Failing America S Faithful

Blending inspirational memoir with a religious and political rebuke of American Christianity, the oldest daughter of Senator Robert F. Kennedy delivers a rousing call to arms for spiritual renewal.

A Kirkus Reviews Best Book of 2020 A courageous and damning look at the destruction wrought by the arrogance, incompetence, and duplicity prevalent in the U.S. military-from the inside perspective of a West Point professor of law. Veneration for the military is a deeply embedded but fatal flaw in America's collective identity. In twenty years at West Point, whistleblower Tim Bakken has come to understand how unquestioned faith isolates the U.S. armed forces from civil society and leads to catastrophe. Pervaded by chronic deceit, the military's insular culture elevates blind loyalty above all other values. The consequences are undeniably grim: failure in every war since World War II, millions of lives lost around the globe, and trillions of dollars wasted. Bakken makes the case that the culture he has observed at West Point influences whether America starts wars and how it prosecutes them. Despite fabricated admissions data, rampant cheating, epidemics of sexual assault, archaic curriculums, and shoddy teaching, the military academies produce officers who maintain their privileges at any cost to the nation. Any dissenter is crushed. Bakken revisits all the major wars the United States has fought, from Korea to the current debacles in the Middle East, to show how the military culture produces one failure after another. The Cost of Loyalty is a powerful, multifaceted revelation about the United States and its singular source of pride. One of the few federal employees ever to win a whistleblowing case against the U.S. military, Bakken, in this brave, timely, and urgently necessary book, and at great personal risk, helps us understand why America loses wars.

The contents of this book emerge from the Catholic Worker House of Hospitality in New York City and the Saint Thomas Project in New Orleans. Two years of working with people on the margins of society confronted Marc Ellis with a truth and challenge: to delve deeper into his own life and the life of the world so as to begin the movement toward a new society. Since that time, in his travels through Latin America, the Middle East, and Asia, Ellis has been exposed to the global dimensions of the situations he experienced in New York's Lower East Side and in New Orleans. This book is an attempt to work through the questions posed to Ellis over his years among the poor and through his contact with the global issues of justice and peace. For some, fidelity is a question answered before asked; for the pious through dogma and eternal truth, for the cynic through denial and derision. For Ellis, fidelity is neither assumed nor negated. Rather, it is a struggle through which we search out our own humanity. As human beings born with an unfinished consciousness and into a specific historical context, the struggle to be faithful begins with the historical hour in which we live. This is our burden, but it is also an opportunity to become what we are called to be.

Fifteen essays aimed at voters on a variety of topics such as faithful citizenship, how Catholics perceive and talk about issues such as war, life issues, character issues, and how our bishops teach.

First full biography of MacArthur's chief intelligence officer Charles Willoughby, reflecting on the consequences of prioritizing loyalty to a superior over objectivity of intelligence. Major General Charles A. Willoughby served as Douglas MacArthur's stalwart chief intelligence officer (G-2} for over a decade, throughout World War II and the Korean War. This first full biography examines Willoughby's shadowy origins in his native Germany, his curious arrival in the United States, and his military service in World War I, as well as his work during the interwar years as a junior diplomat, budding historian, and neophyte intelligence officer. His chance encounter with MacArthur in the mid-1930s would prove to be the genesis of a near-symbiotic relationship between the two, with significant consequences for both. Throughout his life, Willoughby identified with strong, authoritarian leaders, notably Franco, and—especially—MacArthur. The author also assesses Willoughby's performance as a professional intelligence officer both in World War II and Korea, where he is often vilified for his inaccurate assessments of enemy strength and most likely courses of action, as well as his sycophantic relationship with his commander. Willoughby is most often criticized for his failing to foresee the entry of Chinese forces into the Korean War and its impact upon the US Army and the prosecution of the war. Following MacArthur’s removal by President Truman in 1951, Willoughby retired and spent the rest of his days engaged in right-wing political activity and in staunchly defending his much-maligned boss. The legacy he left is one filled with lingering and important questions about loyalty to superiors, in civilian as well as military environments, how far that loyalty should extend, and walking the tightrope involved in telling truth to power.

Even believers sometimes have doubts. Many followers have issues of faith at some point in their spiritual journeys. Some are content to ignore those questions, and eventually, their faith may wane. Even those who don't leave their churches do not have the spiritual lives they could have. Others, however, look to discover the reasons behind their doubts or other concerns and become stronger in their faith. In Hope for the Journey: Reflections of God's Faithfulness, author Richard Parrish MDiv helps believers work through their faith issues. Sometimes that requires a major overhaul of who we believe God to be. Through this devotional, Parrish shows us how to adopt a different view of the Deity and become closer to God, to know God, and not just in the religious sense. Questions for reflection help you think deeply about and internalize what you've read.

What does God think of us when we fail? Steve Roy has had to face his own failures. But his failures also drove him deep into what God thinks about us and success. He found that a biblically grounded view of success and failure challenges our preconceived notions but leads to hopeful renewal that goes beyond what we often ask or think.