Synopses & Reviews
Kennedy, a psychologist, former priest, and a leading Catholic author and scholar, addresses one of the most compelling yet undiscussed issues in the Church: human sexuality.
The Unhealed Wound is a penetrating and insightful study of the unresolved conflicts Catholics face regarding both their sexuality and spirituality, deep conflicts which grow more and more serious as they remain unaddressed within the Church.
He astutely yet respectfully takes to task a faith that—despite the reality of erotic love as a natural and human aspect of life itself—condemns birth control, marriage for priests, and sex outside of marriage. The Unhealed Wound also examines the Church's formidable hierarchy, challenging those clerics who uphold papal edicts unthinkingly. Articulately postulating our need not only to understand but celebrate our own sexuality, this book will engender both controversy and heated dialogue among today's scholars, students, and believers of Catholicism.
Review
"How often can one speak of a book on Catholicism as brave, bold, searching, passionate, compassionate, and, not least, well-written?" -Norman Mailer
"With a masterful blend of poetic and decisive articulation, Kennedy fearlessly and insightfully exposes the many symptoms of the sexual wound." -Chicago Tribune
"Persuasively arguing that all aspects of our God-endowed human nature should be celebrated, Kennedy urges the institutional church to move beyond bureaucratic stasis to reestablish a healthy pastoral dialogue regarding all aspects of human sexuality." -Booklist
"I know of no recent book on the Church that deserves a wider readership than Eugene Kennedy's The Unhealed Wound. It celebrates the reality of the Church as Mystery, but also exposes and examines the pain caused to so many by the Church as bureaucracy or institution." -Rev. Richard P. McBrien, author of Lives of the Popes
"The Unhealed Wound will be a source of healing and liberation." -National Catholic Reporter
"This valuable and needed book shows that doctrine has psychological roots and consequences, and that what is often considered as merely an ecclesiastical fear of sex can become, in fact, an attack on love, which is at the heart of the Christian religion." -Garry Wills, author of Papal Sin
Synopsis
Eugene Kennedy persuasively argues that leaders of the Catholic Church have failed to understand and embrace human sexuality. Their dismissive, even condemnatory, attitude toward sex has caused great pain in millions of believers and has led to a Church that is out of touch with its true spirituality and the spirituality of its people. It has resulted in what Kennedy describes as the unhealed wound, the unaddressed sexual dimension of personality. Kennedy acknowledges that the erotic reality is natural, human, and present in any activity in which a whole person is engaged, from falling in love, to painting the Sistine chapel ceiling, to exploring the cosmos.
About the Author
Eugene Kennedy is an award-winning author, syndicated columnist, and professor emeritus of psychology at Loyola University of America. He and his wife, Sara Charles, M.D., live in Chicago