“Adam DeVille’s vision is at once forward-thinking and eminently traditional. Without a doubt this is a book that can raise quite a stir. And I hope it will. It deserves serious, prayerful reading.”
— BISHOP JOHN MICHAEL BOTEAN
“Searing and fearless, Adam DeVille humanizes the meaning of the sexual abuse crisis in the Catholic Church and calls for a radical reconfiguration of the exercise of power. Professor DeVille’s vision will frighten many a hierarch, because only a Church in which bishops, clergy, and laity share authority can rescue Catholicism from cultural and spiritual shipwreck.”
— RT. REV. ARCHPRIEST LAWRENCE CROSS
“Readers with open minds and generous hearts will find this a provocative, helpful contribution to the badly needed debate about reform in the Church at a moment when reform is so urgently needed.”
— RUSSELL SHAW
“DeVille’s painfully honest analysis, informed with his long-established academic rigor, creativity, and captivating style, makes for gripping reading wedded to an implementable call to action.”
— RADU BORDEIANU
“In this provocative and serious book, Adam DeVille presents radical ways of transforming the Church through a return to synodal and conciliar structures rooted in the traditions of the ancient Church. His is a strong, courageous challenge to an embattled and damaged Church.”
— THE V. REV. MICHAEL PLEKON
“This book eloquently and cogently pleads for the Roman Catholic Church to be released from the captivity of an over-centralized, over-individualized model of authority, arguing that this model is at the heart of many other dysfunctionalities. A sober, theologically informed, and very significant work.”
— RT. REV. ROWAN WILLIAMS
“Intelligent and provocative, this book is written out of a deep love for the Church. One needn’t agree with DeVille on every point to profit from his perceptive analysis of the present ecclesial situation and from his proposals for reform.”
— CHRISTOPHER J. RUDDY
“Writing with exceptional passion, Adam DeVille identifies a path that might allow Roman Catholics to move past ‘the current papal-centric structure’ and toward a Church in which authority and decision-making power is more jointly shared by laity, clergy, and bishops.”
— VIGEN GUROIAN
“Adam DeVille continues the line of great Catholic theologians who have asked uncomfortable questions and provided unconventional solutions to ecclesiological issues.”
— ARCHIMANDRITE CYRIL HOVORUN
“Deploying exceptional knowledge of Church history and awareness of ecclesial structures both inside and outside the Catholic Church, Adam DeVille deconstructs the ruling idols of the Catholic imaginary and cuts to the core of the rampant pathologies haunting the ecclesial psyche.”
— MICHAEL MARTIN
“Adam DeVille’s proposal for cleansing and reform in the Catholic Church is crystal-clear: the Church must stop being governed by a caste of clerical guardians and start governing itself. In this learned, passionate, and ecumenically informed book, DeVille leaves his readers eager to get to work on his proposal today.”
— PAUL VALLIERE
