Jimmy Breslin

#2

2004

"After a lifetime of attending mass every Sunday, Jimmy Breslin has severed his ties to the church he once loved, and in this book he explains why." "When the church sex scandals emerged relentlessly in recent years, and when it became apparent that these scandals had been covered up by the church hierarchy, Breslin found it impossible to reconcile his faith with this new reality. Ever the reporter, he visited many victims of molestation by priests and found lives in emotional chaos. He questioned the bishops and found an ossified clergy that has a sense of privilege and entitlement. Thus disillusioned with his church, though not with his faith, he writes about the loss of moral authority yet uses his trademark mordant humor to good effect." "Imagining a renewed church, along with practical solutions such as married priests and female priests, The Church That Forgot Christ also reminds us that Christ wore sandals, not gold vestments and rings, and that ultimately what the Catholic Church needs most is a healthy dose of Christianity."--BOOK JACKET.

#3

2002

"In November 1999, an accidental death at a Brooklyn construction site made headlines because the developers had major fund-raising ties to the administration of Mayor Rudolph Giuliani. But the dead man's name went all but unmentioned in the press coverage.". "In The Short Sweet Dream of Eduardo Gutierrez, Breslin not only gives the dead man a name but tells the story of his life: his birth in San Matias, Mexico, his love for a woman named Silvia, and his hope of making enough money in the United States to secure a more comfortable future back home in Mexico.". "The story behind Gutierrez's death is one of corruption, bad politics, and indifference to people whose lives are perceived not to count. With the issue of Mexican immigration and border policy taking center stage in our national debate, Gutierrez's story takes on even more relevance. The account of his flight, his desperation in a foreign and hostile country, and his needless death at the hands of unscrupulous forces should be a wake-up call to us all. In placing this man in the story's center, rather than its footnotes, Breslin does the same thing he did so famously when he interviewed the grave digger at John F. Kennedy's funeral: he wrenches our attention back to a story's most forgotten but most human perspective."--BOOK JACKET.