THE JOURNEY IS MY HOME   

Here is the publisher's blurb about this book:

An honest and authoritative account of a journey within the Roman Catholic Church at a time of profound transition.  Baptised in the Birmingham Oratory by a follower of Cardinal Newman, Lavinia Byrne lived a devout and pious Catholic childhood.  It brought her to the Convent, which she entered at the age of seventeen.  Her life’s journey was interrupted and punctured at serious points along the way – with the discovery of theology as an academic discourse;  the ambivalent relationship of women to power, authority and the Church; a gift for media work and writing.  In January 2000 she left the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

 How can the Catholic Church hold on to the religious life, to women and to its teaching call in an increasingly fragmented world?   Do religious vows still matter?  Lavinia Byrne asks these questions and answers them with a rare degree of honesty.  Radio 4 listeners will recognise her voice whilst others, who have enjoyed the wide range of books she has written, will find the answer to their own questions.  Why did Lavinia Byrne join her community?  Why did she stay so long?  And why did she leave?  The Catholic Church claims to be an institution in which people can find a home, yet be free to journey.  How did one such journey end so dramatically?

 This is a story about a journey, a home and a home-coming.  It takes a fearless look at post-Vatican II religious life, at the Church’s public and media profile and at its claim to bring good news to all – both to women and to men.  Is there any future for a Catholic church which lives out the promise of the Gospels, or is it doomed to be a faceless Vatican bureaucracy?