Preface. Introduction. Part I Celibacy, Patriarchy, and the Priest Shortage. 1 Celibate Exclusivity Is the Issue. 2 Compulsory Celibacy and the Priest Shortage. Part II Social Change in Organized Religion. 3 Toward a Theory of Social Change in Organized Religion. 4 The Transpersonal Paradigm. 5 The Special Character of Organized Religion. 6 Forces for Change in Catholic Ministry. Part III Conflict and Paradox. 7 Unity and Diversity. 8 Immanence and Transcendence. 9 Hierarchy and Hierophany. Part IV Coalitions in the Catholic Church. 10 Bureaucratic Counterinsurgency in Catholic History. 11 Pri.

Frightened, lonely, and angry after her father is killed in a car accident, Clare is helped through the grieving process by her mother and grandfather.

Book contains a special preview of the exciting opening pages of a spectacular new thriller; The Elijah conspiracy by Charles Robertson.

The necessity for meaningful change and reform in the Roman Catholic Church is not just the opinion of the few but a consensus of the many. It is no secret; many Catholics today are discontent with the leadership of the church. The once bastion of the faithful are steadily drifting away from Catholicism, some for personal reasons, but the majority of Catholics that have moved on to other denominations or none at all are those who have become disillusioned and disenchanted by the controlling forces of leadership. That is the hierarchy that has failed to modernize the church by bringing its practices and ways of being church into the twenty-first century--especially the leadership that has insufficiently addressed the causes and remedies of the scandalous abuses of pedophile priests. It appears by most accounts that the leadership of the church has not been able to recognize the signs of the times. It is rather obvious; we live in a troubled world, acculturated by sex, greed, violence, and power. These self-destructive futilities grow from the seeds of obsession in the existence of the many. Therefore, reforms are absolutely essential to ensure that Catholicism has a future in the world.

Winner of the California Book Award for First Fiction Los Angeles Times Book Prize Finalist for First Fiction "A quietly brilliant disquisition . . . told in prose that is so startling in its spare beauty that I found myself thinking about Khong's turns of phrase for days after I finished reading."—Doree Shafrir, The New York Times Book Review Her life at a crossroads, a young woman goes home again in this funny and inescapably moving debut from a wonderfully original new literary voice. Freshly disengaged from her fiancé and feeling that life has not turned out quite the way she planned, thirty-year-old Ruth quits her job, leaves town and arrives at her parents’ home to find that situation more complicated than she'd realized. Her father, a prominent history professor, is losing his memory and is only erratically lucid. Ruth’s mother, meanwhile, is lucidly erratic. But as Ruth's father’s condition intensifies, the comedy in her situation takes hold, gently transforming her all her grief. Told in captivating glimpses and drawn from a deep well of insight, humor, and unexpected tenderness, Goodbye, Vitamin pilots through the loss, love, and absurdity of finding one’s footing in this life.

"The Soul Grows in Darkness" recounts a profoundly challenging life. Born nearly deaf, Loren lives in a rat-infested Chicago ghetto where he contends with poverty, family conflict, prejudice, drugs, and terrifying violence. Barely surviving this murky urban landscape, his struggles initiate a lifelong search for God and truth. Answers to his insatiable curiosity about life, death, and war are rare, but mysterious dreams and inner dialogues pose probing questions that guide his journey. He wonders whether his memories and dreams are only illusory. In adulthood, he turns to psychoanalysis to redeem his dark past and find meaning in his dreams. As a result, he becomes an analyst himself. Are memories, dreams, and the promptings of the unconscious only opiates of minds desperately coping with a hopelessly disordered world? Or, however unreliable, do they contain one's truth? "The Soul Grows in Darkness" is a hopeful and poignant search for self-understanding, love, and God. Its conclusion is astonishing. "Poignant, funny, tragic, and uplifting, Loren Pedersen's new book will be many things to many readers: compelling true-life story, inspirational and cautionary tale, psychological self-help manual, and a chronicle of the second half of the tumultuous twentieth century. Readers will be immensely entertained by the vivid story here of Dr. Pedersen's life, through which they will discover illumination of their own." Mark Spencer Author of the novels "Love and Reruns in Adams County" and "The Weary Motel." Winner of The Faulkner Society Faulkner Award for Fiction, and of the Omaha Prize for the Novel