This extremely topical novel by the prolific author, priest and sociologist, has a particular perspective on the crisis facing the Church today; Greeley, who has been humanizing the Catholic hierarchy for readers of popular fiction for decades, makes it all too clear how and why pedophile priests were protected by their superiors, shuffled from parish to parish, allowed to victimize so many youngsters for so long--and are cointinuing to do so even now. Father Herman Hoffman, Greeley's sympathetic protagonist, is a whistle-blower whose efforts to do the right thing are so forcefully resisted by his superiors that his parish, his priesthood, and even his own faith are put to the test. In this somewhat wooden docudrama, the evil archbishop is routed, the bad priest dies, the good priest is promoted, the victims are avenged, and the road to the bestseller list paved with good intentions. --Jane Adams

Greeley's experience as both a priest with 50 years of service to the Catholic Church and as a bestselling storyteller (The Cardinal Sins, etc.) perfectly equips him to take on the difficult subject of sexual abuse and its ensuing coverup. Greeley makes his position quite clear: "those who might seem to be the worst sinners are not the predators possessed by their own uncontrollable urges, but other priests who know about what the predators have done and remain silent or even defend them out of mistaken loyalty. And still worse are the bishops and bureaucrats who hide the truth...." Greeley builds his case and his fiction on the life of Herman Hugo Hoffman, whose Russian German forebears were farmers in the plains states of Midwestern America. His is a gentle story of growing up in a rural, close-knit family among other like-minded immigrant families in the town of Lincoln Junction. Herman's feisty, red-haired neighbor Katherine inserts herself into his family at age eight and grows up to be his best friend and lover until he enters the priesthood. The sweet story of Herman and Katherine is framed by the trial of child abuser Father Lenny "Lucifer" Lyon, whom Herman, several years before, walked in on while the priest was brutally raping young parishioner Todd Sweeney. The bulk of the novel is a study of Herman's calling and rise to the priesthood, and it's an affecting story. This is a well-told tale of love and courage that makes its valuable point without resorting to unnecessary violence or cheap and easy shock effects. It's fiction, but for anyone interested in the ongoing controversy it's a must-read.
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