This book is a follow-up to Martin’s 1983 book A Crisis of Truth, where he was inspired to begin to address the erosion of the Catholic Church’s faith, morality, and mission. Now over thirty years later, we see in Martin’s subsequent work that things have gotten so much worse and appear to be accelerating toward catastrophe. The seeds of the present situation were sown in the 1962-1965 Vatican II Ecumenical Council, when Pope John XXIII called for the council: "I want to throw open the windows of the Church so that we can see out and the people can see in." Much good came from the Council, leading to a renewal of the Church: the important role of laity; improved collegiality of the bishops; a greater emphasis on the spiritual, leading to the charismatic movement; and increased ecumenism, or the restoration of religious fellowship between all the Christian faith traditions, and other faiths of humanity. In the sweep of these changes, excesses inevitably developed, taking changes far beyond what the pillars of faith dictated.

Meanwhile, the world did not stand still. Social trends that led to greater acceptance of abortion and the loss of value of the life in the womb in the name of women’s rights, indeed the acceptance of using pre-born life for all manner of scientific experimentation; the change in society’s moral view regarding homosexual behavior, leading to homosexual marriage, adoption of children, and the rapidly changing views of gender self-identification; these changes in thought and behavior eroded the respect formerly accorded to the Church’s moral stance. Instead of serving as the bulwark against moral deterioration, the Church itself was suffering moral erosion, first with the abandonment of vows by so many religious, then most tragically, with the crisis of pervasive child abuse by Catholic clergy and the ineffectual response by Church leadership. The Church was losing its position as a moral force in the world, a voice for humanity. The ship was taking on water, and risked sinking.

The response of current leadership, Pope Francis’ solution, has been to embrace the concerns of the world, namely social justice, the plight of immigrants, and environmentalism. These are issues which, while important and generally within the scope of Christian belief, are hardly the most important needs of the Church today. More traditional voices within the Church (often known as “Trads”) watch as Francis moves us further from our true treasure of following Christ and His teachings, with the Pachamama debacle, and other steps away from faith and tradition. Many hardly recognize Mother Church anymore.

Martin does an excellent job of documenting and describing the evolution of these trends, and prescribing the necessary steps for restoring our Church. I cannot do justice to his book in so brief a summary, as he truly captures the essence of the downfall, and the necessary path for renewal and restoration. If you are a Catholic, or a Christian, or merely take an interest in the Church, you will gain much from this book. If the world feels a bit out of control to you right now, and if you are convinced that if we could just get our political systems to work correctly, then all would be solved, perhaps you need the perspective that Martin offers. He believes that our relationship with God is damaged, forgotten, discarded. He believes we have substituted our own weak, ineffectual efforts to solve the world’s problems for where we should really be looking for solutions, our relationship with God. Wasn’t that the original sin, allowing the devil to convince us that we could be gods? And here we are thinking we’re clever enough to think our way out of every problem—sounds familiar. I encourage you to seek out this book, to gain a fresh perspective on the nature of our problems, and what would bring us back to a right path, albeit narrow, stony, and difficult. As Christ said in Matthew 7:13, "Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it.” Highly recommended.