Books like A Gospel of Shame by Frank Bruni

A groundbreaking investigation into the origins of morality, religion, and politics.

Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt expose how three pervasive beliefs—"what doesn’t kill you makes you weaker," "always trust your feelings," and "life is a battle between good and evil"—have fueled a culture of safetyism that stifles free speech and undermines resilience on U.S. college campuses.

Jimmy Breslin recounts how the Catholic Church’s handling of sexual abuse scandals shattered his lifelong faith, offering candid investigations, biting humor, and practical reforms such as married and female priests.

"Jason Berry's Lead Us Not into Temptation put a national spotlight on the issue of clergy sex abuse of children and has been used in newsrooms across the country. Berry takes us through the lives of traumatized victims and their parents, torn by loyalty to the church, into the machinations of bishops and church lawyers. At root, this is a story about politics, how sexual conflicts within clerical culture have compromised the power structure of the church. This new paperback edition of Berry's investigation includes an updated introduction that takes the scandal into the Vatican."--BOOK JACKET.

If we can believe the six o'clock news, there has been an epidemic of sexual abuse among the clergy, and especially among the Roman Catholic clergy. We have certainly seen many well-publicized cases, with front-page photos of priests led off to jail, and television interviews of parents afraid to let their children associate with clergy. But did the news media get the story right? Is there really an epidemic of clergy sex abuse? And is there, as some charge, something about the institution of the priesthood itself that attracts or creates pedophiles? Neither an expose nor an apology, Pedophiles and Priests takes a close, dispassionate look at the entire history of this mushrooming scandal, from the first rumblings to today's headlines. Philip Jenkins has written a fascinating, exhaustive, and above all even-handed account that not only puts this particular crisis in perspective, but offers an eye-opening look at the way in which an issue takes hold of the popular imagination. Jenkins argues convincingly not only that clergy sex abuse is far less widespread than the headlines suggest, but that there is nothing at all particularly Roman Catholic about the problem.