The Faithful Departed: The Collapse of Bostons Catholic Culture

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Faithful Departed traces the rise and fall of the Catholic Church in Boston, showing how the Massachusetts experience set a pattern that echoed throughout the United States as religious institutions lost influence in the face of rising secularization. The collapse of Catholicism in Boston became apparent with the explosion of the sex-abuse crisis. Lawler shows that the sex-abuse scandal was neither the cause nor the beginning of Catholicism's decline in Boston.

Author Bio

Philip F. Lawler is editor of Catholic World News. His writings have appeared around the United States and abroad, including the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, and the Boston Globe.