Priests Without People

Priests Without People is a novel about cardinals, bishops, pastors, seminarians, lay people, and, yes, even popes trying to find their way to salvation in the turmoil resulting from the Second Vatican Council in the Catholic Church. It's the 1960's, and strange things are happening as priests, people and prelates try to come to terms with the changes the Council has set in motion. The authority of bishops and pastors has been reduced, and young priests, seminarians, nuns and lay people are speaking their minds. It is a brave new ecclesiastical world of confusion-and sometimes chaos-in which the only clear voice is that of the Lord. But is anyone listening? And if so, where do they go with what they think they've heard? Review: To read "Priests Without People" by Nicholas Cafardi is that rare reading pleasure: the assurance of being held securely in the hands of a master storyteller. Cafardi earns our trust by being a truth teller. In unadorned, elegant language, he reveals the quiet inner lives of religious men from boyhood bedeviled by sin, througth the volcanic male struggle to touch, on to old age devoid of earthly solace. His characters breathe the same air we do. Adding to the dramatic tension throughout are the spiritual high stakes felt from start to finish in this often funny and fun story of American parish priests who find themselves in the presence of the Pope. Written with an insider's authority, we travel to Rome and participate in its centrality to Christ's presence on earth. This necessary novel belongs in every believer's library. --Arthur Giron, author of "Edith Stein", "St. Francis in Egypt" and co-author of the Broadway epic "Amazing Grace".