The Grace of Everyday Saints: How a Band of Believers Lost Their Church and Found Their Faith - Hardcover

Guthrie, Julian

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0547133049 ISBN 13: 9780547133041

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2011

Synopsis

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About this title

Review:

St. Brigid Church was one of San Francisco’s great landmarks in the early 1990s. The church itself had weathered depressions and natural disasters, epic earthquakes and a massive fire. Its loyal congregation was active, vibrant, and growing. But in 1993, without warning, the Catholic archdiocese mysteriously ordered its doors to be closed. 

The Grace of Everyday Saints is the story of how a ragtag group of believers came together in a crusade to save their church. What they discovered would be devastating: that around the country, parishes like theirs were threatened by the higher echelons of the Church, all to hide a terrible secret. Soon there were near-daily headlines that shocked the world. But still this unlikely group of heroes—led by a renegade lawyer, a reformed Catholic, and an antiestablishment priest—continued to meet weekly, to fight, to prove that their beloved St. Brigid was worth saving. 

A dramatic narrative that takes readers from the streets of San Francisco to the halls of the Vatican, The Grace of Everyday Saints is about injustice and betrayal, redemption and grace.

A Note from the Author

Dear Amazon Readers:

My book, The Grace of Everyday Saints: How a Band of Believers Lost Their Church and Found Their Faith, asks: What is sacred? Where is the truth? What does it mean when everything you have counted on is suddenly no longer there?

This true story is about a group of Catholics in one San Francisco parish who lose their church and wage a heroic crusade to win it back. Along the way, there are profound moments of spirituality – and shocking revelations that stretch to the Vatican, and that resonate today.

Grace is a book not only for those who struggle with faith and religion, but also for anyone who has been betrayed or who feels lost in the world around them. Grace and its beautiful real-life characters have much to teach about where to find comfort and inspiration, and where, ultimately, to find faith. The people of St. Brigid, who were ignored, betrayed, and knocked down again and again, simply refused to give up. They found resilience in one another, and grew in unimaginable ways. They gained courage and friendship. And, locked out of their church, they came to define faith on their own terms.

I spent six years studying the band from St. Brigid, who began their resistance in 1994, when the church, an architectural treasure within sight of San Francisco Bay, was closed. What struck me early on about this group was how different they were from anyone I’d met in San Francisco. As a journalist in the city, I had interviewed the rich, the famous, and the infamous. I had profiled leaders in business, science, sports, education, and the arts. But in these parishioners I found the real thing: people without hubris, without ego, but with passion and fortitude. They are everyday people who did something heroic. Their story should resonate with Catholics who have been tested and let down, who have been sickened to learn of cases of clergy abuse and cover-ups that reached from local parishes to the Vatican. But it is my hope that people of any faith, or no faith, will enjoy this book for its drama, its twists and turns, the secrets revealed, and for the incredible characters, who are funny and flawed, stubborn and forgiving. There is the young Irish priest who risked his collar to fight for St. Brigid. There is the death-penalty appeals lawyer from the South who fought for the 130-year-old church the way he defends his clients on death row. There is the man who had fallen away from the Church, certain he would never be accepted for who he truly was. And there are the lovely secondary characters who kept the candle burning on the front steps of St. Brigid.

I hope you will enjoy this book and that it will give you a sense of courage in your own life.

--Julian Guthrie

From the Inside Flap:

“A vivid, compassionate account of the battle waged by the men and women of a historic San Francisco parish against orders to close their church.”—T. J. Stiles, author of the Pulitzer Prize–winning The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt

The century-old St. Brigid Church was one of San Francisco’s great landmarks, a Romanesque work of art that had weathered world wars, great depressions, and two epic earthquakes. It had a vibrant and active congregation, with young leadership, and more than sufficient funds. But suddenly, without warning, Catholic officials decreed that the parish—built by immigrants and revered by generations of San Franciscans—would be shuttered.
     The Grace of Everyday Saints is the remarkable true story of a band of believers who came together in a crusade to save their beloved church and unravel the mystery of why it was closed. This unlikely group of heroes—led by a renegade lawyer from the South, a questioning Catholic, and an anti-establishment priest—would wage the longest parish protest in Catholic America. What they discovered along the way would be both devastating and affirming. They would learn that the men they revered the most—men who were supposed to represent God—were far from infallible. They would learn, too, that their faith was more resilient than anyone could have imagined.
      A dramatic narrative that takes us from the streets of San Francisco to the halls of the Vatican, The Grace of Everyday Saints is about injustice and betrayal, redemption and grace. This portrait of parishioners without a parish struggling to keep faith alive sheds light on the real, everyday consequences of the greatest scandal to have rocked the Roman Catholic Church. But ultimately, this story is about the power of belief, the comfort of community, and finding faith on your own terms.

“This beautiful book about the resilience of a small group of Catholic parishioners against the shutdown of their church is a parable of larger convulsions caused by unjust bishops.”—Jason Berry, author of Render Unto Rome: The Secret Life of Money in the Catholic Church

About this edition

• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 0547133049
• ISBN 13: 9780547133041
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 288