James Kavanaugh (September 17, 1928 – 29 December 2009) was an American Catholic priest, author, and poet best remembered for an iconoclastic call for reform published in 1967. He left the priesthood within a few months of the book's publication.
Born in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and ordained in 1954, Kavanaugh served as a parish priest in Lansing and Flint, Michigan before earning a doctorate at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. His 1967 book, A Modern Priest Looks at His Outdated Church, became a national bestseller.
References
- ^ "James Kavanaugh dies at 81; former Catholic priest wrote book calling for church reform". L.A. Times. January 9, 2010. Archived from the original on February 22, 2014. Retrieved January 31, 2014. "He left the priesthood after publishing 'A Modern Priest Looks at His Outdated Church,' a national bestseller."
- Michael W. Cuneo The Smoke of Satan: Conservative and Traditionalist Dissent 1999 "In 1967 he came across a newly published book by an American priest named Jim Kavanaugh which convinced him that played tennis ... More so than perhaps any other book of its day, A Modern Priest Looks at His Outdated Church exemplified the iconoclastic thinking to which many Catholic intellectuals in the United States were drawn in the wake of the council.
- L. Roger Sockwell Legalism and the Sins of the Church - 2002 Page 46 "Equivalently capturing my own anguish and anger at the force of legalism in the protestant churches, is a stunning sequence offered by Father James Kavanaugh in his astonishing work called "A Modern Priest Looks at His Outdated Church."
- The Western Socialist - Volumes 33-35 1966- Page 216 "Father James Kavanaugh is the author of a widely-read book, A Priest Looks at His Church, in which he was highly critical of, but still loyal to, the Church."
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- 1928 births
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