aspirations. It humbly invites us to think more deeply and act more courageously in regard to what may well be the will of God.
Rating:
Summary: This Book Looks at Big Picture
Review: In the past few years, Catholic clergy and laity alike have expressed concern about and frustration with Vatican policy governing church practice and policy. The Catholic church has long held that ordination to the priesthood is reserved for males, that homosexual behavior is sinful, and, of course, that pedophilia is wrong. In addition, the church has severely limited the extent to which laity can participate in the governance of the church. Until recently, the laity has done little more than gently resist the first practice, question the second and agree with the third. Recent revelations about the extent to which pedophilia has been practiced among Catholic priests and the efforts undetaken by some high ranking church officials to hide this information, has shocked, then angered and finally mobilized laity and priests to resist autocratic church policy and to work toward church reform. Laity are now insisting on a voice in church governance and access to church records in order to avoid scandals in the future. Perhaps if the clergy and laity had taken seriously Richard Schoenherr's 1993 book Full Pews and Empty Altars, they would have begun their efforts to reform the church earlier and even avoided the present crisis. In that book, Schoenherr accurately predicted the decline in the number of priests over the next couple of decades and the implications of this decline for parish life. However, church authorities either ignored or disparaged the findings of this careful social science study and the laity was not activated by its important message. The initial reaction of the clergy to Schoenherr's latest book, Goodbye Father, posthumously published in 2002, has been lukewarm at best. However, if early published reviews of the book are an indication, the laity is poised to take this study into account as they work for change in the church. In Goodbye Father, Schoenherr moves beyond his earlier work. He presents convincing theoretical and empirical arguements leading to the conclusion that the shortage of US clergy and the changing composition of the US laity will necessarily result in voluntary celicacy for clergy and, within three or four decades, to the ordination of women. The conceptual structure Schoenherr builds to support his conclusion is scholarship at its best and the data analysis is careful, precise and sophisticated. This book should be read by laity interested in change in American society in general and reform of the American Catholic church in particular. It provides important insights that can guide strategies to increase laity participation in church policy and to strengthen and enhance church ministry. It should be ignored by clergy and laity, and in particular by church hierarchy, at their own peril. To ignore the insights, forecasts and conclusions of this brilliant book is to deprive oneself of a deeper understanding of the profound changes taking place in the contemporary Catholic church. These insights, in turn, should suggest wise strategies to effect church reform.
Rating:
Summary: Helpful to More Than Catholics
Review: Not coming from a Roman Catholic tradition, I've been intrigued by the debate surrounding the celebacy of the priesthood and the male exclusivity of the clergy. After all, other denominations have moved ahead, not without struggle to be sure, but moved nonetheless, to model what it means for all of God's people to have a place at table, and to officiate in the offerings that the table provides. Richard Schoenherr's "Goodbye Father" provides powerful insights to those of us laypeople who struggle with one's appropriate role in the church, and who are looking for a deeper analysis of this religious tradition. In his discussion of why dropping celebacy will happen prior to changing the patriarchy of the ministry, Schoenherr defines how the embeddedness of patriarchy, the decline of that partriarchy in other denominations, and the depth of the debate about marital-status exclusivity contributes to his thesis. That discussion provides clues into the struggle the church faces, but also gives hope that the stance on celebacy can change. That today's issues are now indicative of Schoenherr's predictions demonstrate the wisdom with which the author presents a significant contribution to the role of men and women in the church. This book deserves a read by anyone concerned about those roles, regardless of the denominational background of the reader.
Rating:
Summary: Helpful to More Than Catholics
Review: Not coming from a Roman Catholic tradition, I've been intrigued by the debate surrounding the celebacy of the priesthood and the male exclusivity of the clergy. After all, other denominations have moved ahead, not without struggle to be sure, but moved nonetheless, to model what it means for all of God's people to have a place at table, and to officiate in the offerings that the table provides. Richard Schoenherr's "Goodbye Father" provides powerful insights to those of us laypeople who struggle with one's appropriate role in the church, and who are looking for a deeper analysis of this religious tradition. In his discussion of why dropping celebacy will happen prior to changing the patriarchy of the ministry, Schoenherr defines how the embeddedness of patriarchy, the decline of that partriarchy in other denominations, and the depth of the debate about marital-status exclusivity contributes to his thesis. That discussion provides clues into the struggle the church faces, but also gives hope that the stance on celebacy can change. That today's issues are now indicative of Schoenherr's predictions demonstrate the wisdom with which the author presents a significant contribution to the role of men and women in the church. This book deserves a read by anyone concerned about those roles, regardless of the denominational background of the reader.
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