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| Title: | Belief
: A Memoir |
| Author: | N John Hall |
| ISBN: | 1929490348 : 9781929490349 |
| Illustrations: | b/w photos |
| Format: | Hardback |
| Size: | 155x215mm |
| Pages: | 241 |
| Weight: | .456 Kg. |
| Published: | Frederic C Beil - May 2007 |
| List Price: | 16.99 Pounds Sterling |
| Availability: | In Print |
| Subjects: | Biography & autobiography: religious & spiritual: Roman Catholicism; Roman Catholic Church |
This is the story of a young man who became enthralled with Catholicism around 1950, went on to become a priest, served in three northern New Jersey parishes, and left the priesthood in 1967. What makes his story different is the phenomenon of the will to believe. As the author writes: "In my first year of divinity school, in 1951, at Seton Hall, I felt my faith come crashing down. But such was the allure, the pull, the command that the 'triumphant' Catholic Church at the time had upon the mind of an impressionable youth, that I soldiered on, trying my best to recover my faith. I exercised what John Keats called Negative Capability, the art of remaining in doubt and mystery, of being content with half-belief while suppressing the reasoning side of one's mind." Hall's memoir is an insider's picture of Catholic life and Catholic education in the 1950s and 1960s. Although his work is not a frontal attack on or exposé of the Church, it touches on problems in the Church, and he elucidates the issues confronting American Catholics and indeed other Americans today. This book is a voice for scepticism, presented not in the form of a treatise or argument, but through a personal story, a story by turns sad and funny, but also compelling. The overall effect is not one of gloom, but of the delight and exhilaration that comes with intellectual freedom.
