The Priestly Sins
A Novel
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
Not since his runaway bestseller, The Cardinal Sins, has Father Andrew M. Greeley written such a searing and topical novel about the state of the Catholic Church.
The Priestly Sins tells the story of Father Herman Hoffman, a gifted and innocent young man from the distant prairies of the Great Plains. In the first summer of his first parish appointment, Hoffman is swept up in The Crisis after witnessing child abuse in the parish rectory. He tells the pastor, the father of the victim, and the local police but is rebuffed by the archbishop. Soon he is vilified for denouncing a priest who has been "cleared" by the police and learns the harsh fate of the whistle-blower in the contemporary Catholic church: He is locked up in a mental-health center and then sent into exile to do graduate study.
In Chicago to study immigrant history, he encounters the local "Vicar for Extern Priests," the legendary Monsignor Blackie Ryan, who helps him regain his confidence. Hoffman returns home to demand a parish of his own from the archbishop. Reluctantly, the church hierarchy assigns him to a dying parish, but by his zeal and charm Hoffman revives the local church. His brief idyll is shattered by a subpoena to testify in a court hearing. If he speaks, he will have to take on the "downtown" establishment that is determined to destroy him and many of his fellow priests who want to be rid of this painful reminder of a sinful past. Hoffman faces exile not only from his parish, but from the priesthood itself.
Writing from the author's fifty years of experience as a priest, The Priestly Sins will be criticized by some but embraced by most as an all-too-candid story of all-too-human priests. The Priestly Sins is Father Greeley's most electrifying novel in three decades, a novel sure to rise up the bestseller lists.
At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
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. Forecast:Good title, nice cover, timely topic, $250,000 marketing campaign this could be a bestseller for Greeley. The author will present a nonfiction take on the subject in a forthcoming book, Priests in the Pressure Cooker.