Being Catholic Now: Prominent Americans Talk About Change in the Church and the Quest for Meaning

Some of America’s most extraordinary celebrities, artists, and thinkers reveal what they believe Catholicism is–and what it should be

In this illuminating collection that redefines an ancient institution in the most contemporary of terms, human-rights activist Kerry Kennedy asks thirty-seven American Catholics to speak candidly about their own faith–whether lost, recovered, or deepened–and about their feelings regarding the way the Church hierarchy is moving forward.

“Has something to say to almost every Catholic, or even one-time Catholic, who cracks open its pages. . . . One finishes the book feeling grateful for [Kennedy’s] subjects’ honesty and moved in a hundred different ways by what they reveal of their aspirations and struggles.”–National Catholic Reporter

“Revealing . . . offers an unusually intimate view of how much being raised Catholic shapes the identity of many prominent Americans, but also how much tension many feel with the institutional church.”–Boston Globe

KERRY KENNEDY established the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Center for Human Rights in l988 and, while leading more than forty human-rights delegations to more than thirty countries, has worked on diverse human-rights issues such as child labor, disappearances, ethnic violence, and environmental protection. Kennedy is the author of Speak Truth to Power: Human Rights Defenders Who Are Changing Our World, which birthed an internationally show­cased play, a stirring photographic exhibition, and a PBS documentary film. Kennedy is a graduate of Brown University and Boston College Law School. She is also the mother of three daughters: Cara, Mariah, and Michaela.