FAMOUS EX-PRIESTS

by Emmett McLoughlin ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 16, 1968

Famous Ex-Priests is a collection of biographical sketches of seventeen men--from Wycliffe in the fourteenth century to Loisy, Leo Lehmann, Paul Jury and Joseph McCabe in the twentieth--who, for reasons of personal conscience, renounced their priesthood and the Catholic Church. The book is interesting not only from the historical standpoint, but also because it illuminates problems that beset the Catholic Church today--and problems which result today also in a considerable exodus of priests and religious from the Church. The good points of Famous Ex-Priests, however, are enfeebled, though not completely offset, by two things: a dry, didactic and almost aggressively pedantic presentation of data, and a constant injection by the author of his own bitterness with respect to the Church and the priesthood which he, too, like the subjects of his book, has abandoned. It is a bitterness which makes impossible that detachment without which the book becomes merely an instructive exercise in vengeance. Several years ago, the book would have had a ready market, for it would have then reflected a contemporaneous situation; today, however, the Church about which Mr. McLoughlin writes no longer exists--either as a historical reality or as a justifiable target.

Pub Date: Jan. 16, 1968

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Lyle Stuart

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1968

Categories: NONFICTION