Choosing to Be Catholic: For the First Time, or Once Again

This friendly overview of Christianity and the Catholic Church is not quite as well thought out as O'Malley's earlier book, Why Be Catholic?, certain sections of which this book repeats. The tone is uneven here and O'Malley's arguments and analogies are not always easy to follow. It is nevertheless a fine guide, not pretending to be either advanced theology or a Catholicism For Beginners, but a cultured and subjective consideration of the church as a community, rather than as an institution. I frankly don't understand the polemical outbursts this book is inspiring in reviewers. It is neither radically inflammatory nor mind-numbingly conservative. You only have to read a little of O'Malley to realize that he is (appealingly) all about pluralism and toleration, yet he is not so flexible that he thinks "anything goes." Where he is partial to a certain belief or point of view that he cannot back up with a solid argument, he makes it clear that he is expressing a subjective opinion. My only real criticism is the unevenness of this book, which I did not find to be either as persuasive nor as well organized as the earlier one. Still, worth your time if you're so inclined.

a radical proposition for the reviewer: if you critique a book, you should critique what the author is saying. you should not put words into the author's mouth. you should read a book carefully, not just fan your eyes with the words, and then use those words to mean what you want them to mean. o'malley writes on page 197: "...i do think there has to be a purgatory, not for debtors to wipe out a debt but for those who die incapable of genuine joy." no where does he suggest that "the church's teaching on purgatory is incompatible with the teachings of jesus," as one reviewer would have it. (the vatican ii's "lumen gentium" that that reviewer refers to says simply: "this sacred council accepts with great devotion this venerable faith of our ancestors regarding this vital fellowship with our brethren who are in heavenly glory or who having died are still being purified.") o'malley says on page 193: "perhaps the single most important reason i am a catholic, rather than some other kind of christian, is my unshakable belief in transubstantiation, that--somehow--the bread and wine truly become the body and blood of christ." no where does he say--as the reviewer attempts to make him say: "belief in the real presence of christ in the eucharist is negotiable." where o'malley does use the phrase "weekly meal of gratitude" (in chapter 7: "your basic christian") he is talking of the bare minimum of connection between all the different strands of christianity. this is before he gets to chapter 8: "why be catholic?" the reviewer has o'malley say that: "there's no special moral authority conferred on the pope; he's just a political leader. (p. 114)" o'malley does not say that. rather o'malley notes that there are, in human terms, two kinds of authority, that of enforced authority, and that of "moral authority." this moral authority is a subdivision of the authority that one has because of the respect and veneration that one receives due to one's own righteousness. that cannot be given, one must earn it. john paul ii earned it. many of the renaissance popes didn't. this has nothing to do with the question of the pope's authority from christ, and, in this section, that is not what o'malley is writing about. o'malley has written a quite good colloquial book on the the ways that a person who is not catholic, or one who has been away from the church for a number of years, might approach the church and learn to appreciate it, indeed, love it. for those who want a more structured approach, o'malley gives all the proper references to the catholic catechism. i wouldn't mind a person who wants to take exception to what o'malley, in fact, has to say. just give o'malley the respect of actually reading what does say. don't cram words into his mouth.

Father O'Malley takes another look at the question "Why be Catholic?" in this engaging and accessible book. And he writes, in his fine chapter on the sacraments, "Perhaps the single most important reason I am a Catholic, rather than some other kind of Christian, is my unshakable belief in transubstantiation, that--somehow--the bread and wine truly become the Body and Blood of Christ."As great as this answer is, the questions along the way are interesting too, as O'Malley ponders atheism and the major world religions. Then he discusses Christianity and distills the faith into a short list of "Non-Negotiables".While I disagree with his interpretation of Scriptures (overly symbolic), he is no moral relativist. As he writes: "If objective morality...changes from age to age, Plato has nothing to tell us about being human. Nor did Jesus, Buddha, Shakespeare, or Dickens. Moral discourse is little more than verbal Ping-Pong, and libraries are a terrible waste of money." (No sugar coating here.)As to a dominant subtheme in the book, O'Malley exhorts the Laodicean in all of us to be active (and joyful) in the faith. In fact, the book concludes with a nice section on prayer.This is another good book by the author of "The Voice of Blood".