Ordained Holy Men

Power, sex and sexuality in the Catholic Church

This provocative work presents a layperson perspective of a Catholic Church bureaucracy, a male clerical caste of privilege, which manifests controlling power, secrecy and resistance to conform to a fast-paced and changing world. The author's three year mission service in Africa became an enlightening and inspirational experience and the genesis for this book. It was there that the "Lessons of the Beatitudes" became very real. What was significant was that there is no idyllic Catholicism in the developing world. Scandals and clerical indiscretions pervade the African communities. It was evident that Catholic Church virtues and, more notably, its imperfections are not characteristic only to the Western world. It is a universal phenomenon. The author's sentiments are shared by religious, ordained and non-clerical faithful who feel "compelled to question" this antiquated clerical bureaucracy.