THE RETURN TO MAN

Kennedy, a priest and a psychologist (Loyola of Chicago), has much to say about the posture of the Catholic Church vis-a-vis man and the universe. And none of it is good. The world, he points out, has reached the interstellar age; and the Church is still trying to foist off on believers a collection of medieval theories of pre-Copernican cast. The trouble seems to be that the Church is a bureaucracy and, like all bureaucracies, is inhuman. It may be divine, but it has no soul. It has forgotten that man was not made for the Church, but the Church for man. It is impossible, therefore, for modern man to recognize himself in the Church, and the world conceived by the Church is far from that in which man actually lives. The Church, if it is to survive, must learn to respond to individual needs rather than to the exigencies of archaic beliefs and primitive systems. Kennedy, obviously, says nothing that has not been said before many times; but he says it very well, and he seasons his text with numerous anecdotes and case histories to illustrate not only the non-humanness of the Church itself, but also its dehumanizing effect upon those who look to it for protection and help. The book will have a strong appeal to this author's considerable following.