RFK’s daughter asks what `Being Catholic Now’ means

(UNDATED) When the idea for her new book first came to her, Kerry Kennedy was coping with a sentiment that may be familiar to many American Catholics: frustration. With the clergy embroiled in a sex abuse scandal, and church leadership still unyielding on issues such as abortion rights, Kennedy admits feeling anger toward the institution […]

(UNDATED) When the idea for her new book first came to her, Kerry Kennedy was coping with a sentiment that may be familiar to many American Catholics: frustration. With the clergy embroiled in a sex abuse scandal, and church leadership still unyielding on issues such as abortion rights, Kennedy admits feeling anger toward the institution whose traditions and social justice teachings she had long revered. The result is “Being Catholic Now,” a book of interviews with 37 prominent American Catholics that delves deep into the heart of the faith by asking the simplest of questions: What does it mean to be Catholic? “I’ve always found that when I care deeply about any issue, I am most stimulated to view it in all its facets by talking to others who also care about this issue,” said Kennedy, a 49-year-old human rights activist and divorced mother of three. Kennedy, the seventh of Robert and Ethel Kennedy’s 11 children, casts a wide net in her search, eliciting thoughtful answers from both the devout and the estranged, the future nun and the Muslim convert, the abused and the clergyman, the reflective theologian and the eviscerating comedian. Her interviewees include a host of household names, including Bill O’Reilly of Fox News, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, actors Susan Sarandon and Martin Sheen, but also the rank-and-file labor leaders and aid workers, among others. What emerges is a portrait of a hugely influential faith that derives its strengths and weaknesses from a perpetual sense of conflict _ what Kennedy describes as “intellectual curiosity.” For those interviewed, conflict manifests itself in a number of ways. Democratic strategist and practicing Catholic Donna Brazile, for example, discusses her disappointment upon discovering, at the age of 6, that her dream job was unattainable. “For heaven’s sake and mine, why couldn’t I be a priest?” Brazile recalls. “I wanted to speak in Latin. I wanted to wear the robes. I wanted to earn the ultimate seat in the front of the church. Why can’t little girls be priests?” Taking a different tack, Kennedy catches up with prominent Irish emigres Frank McCourt (author of “Angela’s Ashes”) and actor Gabriel Byrne, both of whom discuss their childhood in the church, where they came face to face with abusive priests. Both have since left the church. “I couldn’t reconcile the collar with the groping hands,” McCourt told Kennedy. Or take, for example, Kennedy’s interview with comedian Bill Maher, whose hostility toward the Catholic Church _ and all religion _ is well known. Maher, who says he gave up on Catholicism when he was 13, minces no words in stating his grievances. He calls religion “the worst thing in the world” and declares “the last great intellectual frontier is to debunk religion.” “I wasn’t seeking people who were going to share my perspective,” Kennedy said. The interviews are short, and the questions vary from one interviewee to the next. Kennedy does have a few constants, however. For example, she asks many of her subjects what they would do if they became pope _ a question that evokes a wide range of responses. Sister Laurie Brink, a professor at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago, jokes she’d “work on the outfits.” ABC political analyst Cokie Roberts, meanwhile, says her first act would be to ordain women and married men. Maher, predictably, took a more drastic position. “I’d end the church,” he said. Despite Maher’s protests, though, the image of the Catholic Church that emerges in the pages of “Being Catholic Now” is alive and vibrant. Even as Americans continue to leave the pews in large numbers _ according to the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, about one in 10 Americans are former Catholics _ Kennedy�s subjects all share a connection to the faith they inherited. “I think the old phrase, ‘once a Catholic, always a Catholic,’ really resonates, because those who have moved at great distances from the church and who would say I’m no longer a Catholic … are walking, talking personifications of Catholicism in so many ways,” Kennedy says. As for the author, Kennedy says her mission proved a successful one. “It’s definitely made me feel closer to my church than ever, and a much deeper sense of connection with the Almighty than I have had in my adult life.”

A photo of Kerry Kennedy is available via religionnews.com.


Donate to Support Independent Journalism!

Donate Now!