Mortal Sins: Sex, Crime, and the Era of Catholic Scandal (Update)

I was able to get this book a couple of weeks ago. It was a meet and great with the author, so I got the booked signed and was able to hear Michael D'Antonio talk about why he wrote the book. That was all fine, but it was nothing compared to being able to dig in and read the book.

Mortal Sins: Sex, Crime, and the Era of Catholic Scandal is a must read for anyone who wants to learn more about what happened with the Catholic Church and what is still going on. It is well researched and taught me a lot. I have read a lot about this topic, and there is very little out there that goes as deep as this book does.

The book pulls no punches and covers all of the important topics. In a recent panel discussion about the book, D'Antonio explained the roots of the book:

D'Antonio traces the root of the problem to the church's unusual relationship to spiritual and political power, which he said began in 1870, when the pope was given a new form of authority called infallibility. Then, 60 years later, the Vatican's civil status was defined in a concordat signed by then-Prime Minister Benito Mussolini.

"Catholicism became the only religion in the world with the status of a country, ruled by a churchman who was also a monarch," D'Antonio explains in Mortal Sins.

The book is written in a human way that gets away from the sterile reporting of past newspaper and news stories. It looks at the Church through the human leaders and allows the survivors to be seen as real people.

Update: here is a link to the recent C-Span discussion with the author.

The panel discussion showed how the author accomplished this :

For all of the dark truths he encountered in his years of research, D'Antonio was surprisingly the most optimistic of the panelists, suggesting that though his book is about a tragedy, "it is a story with some hope." He even believes that a Catholic Spring may be afoot.

The book is real and should be read.

Abuse of children and the continued silence by the offenders needs to be prevented. If you suffered, saw, or suspected such events, it is important to know that there is help out there.