Book review: My Struggle with Faith, by Joseph Girzone

Father Joseph Girzone is a Catholic priest who is also the best-selling author of the Joshua series of books. The book sent to me by his publisher, however, was not one of his fiction works, but rather a piece of non-fiction: his spiritual memoirs, entitled My Struggle with Faith.

There is always a difficulty in doing a review of a set of memoirs, because the person who writes them is offering not just a book but a piece of himself. The difficulty is even more acute with spiritual memoirs, because it is entirely possible that the reviewer and the author have different convictions. In order to avoid being “mean”, therefore, I am going to split this review into a few sections.

First of all, the style. The book is well-written, simple in its style but profound in its substance. I suspect this parallels the man: Girzone gives the impression of being a man who has deep convictions but also is at home with them, such that he can express them with that same simplicity without losing their profundity. While the book covers various “topics” of faith, it does so by detailing the historical steps of his personal faith journey. The really see the growth of a soul within its pages.

Second, the content. One of my special reasons for being leery of spiritual memoirs is that often they aren’t simply written as an individual, but also promote individualism. In other words, often they seem to come across as a justification of the person regarding why they now constitute a religion of 1, i.e. themselves. What I loved about Fr. Girzone’s story is how unabashedly grateful he is, instead, to the Tradition that first introduced him to the Lord Jesus. There is a lot of humility in these pages. He regularly makes reference to the Fathers of the Church, for example, as important sources to be followed and not merely criticized. While he has certain issues with the approach of some members of the hierarchy of the Church today, he accepts that having this hierarchy is nevertheless important and part of God’s will for the Church. There is obedience here, but not blind obedience: it is an obedience born of the act of faith, and yes it can be a struggle. No wonder his book is entitled the way it is.

My basic beef with the book has to do, in fact, where Fr. Girzone seems to not be true to these convictions. For example, he has a chapter where he takes issue with the discipline of priestly celibacy in the Latin Church. I don’t mind having a good debate on an issue like this with someone, but I do mind if all they have to offer are the same-old-same-old arguments. Fr. Girzone, for example, offers the observation that priests should not be “forced” to live celibacy. As far as I can recall, however, I was never “forced” to live it. It was part of a choice made available to me. The issue is not one of being “forced” — instead, it turns on the questions “Should the Latin Church have two streams of priesthood, married and celibate?” and “How do we respect the fact that it is the Holy Spirit himself who has led the Latin Church to adopt this particular discipline?” (This latter point, I might add, was formally taught by the bishops at Vatican II.) But by framing the question the way he has, Fr. Girzone demonstrates that, on this question, he is coming from a perspective NOT fully informed by the Tradition he so loves. So if I criticize him, it is simply to challenge him to be consistent with the high ideals he so espouses elsewhere.

If there is a final saving grace to this book, it is this: Fr. Girzone loves Jesus. He just loves Him. And as it happens, so do I. So even if I might disagree with Fr. Girzone on this or that point, anybody who speaks so well of the most important person in my life is ok. I read a book, but I feel I found a brother. My rating: C+ (this was a tough one, as while I wanted to rate it higher, I felt I could not because of possible confusion created by the ambiguous passages on the Catholic faith)