Notes from Chicago Catholics

Over the decades, Catholics in Chicago have earned a reputation for "prayerful heterodoxy." That means they pray deeply a bout their faith and feel empowered and compelled to say what they believe, while respecting and celebrating the unity and diversity that both defines and challenges them.

In this slim volume of stories, essays, poems, and passionate personal pleas, more than thirty Chicago Catholics reveal their hopes for the church they love- sometimes ardently, sometimes painfully, but always faithfully. They include longtime Chicago author Robert McClory, the current Prioress of St. Scholastica Monastery Patricia Crowley, PBS Business and Ethics Weekly correspondent Judy Valente, former Chicago Tribune writer and reporter Patrick Reardon, several current and former pastors, and multiple laymen and laywomen of various occupations, including a hospital chaplain, a union lobbyist, a couple of businesspeople, a sixth-grade Catholic school student, and one women who was invited to leave the church and did. Taken together, their experiences paint a portrait of the Catholicism being lived at this moment in this unique American city.

An Irrepressible Hope is divided into three segments- Welcome, Struggle, Redemption - with drawings by world-famous Chicago Catholic artist Franklin McMahon. Questions for reflection and discussion of each article will be available by request.

Claire Bushey (editor) is a freelance journalist who migrated from her native Delaware over a decade ago and has embraced the spirit of Chicago Catholicism. She has written for Crain's Chicago Business, The Chicago Reader, Slate, and The New York Times.

Discussion Questions are available in a Word and PDF format from ACTA Publications.

Please email Amanda for a copy of the questions.