Product description

The Bad Catholic's Guide to Good Living: A Loving Look at the Lighter Side of Catholic Faith, with Recipes for Feast and Fun (Bad Catholic's guides)

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Average customer rating: 4.5

Author : Array
Binding : Paperback
EAN : 9780824523008
ISBN : 0824523008
Label : The Crossroad Publishing Company
Manufacturer : The Crossroad Publishing Company
Number of pages : 240
Publication date : 2005-09-01
Publisher : The Crossroad Publishing Company
Title : The Bad Catholic's Guide to Good Living: A Loving Look at the Lighter Side of Catholic Faith, with Recipes for Feast and Fun (Bad Catholic's guides)
Languages : Array
Number of items : 1
Studio : The Crossroad Publishing Company

Editorial reviews

Product Description
*Celebrate the Feast Days of the Saints—and don’t forget your trampoline!*

A zany but ultimately reverent look at the saints, doctrines, customs and folklore of the Catholic Church, with recipes for food and fun from all over the world, and crackpot, delightful party ideas. Written by a Catholic journalist and a four-star chef, it’s an entertaining guide and guerilla catechism, wrapped up in one hilarious package.

Customer reviews

review by: eternally learning date: 2008-04-25 rating:

Laughing Your Way to Enlightenment
As a lapsed Episcopalian, I have some vague familiarity with Catholic traditions, but Saints Days have always left me scratching my head. No more. In this satirical (to the point of irreverence) lexicon of those strange biological units who went on to Sainthood, I found answers to questions I didn't know I had. I discovered that most of the male Saints were quirky to the point of masochism, while many of the female saints were young women trapped in unfortunate betrothals, yet possessed of an iron-willed determination to keep their knees together at all costs. The parallels drawn by the authors to modern day events and personalities are simply hilarious. The recipes are intriguing and many sound delicious while a few call for ingredients that could be difficult to locate in, say, most of Idaho or Nebraska. While ordering copies of this book for my lapsed Catholic friends, I noticed the authors have published a second book (which I ordered immediately) because it promises religious enlightenment coupled with that same zany wit AND recipes for alcohol! Now what could be better than that, especially if you suffer from Seasonal Affect Disorder?

review by: date: 2008-04-21 rating:

Funny and reverent
Most of the reviewers are spot on about the book which is a mix of writing about things Catholic with recipes provided to re-enforce the lessons.

The recipes are fun to read, though the ingredients are often hard to get and are of the "gourmet" sort. For instance, to cook the Easter Bunny, you can't find rabbit in your average local Piggly Wiggly, now can you?

This is a wonderful book and contains just the right amount of sugar to help the medicine go down, and there is indeed medicine (i.e. Catechesis) mixed in with all the madcap humor.

We are weekly (and when possible, several time a week) church goers and found much to learn, nothing to offend, and everything to laugh at.

review by: bookscdsdvdsandcoolstuff date: 2008-03-16 rating:

Awesome book!
It is difficult to say anything about this book that has not been said already. Be sure to check out the 2nd book in the series too: The Bad Catholic's Guide To Wine, Whiskey, And Song: A Spirited Look at Catholic Life and Lore from the Apocalypse to Zinfandel

1) It is irreverent... but FULL OF LOVE for the Church and Her history.

2) It is funny and campy, but proclaims the truth.

3) It has GREAT recipes...

4) And best of all, great PARTY IDEAS for feast days etc...

Lots of Catholic culture. Absolutely hysterical!

All in all... AWESOME BOOK.

review by: date: 2008-01-06 rating:

Disappointed
I bought this book as a gift for our son. After it arrived, I looked through it and was very disappointed. I was sorry I bought it. I didn't find it funny or meaningful. Some pages were embarrassing. My husband thinks it's hilarious and is reading it. Needless to say, I purchased another book to give to our son.

review by: alivingdog.com date: 2007-11-06 rating:

Monty Python Meets Martha Stewart
Even after reading the cover blurbs I couldn't tell what this book is about. It looked like another of those ho hum Growing Up Catholic or Assauging Catholic Guilt books for and by the lapsed Roman In Crowd. It turns out instead to be a light hearted collection of musings built around Saints' days and celebrations (excuses to party). It's also sardonic, satiric, and sarcastic: Monty Python meets Martha Stewart.

Even if the recipes are, the writing may not be to everyone's taste. I probably advertise that I'm not the target audience by reading it for a third thing. If Chef Matychowiak contributed the recipes, that would leave the religion parts to Zmirak, but there's a method to his madness. Despite the light tone, he actually seems to know quite a bit about history and doctrine. While having no interest in either recipes or religion, I would gladly read a book by him with this light tone on either of the two above topics.

Thomas Howard, in On Being Catholic, notes that Catholic and Protestant forms of (outward) devotion are incomprehensible to each other. This may also apply to their humor. Will you like this book? Take this as the litmus test: the authors' favorite film is Zoolander, truly a love it or hate it film, so let Ben Stiller be your guide.

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