Marlene Sweeney

From the back cover: "Over the decades, Catholics in Chicago have earned a reputation for 'prayerful heterodoxy.' That means they pray deeply about 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....Taken together, their experiences paint a portrait of the Catholicism being lived at this moment in this unique American city." The concept behind the book, written on the eve of Francis Cardinal George's retirement, was to take "snapshots" of the local church for the benefit of the next archbishop (and whoever else might be interested).