Wounded Shepherd, Austen Ivereigh
Wounded Shepherd, Austen Ivereigh
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Wounded Shepherd
Pope Francis and His Struggle to Convert the Catholic Church

Author: Austen Ivereigh

Narrator: Adam Verner

Unabridged: 15 hr 36 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 11/05/2019


Synopsis

Following his critically acclaimed The Great Reformer, Austen Ivereigh's colorful, clear-eyed portrait of Pope Francis takes us inside the Vatican's urgent debate over the future of the church in Wounded Shepherd.

This deeply contextual biography centers on the tensions generated by the pope’s attempt to turn the Church away from power and tradition and outwards to engage humanity with God’s mercy. Through battles with corrupt bankers and worldly cardinals, in turbulent meetings and on global trips, history’s first Latin-American pope has attempted to reshape the Church to evangelize the contemporary age. At the same time, he has stirred other leaders’ deep-seated fear that the Church is capitulating to modernity—leaders who have challenged his bid to create a more welcoming, attentive institution.

Facing rebellions over his allowing sacraments for the divorced and his attempt to create a more "ecological" Catholicism, as well as a firestorm of criticism for the Church’s record on sexual abuse, Francis emerges as a leader of remarkable vision and skill with a relentless spiritual focus—a leader who is at peace in the turmoil surrounding him.

With entertaining anecdotes, insider accounts, and expert analysis, Ivereigh’s journey through the key episodes of Francis’s reform in Rome and the wider Church brings into sharp focus the frustrations and fury, as well as the joys and successes, of one of the most remarkable pontificates of the contemporary age.

About Austen Ivereigh

Austen Ivereigh is a British writer, journalist, and commentator on religious and political affairs who holds a PhD from Oxford University. His work appears regularly in the Jesuit magazine America and in many other periodicals, and he is also the author of The Great Reformer: Francis and the Making of a Radical Pope. He is well-known as a Catholic commentator for the BBC, Sky, ITV, and Al-Jazeera.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Carl Nelson on December 26, 2019

An Essential Read to Go Beyond the Press The reports in the Press about Pope Francis often emphasize political combats. This important book goes behind those combats and shows how Pope Francis is reforming the church and winning the battles by following His Lord.......more

Goodreads review by Bob on February 23, 2020

Summary: An account of the papacy of Francis into 2019, focusing on his efforts to convert the Catholic Church to a church with Christ at the center showing compassion for those on the margins from one focused more on preservation of an institution, law, and doctrine. The first pope to come from Lati......more

Goodreads review by Jonathan on September 13, 2020

In this book, author Austen Ivereigh provides a review of the pontificate of Pope Francis. He reviews the issues the Pope hoped to address, and their status. One can see that the author is fond of Pope Francis, but he’s does not gloss over the difficulties, the resistance the Pope has encountered as......more

Goodreads review by Donald on February 12, 2020

Overwhelmingly Impresssive... Ivereigh’s summary of Pope Francis, primarily the years 2016-2019 years of his Papacy, but also including what formed the man to empower him to be so effective in those years, was, for me, spell binding. Being somewhat of a church history biography junkie, I have not rea......more

Goodreads review by Stuart on August 29, 2020

On a personal note, having lived for many years in that overwhelmingly Catholic country the pope is from, I came to appreciate the many facets of this denomination. Living years later in the US, my wife and I sent our daughter to Catholic schools all K-12 grades and viewed them, despite their Cathol......more