Catholicism

Allen writes for the National Catholic Reporter. He's a Vatican analyst for CNN and NPR, and he writes a weekly Internet column called The Word from Rome. His new book is called, All the Pope's Men: The Inside Story of How the Vatican Really Thinks.

He talks about living as a closeted homosexual in the priesthood, finally having an affair with a man, going into therapy and then leaving the ministry. All this occurred by 1992, years before the sexual abuse scandal. Schiavone wrote about his experience in an article in the December 8, 2002 issue of the Boston Globe Magazine.

Steinfels is a former senior religion correspondent for The New York Times. He now writes the Beliefs column for the paper. Steinfels is the author of the new book, A People Adrift: The Crisis of the Roman Catholic Church in America.

His new feature film, The Magdalene Sisters, is based on the real-life laundries run by the Sisters of the Magdalene Order in Ireland near the end of the 19th century. Girls considered wayward or unruly were sent there as punishment for their sins and forced to do labor under sweat-shop conditions. The last of the laundries was shut down in 1996. Mullan's film follows the lives of four young women and takes place from 1964 to 1969. Before writing and directing, Mullan was best known for his acting and starred in The Big Man, Riff-Raff, Shallow Grave and Trainspotting.

Film critic David Edelstein reviews The Magdalene Sisters by Scottish writer/director Peter Mullan. It's based on Ireland's actual Magdalene Asylums where Catholic girls accused of "moral crimes" (anything from getting pregnant, to being too attractive, to accusing a man of rape) were sent to work in laundries to atone for their sins. These virtual prisons finally closed their doors in 1996.

Father Donald Cozzens is the author of the new book Sacred Silence: Denial and the Crisis in the Church (Liturgical Press). Father Cozzens is president-rector and professor of pastoral theology at Saint Mary Seminary and Graduate School of Theology in Cleveland. He is also editor of The Spirituality of the Diocesan Priest. His previous book is The Changing Face of the Priesthood: A Reflection on the Priest's Crisis of Soul.

Thomas Reese is a Jesuit scholar and editor-in-chief of America, the national Catholic weekly magazine. He's also the author of the book Inside the Vatican: The Politics and Organization of the Catholic Church. He'll discuss the pope's recent tour, the pontiff's health, possible successors and the divide between the church and its parishoners.

Book critic Maureen Corrigan reviews Why I Am a Catholic (Houghton Mifflin) by Pulitzer prize-winning author Garry Wills.

Father Donald Cozzens is the author of The Changing Face of the Priesthood: A Reflection on the Priest's Crisis of Soul. He is president-rector and professor of pastoral theology at Saint Mary Seminary and Graduate School of Theology in Cleveland. He is also the editor of The Spirituality of the Diocesan Priest. Father Cozzens will talk about the church's current sexual abuse scandals, and other crises facing the priesthood.

Boston Globe reporters Walter Robinson and Mike Rezendes. They're part of the investigative staff that broke the story of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church. The staff has written a new book about the scandal called Betrayal: The Crisis in the Catholic Church. In January of 2002, the Globe published a two-part series revealing the details of a decades-long cover-up by the Boston Archdiocese. They told how a pedophile priest had been shuttled from parish to parish, and of the millions of dollars paid to victims to keep the story secret.

Author Garry Wills. The Pulitzer Prize winner has written a new book criticizing the Catholic Church. It’s called “Papal Sin: Structures of Deceit.” (Doubleday) Wills is a practicing Catholic and studied with Jesuit priests, though he was never ordained. In Papal Sin, Wills describes a papacy that seems unable or unwilling to admit its mistakes. He writes, “Given so much to hide, the impulse to keep hiding becomes imperative, automatic, almost inescapable.” He addresses topics such as birth control, the ordination of women, and views on the Holocaust.

Book critic Maureen Corrigan reviews "Sin and Censorship: The Catholic Church and the Motion Picture Industry," by Frank Walsh (Yale Univ. Press).

Professor of Religious Studies at Indiana University Mary Jo Weaver. Her previous book is "Springs of Water in a Dry Land: Spiritual Survival for Catholic Women Today," (Beacon) about women who are Catholic and feminist. Her book, "New Catholic Women: A Contemporary Challenge to Traditional Religious Authority," (Indiana University Press) has a new 10th anniversary edition. Weaver's latest book (edited with R. Scott Appleby) "Being Right: Conservative Catholics in America" is a collection of essays (Indiana University Press).

Novelist Mary Gordon has a new collection of essays, "Good Boys and Dead Girls: And Other Essays." Catholicism has been a constant theme in her novels, which include: "Final Payment," and "The Company of Women." American fiction by men, Catholicism, and abortion are some of the issues she write about in her new book

Reverend Theodore Hesburgh has just published a new memoir about serving as the University of Notre Dame's president for 35 years. His tenure overlapped with the 1960s student movements; Hesburgh did his best to strike a balance between allowing for freedom of expression and maintaining an environment conducive to learning.

Literary critic Denis Donogue was a Catholic who grew up in a community suspicious of Protestants. His memoir about his life in Northern Ireland, and his father's career in the constabulary, is called "Warrenpoint."

Newsweek magazine's religion writer Kenneth L. Woodward's new book examines the politics surrounding how the Roman Catholic Church decides who will become a saint. Woodward says it's the most democratic process in a profoundly undemocratic institution.

Commentator Maureen Corrigan shares her thoughts on David Lodge's "Souls and Bodies."

Sheed wrote the text for The Kennedy Legacy, which features photographs of the late president. He joins Fresh Air to discuss his work as a critic and author. Sheed grew up interested in sports; a bout of polio turned him into an avid reader. His parents ran one of the largest Catholic publishing houses.

Father Michael Doyle. He's the pastor of Sacred Heart Church in Camden, New Jersey, which sits in the center of a rundown neighborhood in one of the most depressed cities on the East coast. A deeply religious man who over the years has had his differences with the church hierarchy, Fr. Doyle has committed his church to social change and helping the poor.