"'Fatherless' Will NOT Leave You Orphaned!" (Review submitted to Amazon.com on 9/15/09)

[See http://www.fatherlessbook.com/]

"Before I'd even started reading this book, I thumbed through the back pages at Mr. Gail's fabulous bibliography. I was delighted to see a number of works and/or authors with which I am very familiar:
* Archbishop Chaput's 'Render unto Caesar'
* Dr. Chris Kahlenborn's 'Breast Cancer : Its Link to Abortion and the Birth Control Pill'
* Bogomir Kuhar, Pharm.D. - executive director of Pharmacists for Life
* William E. May, Ph.D.
* Leslie Woodcock Tentler's 'Catholics and Contraception: An American History'
* George Weigel's 'Witness to Hope'
* Christopher West (He has written and spoken extensively about Pope John Paul II's 'The Theology of the Body.' An updated translation of the late Holy Father's teaching has been released as 'Man and Woman He Created Them.')

"'Fatherless' is the tale of three Catholic families from a suburban Philadelphia parish, who turn to Father John Sweeney for spiritual guidance. While they do not use this terminology, they are each struggling with how to live out their 'universal call to holiness.' Though the novel's set in the first decade of the magnificent pontificate of John Paul the Great, Father Sweeney is initially unable to respond to his parishioners with the wisdom of spiritual treasures, such as Veritatis Splendor or Christifideles Laici. He tries to offer a 'Catholicism Lite,' when what is needed is the Truth which will set them free! We assume that he has failed to challenge himself and his congregation with such 'hard sayings,' as the evils of
* contraception,
* divorce/remarriage (without annullment),
* exploitation of workers,
* failing to bring the Truth into the political sphere,
* failing to treat nutrition/hydration as ordinary care,
* IVF,
* missing Sunday Mass,
* misuse of our sexuality (outside or inside marriage), and
* receiving Holy Communion outside the state of grace.

"I would like to offer a teenie, tiny, minor criticism about a Church history, which is offered by 'Father McManus' toward the latter part of this masterpiece. I think that this section would have been better served by using Thomas Woods, Ph.D.'s 'How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization' as its primary reference (Though it is a difficult work, Eamon Duffy's 'The Stripping Of The Altars' raises enormous questions about our assumptions about pre-Reformation Catholicism.).

"Without question, this was one of the best books which I have EVER read!!!"