The harshness is directed at the editing defects seen by the reviewer more than by the content - which he finds interesting.
In my defense I thought I made it clear that the booklet had no deep or far reaching intentions nor was it an analysis of the Maciel debacle in the press or public forum. It is limited to the writer's brief correspondence with RJN.
Hopefully a few brave souls will see beyond the form and go to the content: simply a sampling of RJ Neuhaus correspondence/discussion about a subject he held close to heart -the Accusations against Legion of Christ Founder, Fr. Marcial Maciel, circa 2002.
As his interlocutor I felt Fr. Neuhaus was fundamentally fair in his brief dialog with this obscure writer -me.
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[From the Amazon Books review]
1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
Useful insights, poor editorial work, June 23, 2010
This review is from: R. J. Neuhaus Duped by the Legion of Christ: His "Feathers of Scandal" defense of Legion of Christ Sexually Abusive Founder, Fr. Marcial Maciel Correspondence (Paperback)
When I recently decided to order J. Paul Lennon's first book, Our Father, who art in bed: A Naive and Sentimental Dubliner in the Legion of Christ, I noticed this new book had just been published. From the description, I thought the book was a record of Lennon's written dialog with Richard John Neuhaus, a prominent defender of Marcial Maciel. I was quite interested in the subject, because throughout the 1990s, I was an admirer of Neuhaus (though somewhat critically, since I never fully accepted his "neoliberal" version of Catholicism). I read Neuhaus' several written defenses of Maciel as they were published in First Things, and though I was a bit skeptical of the claims Neuhaus made, I thought he made some good points. As for Maciel and LC and RC, I had no experience of them, but the negative publicity they had received made me keep my distance. Yet I also wondered if it was possible Maciel was the saint his followers claimed, and that his detractors were part of a demonic conspiracy against him and his work.
In time, of course, I discovered the truth, as by now everyone has: that Maciel was not only not a saint, but that even his worst detractors underestimated by a large degree the seriousness of his crimes. The demonic activity in this case stemmed right from the heart of Marcial Maciel himself.
Sadly, this little book is not a very good account of the exposure of Maciel that has occurred over the past few years. Nor is it a record of a dialog between Neuhaus and Lennon. It turns out that Neuhaus only seems to have sent Lennon three very brief responses to the letters Lennon sent him. Those responses appear in this book, but they shed no light on Neuhaus' attitudes toward either Lennon or Maciel -- none whatsoever.
In addition, this book is extremely poorly edited and proofread. If I had to guess, I'd say the text consists of several pieces that Lennon has written for the internet over several years, cut and pasted into a new manuscript with no editing, and also includes a couple of official documents, also cut and pasted from the internet. Typographical errors and oddities abound. More significantly, the lengthy letters Lennon wrote have been edited several times since Lennon sent them to Neuhaus; sometimes Lennon notes that he added a few paragraphs here and there, but it's not always clear where the added passage end. The letters were first written in 2002, but Lennon mentions some additions dating from 2004, but he offers no explanation why he changed his own letters, and he doesn't say whether Neuhaus saw these revised versions. Lennon also doesn't make it clear whether he edited these letters again for publication in 2010.
In any case, despite these problems (and others), there is much fascinating material in Lennon's letters. He comes across as genuinely decent, gentle, and caring; he never expresses rage or even anger against either Maciel or Neuhaus, despite the harm they did. And his close experience of Maciel and LC made his testimony quite valuable.
I recommend this book to anyone as fascinated as I am by the Maciel horror story, but with the caution that this is a highly amateurish production.
