Books, Arts & Manners: Unruly Children of Mother Church

Issues That Divide the Church Edited by Robert G. Hoyt

Macmillan, $4.95 In an era in which the New York Times would consider it simply a matter of contemporary style to identify Judas Iscariot as “a prominent Catholic layman,” one ought not really to be too surprised at the appearance of a book entitled Issues That Divide the Church. Very frequently today the Roman Catholic Church seems to be in the position of the woman whose children celebrate their maturity by beating up their mother. Holy Mother Church has, indeed, been putting up with quite a lot from her liberal offspring, and a book bearing so terrible a title seemed to promise simply more of the same fashionable flagellation. But this is a really splendid volume, striking in format, unique in contributors, absorbing in content and subtly instructive on why certain issues are dividing some Catholics from other Catholics within the Church. It is even tragically suggestive of how certain ideas are dividing some Catholics from the Church herself.

EW

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E. H. Wall

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Issues That Divide the Church Edited by Robert G. Hoyt

Macmillan, $4.95 In an era in which the New York Times would consider it simply a matter of contemporary style to identify Judas Iscariot as “a prominent Catholic layman,” one ought not really to be too surprised at the appearance of a book entitled Issues That Divide the Church. Very frequently today the Roman Catholic Church seems to be in the position of the woman whose children celebrate their maturity by beating up their mother. Holy Mother Church has, indeed, been putting up with quite a lot from her liberal offspring, and a book bearing so terrible a title seemed to promise simply more of the same fashionable flagellation. But this is a really splendid volume, striking in format, unique in contributors, absorbing in content and subtly instructive on why certain issues are dividing some Catholics from other Catholics within the Church. It is even tragically suggestive of how certain ideas are dividing some Catholics from the Church herself.