Earthly Mission

With 1.3 billion members, the Catholic Church is the world's largest organization and perhaps its most controversial. The Church's obstinacy on matters like clerical celibacy, the role of women, birth control, and the child abuse scandal has alienated many Catholics, especially in the West. Yet in A [...]
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With 1.3 billion members, the Catholic Church is the world's largest organization and perhaps its most controversial. The Church's obstinacy on matters like clerical celibacy, the role of women, birth control, and the child abuse scandal has alienated many Catholics, especially in the West. Yet in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, the Church is highly esteemed for its support of education, health and social justice. Author of the bestselling The Trouble with Africa, Robert Calderisi has travelled through Africa, Asia and Latin America, talking to cardinals in the hallowed halls of the Vatican, nuns staffing clinics in grimy squatter settlements in Latin America, and priests struggling to speak up for poor people in Africa - not to mention local and Western critics of the Church's work. In this absorbing and deeply informed book, he explores the tensions within the Church - complicity with genocide in Rwanda and dictatorship in Argentina versus the defence of human rights in Brazil and El Salvador, the refusal until very recently to countenance condom use in Africa versus determined support for girl's education.This is a fascinating, often eye-opening investigation that will engross readers of all faiths and none.