The inspiration for the hit London Weekend Television series of the same name, this is one confessional you’ll want to make a point of visiting Young Neil Boyd has just finished divinity school and has been newly ordained as a priest. His first post? St. Jude’s parish, a corner of London with a raucous congregation full of Irish immigrants. The flock is an odd pairing with the gentle Father Boyd, but he just might be both mad enough and tender enough to get through to them. Later adapted into a beloved British sitcom, Bless Me, Father is a humorous and sweet-natured look at Catholicism in the 1950s. Joining Boyd is the cantankerous, scheming, and brilliant Father Duddleswell, a man who is willing to do anything to make sure the Lord’s will be done, and Mrs. Pring, the sharp-tongued housekeeper who both coddles and cajoles her priestly family of two. If the church needs money, Duddleswell will place a bet to get it. If a Catholic wants to marry a Protestant . . . well, maybe he won’t go that far. Father Neil’s adventures with his parishioners are sure to delight readers of all creeds.

In a series of recollections, writer Wilfred Arvizu, an original member of the young mariachi group, tears back the curtain and provides an inside look on how he and others dealt with a pedophile priest who was at once a self-confessed agnostic and not-so-self-confessed alcoholic and possible bi-sexual.

The uninterrupted life is not worth living. Got questions about Catholic family life? You've come to the right place! As a lifelong Catholic, devoted wife, diligent homeschooler, and mother of seven, Susie Lloyd knows lots of people who just might have the answers for you. Susie herself is too busy to give advice: busy giving home haircuts and finding missing socks; busy teaching her teen girls to drive, cook, and diagram sentences; busy praying for divine protection while she races off to church (late) in her full-size van. As she did in her beloved first book, Please Don't Drink the Holy Water, in these pages Susie Lloyd will charm and edify you with her offbeat but always pitch-perfect take on the joys and challenges of raising a Catholic family in today's world.

It is not only young boys that Roman Catholic priests abuse; these dysfunctional, deceitful predators, who use God as an excuse for their behavior, emotionally damage many unsuspecting adult women. Bless Me, Father, For I Have Sinned: Confessions of a Priest’s Mistress is the story of one woman’s involvement with a Roman Catholic priest and how it changed her life. Just as the male victims are coming forward to tell their stories, there can be no closure for Maggie Renaldi until this story is told. During a vulnerable period in her life, Maggie meets Father Brendan O'Reilly and embarks upon a clandestine affair. Father O'Reilly's fear of commitment and his "I love you, go away" behavior threaten to destroy their friendship and their love, until Maggie intervenes and O'Reilly seeks therapy to save himself. Unfortunately, he chooses a priest-psychotherapist who adds more guilt and shame. From seminaries that require young men to beat themselves bloody to bring the flesh into subjection to bishops who play politics, from power-hungry nuns to superiors who profess "the party line," Bless Me, Father, For I Have Sinned is also a graphic picture of church politics and hypocrisy. Maggie Renaldi is not her real name. All the names as well as the places have been changed to protect the innocent (as well as the guilty).

Bless Me Father For They Have Sinned is a must read for anyone who wants to catch a more intimate look at the infrastructure of the Catholic Church. Father Paul Roberts offers us a historically relevant, yet compassionate and humorous, account of the inner workings of the oldest corporation in the world. This memoir introduces us to a man's life journey, from childhood, through the preparations for the seminary, the pitfalls on the spiritual path, to his maturation and commitment to entering the ancient order of priests. Bless Me Father For They Have Sinned does not shy away from the day-to-day encounters with sensual temptations, boundary violations, and alcohol abuse. The reader has a ringside seat as these men and women grapple with mental health issues, struggle with questioning power structures, instigate changes to training and rehabilitation protocols, and try to bring their venerable church into alignment with a contemporary modus operandi.

A tremendous amount of media attention has been devoted to revealing sexual abuse perpetrated by Roman Catholic priests. These essays outline a clinical and research agenda for professionals dealing with clergy sexual abuse. They should enable research clinical professionals, and clergy to identify the relevant issues in the identification, diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of child and adolescent sexual abuse committed by Roman Catholic priests. Leading experts in the field from the United States and Canada have offered their different perspectives on this compelling problem including victim profiles for determining who is at risk.

A novel as hard-hitting as the city streets, this is the story of a 16-year-old boy who wants to become a man, and a father who says manhood is won in the ring--or in the mob.