With these brisk, incisive nine chapters on Catholicism and its place on the current world stage, the author treats us to a thorough examination of the contemporary Catholic Church and its complex relationships with its followers, its critics and the other major world religions.This is a fearless exposition of what the author sees as the major conflicts and contradictions in today's Catholic Church, charting its evolution away from its more traditional values, and some would say strengths, and following its progress into the modern world.The reader cannot fail to be affected by this work, and the lifetime's experience of the author is evident from the start. It possesses a depth of feeling and a certainty of opinion rarely seen in the morally ambiguous world of today.