The WaPo (registration required) ran this review of Jimmy Breslin's book ignorant screed The Church That Forgot Christ in yesterday's Book World. I am astonished that this review even made it in the paper, given the WaPo's editorial policies, but I'm so tickled to see it. The reviewer, Kenneth Woodward, takes Breslin to school in a most satisfying way:
Ostensibly, this is a book about the clergy abuse scandal in the Roman Catholic Church. But like everything Breslin writes, it is really about himself. Or rather, it is about him writing a book about clergy abuse. He wants us to know that he has lost faith in the church of his childhood. "I need no person wearing vestments to stand between God and me," he proclaims up front, as if that were the clergy's function. Still, he wants us to believe that writing this book has caused him considerable pain. Having been taught by nuns in grade school to believe everything the church says is true, he now finds he can believe nothing that the pope and the bishops have to say.Who cares? Breslin has produced an incoherent rant that tells us nothing new about the abuse crisis, much that is demonstrably false and more than anyone would want to know about his loss of a very literal and childish faith...
"We have been ordered that at every liturgical ceremony, we must make a statement against abortion," the unnamed priest replies when questioned by one of Breslin's friends. I've covered the Catholic church for as long as Breslin has been writing, and I don't believe this ever happened. If a priest ever did make such a claim, a serious journalist would investigate whether such a policy existed, not simply tell a story. But there are no footnotes or identifiable sources in this screed, nothing that would suggest that Breslin has done much more than wing it...
The abundant mistakes in this book suggest that Breslin long ago lost touch with the Catholic Church. He complains that the church's anointing of the dying is no longer a sacrament. It still is, only the name has changed, from Extreme Unction to the Sacrament of the Sick and Dying...."
In refuting Breslin, Mr Woodward also brings up some very important points about the roots of the Situation (hint: they aren't celibacy or pedophilia) that don't get enough press.
I'd bet this is the same Kenneth Woodward who wrote "Making Saints" which I have heard is the best guide anywhere to the Church's process of canonization. After reading that review, I guess I can trust that Woodward knows his stuff!