Why Be Catholic?: Understanding Our Experience & Tradition

A bold and honest exploration of what it means to be Catholic in a changing world, from two of America's beloved spiritual teachers

In this candid and wide-ranging work, Richard Rohr and Joseph Martos confront the tensions many Catholics feel about their faith, identity, and belonging. Written in the wake of Vatican II and amid growing cultural change, Why Be Catholic? wrestles honestly with both the brilliance and the shadow of the Catholic tradition.

Moving through the strengths of Catholicism—its sacramental imagination, universal vision, communal depth, and call to social transformation—while also naming its institutional failures and blind spots, the authors refuse both nostalgia and easy dismissal. Instead, they argue that Catholicism is not merely an institution to defend, but a living tradition to inhabit and reform from within.

At its heart, this book is an invitation: to rediscover the wisdom of the tradition, to claim personal responsibility for faith, and to embrace the demanding, transformative call to holiness that has shaped Catholic saints across the centuries.

Richard Rohr is a globally recognized Franciscan friar and ecumenical teacher whose work bears witness to the deep wisdom of Christian mysticism. He is the founder of the Center for Action and Contemplation in Albuquerque, New Mexico, an educational nonprofit dedicated to introducing seekers to the contemplative Christian path of transformation. Rohr is the author of numerous books, including the New York Times bestseller The Universal Christ. His work has been featured on The Oprah Podcast and On Being with Krista Tippett, and in The New Yorker and Harper’s Magazine.

Joseph Martos was a nationally recognized authority on the sacraments of the Catholic Church and a beloved writer. He passed in 2020.