Thursday, June 25, 2009

Daughters of Abraham Meeting with author Scott Pomfret

As I've mentioned before here on my blog, I belong to a book club called the Daughters of Abraham; started in Cambridge in response to 9/11, the Daughters is an organization made up of Christian, Jewish and Muslim women, who meet monthly in 13 different groups across the Boston area (and beyond) to read books from our different religious traditions.
We alternate between the three faiths, so one month will be a book focusing on Christianity, let's say, and the next month will feature a book on Judaism, then Islam, and then back to Christianity, and so on.

For the month of June, the Daughters group I belong to read Since My Last Confession: A Gay Catholic Memoir, by Boston-based author Scott Pomfret. The book is a funny, snarky and touching memoir, which I absolutely loved and suggested to the club. Although we read books on Christianity every third month or so, it's not often that we read specifically about Catholicism and in addition to the memoir element the book just has a lot of good information about the Catholic faith and the Boston Catholic scene in particular.

When we met last week, we were fortunate to be joined by the author himself. Mr. Pomfret came to our meeting and gamely fielded questions on everything from his take on Sean Cardinal O'Malley to the future of religious orders to the sex abuse scandal that hit the Church to women priests and marriage for priests. We also talked about another prominent local critic of the Catholic Church, former priest James Carroll, whose book Constantine's Sword was proposed for our club at one point.

I know everyone really appreciated the opportunity to get his insights into both the Catholic religion and many of the ongoing controversies surrounding the Church. The photo above is our group along with Mr. Pomfret, top row second from left. It was really a great evening and we all can't thank Mr. Pomfret enough for being gracious enough to join us and answer our questions.

6 comments:

bermudaonion said...

What a great way to spend the evening.

Anonymous said...

Sounds really fun and rewarding. Need to add that to my list!

LorMil said...

How fantastic! I bet it was quite inspiring and rewarding.
Lorri

The Bookworm said...

very cool!

http://thebookworm07.blogspot.com/

Anonymous said...

I love the idea behind this group! What in inspiration.

Bonnie said...

What a wonderful idea for a book club and what an amazing group of women you must be spending time with. Your book club sounds fascinating to me and you must have some amazing discussions ane experiences.

How nice of Mr. Pomfret to join your book club for the evening. It must have been great to hear his thoughts about the book and of the Catholic Church. Thanks for sharing your experience with us!