An Unlikely Return to the Catholic Church

Kaya Oakes recently published "Radical Reinvention: An Unlikely Return to the Catholic Church."  Kaya is my dad's cousin's daughter.  I didn't meet Kaya or even know about her until about four years ago.  My dad told me that he had run into his cousin, and she had told him that her daughter just wrote a book about indie music.   She was having a reading in Berkeley in the next month.  I was so excited that this unknown part of family shared a deep love of indie music and writing.  I couldn't believe it.  So I quickly bought and read her book: "Slanted and Enchanted: The Evolution of Indie Culture" and loved it.  I went to her book reading at Moe's books and introduced myself after the event.  I was a little intimidated cause here was this published author, a writer, a really good writer, writing about a subject I love.  But Kaya was really cool, super down to earth and just happy to meet a new family member with similar interests.

In her just released, Radical Reinvention, Kaya writes another beautiful book, even better than Slanted and Enchanted, in my opinion.  Kaya writes about how for most of her adult life she identified as an atheist.  She grew up loving punk music and bashing our homophobic, misogynistic, racist, 99% on the outside culture.  She is a pro-choice, pro-women, gay community loving, leftist, political activist.  But in her late thirties she began to feel an emptiness that could not be filled by her past passions.  She found herself longing for the sanctity and calm of the Catholic Church, the place of her father, her family, her Irish working class heritage.  She never envisioned herself returning to the Catholic Church, mainly because so many of its political stances are fundamentally at odds with what she believes.   But in the book she documents her return to the Catholic Church in brutal honesty.

The book is hysterical (Kaya is so self-deprecating at times it hurts), incredibly well edited and researched, and ends with a profound acceptance of Kaya's faith, her belief in God, Christ, the Catholic Church.  But Kaya is no passive parishioner.  She rails on the many failings of the Catholic Church, including its sexist beliefs and policies.  Kaya isn't content to simply complain.  She gives example after example of strong women from the Catholic Church's beginnings to its present day, including women Kaya now calls friends.  She attacks the Catholic Church with a sledge hammer for its destructive position on homosexuality.  She does not tolerate the injustice of the Church's refusal to include the LGBT community as equal and loved members of the flock.  

As I was reading, I began to realize how important this book is, how important Kaya's bashing the Church for its bullshit is, while she holds on with a clenched, sweaty fist to all the loving and positive aspects of her global Church.  Her bravery is clear.  The act of admitting to her peer group, made up of mostly atheists like myself, that she is believer, is an act of bravery.  By writing this book and continuing to take action based on her progressive beliefs, Kaya is helping to blaze a new trail.  She will be the first to tell you that she did not start the movement.  It began centuries ago.  But she is doing something fresh and unexpected.  The Catholic/Christian left, an idea that never even entered my brain until after reading this book: Kaya is doing something big.  She is incredibly humble, almost to a fault; but with the story she tells of her radical return to the Catholic Church, Kaya is setting an example for the rest of us, no matter our religious beliefs or cultural backgrounds.  You fight what is wrong with the world and you continue to love, to pray, to believe change is possible.

Kaya is doing a very cool public reading tomorrow, Wednesday, July 11th, at 7pm at Moe's Books on Telegraph in Berkeley.  I will be there.  If you can't make it tomorrow, she is doing a number of other readings in the coming months.  I encourage you to read the book and go see her in person.

Buy the book at a local bookstore or on Amazon and write a great review:
http://www.amazon.com/Radical-Reinvention-Unlikely-Return-Catholic/dp/1593764316/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1341975601&sr=1-1&keywords=kaya+oakes

Here is her website:
http://oakestown.org/?page_id=10

with love for active, progressive participation in your social order of choice,
Anthony

The Stooges "Down on the Street"