Notes from the Underground : The Spiritual Journal of a Secular Priest

A celebrated priest uncovers the spiritual riches beneath a church covered in scandal and doubt.

At a time when many Catholics are questioning their church, Donald Cozzens sheds light on the widespread underground church that cherishes the vision of a renewed and reformed church preached by Pope John XXIII, a church open to the currents of grace flowing through cathedrals and marketplaces, chanceries and ghettos, through women and men, through people of good will.

Writing in a fresh way about faith, prayer, communion, and church, Cozzens calls this new underground church a pilgrim people that believes that the Holy Spirit is loose in the world and whose rumors of wisdom might be found in any of God s people as well as in their ordained leaders. I m hardly alone in the underground church. I take comfort in that.
Cozzens describes and inspires a church that wants to be simply adult a church not of children or adolescents hesitant to think and reflect on the lessons of human experience and their effort to live the gospel. A church closer to the spirit of Yves Congar and Teilhard de Chardin, to Dorothy Day and Mother Teresa, a church in step with the spirit of the gospel.

Donald Cozzens, a priest and writer, is author of two award-winning titles, Sacred Silence: Denial and the Crisis in the Church and The Changing Face of the Priesthood, and is editor of The Spirituality of the Diocesan Priest, all published by Liturgical Press. He is the former rector of St. Mary's Seminary and Graduate School of Theology in the archdiocese of Cleveland, and currently writer in residence at John Carroll University where he teaches in the religious studies department. Fr. Cozzens has appeared on Meet the Press and has been interviewed on Fresh Air, All Things Considered, The Australian Broadcasting Corporation, BBC radio and television, CNN, and the major television networks. He speaks at Catholic conferences in the U.S. and abroad.