Many people in many nations these days say they “don’t recognize” their country anymore.  Between radical changes in sexual morals and social behavior, the inability to state the obvious like “what is a woman,” claims of racism and “hate” over everyday social frictions, massive unregulated immigration, and wholesale dismissals of the past as irretrievably evil, it’s no wonder. But it is a wonder that similar complaints – not exactly the same, but closely related – also arise often enough now about disorienting changes in the Church.

Part of the problem is that media – even Catholic media – have to fill limitless digital spaces, often by emphasizing controversies that they hope will attract clicks. Another part, however, is the radical rupture, sometimes even within the Church, with age-old human truths and goods, driven by technological developments, but also by abandonment of traditional anchors in tested truths of faith and reason, in the name of human liberation.

To understand all this is not easy; to know what to do harder still. But now comes a very useful tool from TCT contributor, Francis X. Maier. True Confessions: Voices of Faith from a Life in the Church, which will be officially published tomorrow, is both a passionate statement of faith and love of the Church and a careful inquiry into what a cross-section of American bishops, priests, deacons, and lay people are thinking and doing at a very difficult moment for the Church and the world. (Several anonymously, to get maximum candor.)

Fran Maier is the right man for this job and many others. He’s been in the trenches. Archbishop Charles J. Chaput, who made Maier his chancellor in Denver and special adviser in Philadelphia, provides a Foreword to this volume in which, among many other valuable things, he says, “In 26 years of working together, I’ve never had a moment when I questioned Fran’s ability or character.” I’ve known Fran even longer – though not at as close range – and would vouch for his reliability in what he says in his own name and in what he reports about others. Many things in his book, therefore, warrant careful attention and offer realistic hope.

For example, he points to a recent survey:

the average Latin rite ordinary – i.e., the bishop actually in charge of a diocese, as opposed to an auxiliary – sleeps 6.49 hours a night and prays 1.80 hours a day. He works 6.33 days and about 51 hours each week. Ordinaries rank the National Catholic Reporter a progressive publication] lowest on a list of religious news publications they typically read. They rank the Fox network as their most frequently watched television news source. Some 72 percent of ordinaries (and 88 percent of auxiliaries; they’re not the boss) feel accepted by most of their priests. Barely 3 percent rank criticism from priests as a serious problem. And 97 percent list administering the sacraments and celebrating the liturgy as their greatest joy.

The anonymous comments by bishops are among the most interesting parts of the book, and what comes through, surprisingly, is how many of them “get” what’s happening. For instance, “We’re no longer arguing about how to get to a commonly shared goal. Now we have warring goals.” Like their counterparts in the secular world, Church leaders have limited ability these days to shape what happens, even among Catholics, especially since the abuse crisis, which has eroded episcopal authority.

Furthermore, several bishops express worries like this one:

I have good relations with our local authorities. I support our police and certainly don’t fear them. But when it comes to the federal government, I do believe that we’re dealing with a totalitarian attitude now. . . .Our Catholic schools are very important to the Church, but government could easily shut them down with content regulations that would make teaching a genuinely Catholic curriculum impossible. It’s just a matter of refusing our schools’ accreditation. I don’t know if it will happen, but I’m prepared for the worst.

Others recognize the way that politics has distorted what it means to be a Catholic: “Sometimes I wish we’d never had a Catholic president. We’d be better off for it. We’ve celebrated our assimilation. Now we’re paying the price for it. . . .The rosary of a man like Joe Biden is a bit like a perfume bottle. It’s empty, but you can still catch the scent of the perfume now and again.”

American bishops are loyal to Pope Francis, as several of them affirm here. One even thinks it was “genius” for the pope to present himself as “anti-institutional” in an anti-institutional age. But most – candidly – express concerns like this: “Pope Francis has a great love for the poor. His heart is genuine. . . . But a pope should be the principle of unity in the Church, and instead Francis fosters ambiguity, which feeds division. His distaste for the United States and its bishops is obvious and unwarranted. His manner is authoritarian. And it’s revealing that not a single seminarian inspired by Francis has come to this diocese during his tenure. A Church under pressure needs something better than this.”

That pressure is not only political: “I don’t think people have any idea of how much genuine, satanic evil is out there, the demons that can be present in a person, and the way they can enter a human being through the senses, from the misuse of technology, from generational curses, or through the role of other sins. . .”

An Afterword presents a series of interviews with lay Catholics from France and Latin America, Ignatius Press Founder Fr. Joseph Fessio, S.J., and an exchange between Maier and Archbishop Chaput, quite interesting perspectives, and not something you’ll read every day.

All these voices are realistic about the Church in America, which is probably in for at least another decade or two of rough going. But it’s reason for hope to learn about what they’re doing to make the best of today – and prepare better times in the future.