The Bishop of San Francisco

Archbishop Mark Doyle, a church reformer and a martial arts expert, falls wildly in love with his therapist, Miriam Faberini. Their love affair would be enough to complicate a celibate bishop's life, but his troubles multiply when two of his priests are murdered. A clandestine Catholic group claims responsibility for both killings, and vows to eliminate Doyle as a symbol of corrupt liberalism. The Vatican demands that Doyle account for damaging allegations against him. His shadowy nemesis, a priest defrocked for sexually abusing teenage boys, dogs the Archbishop's every step. His story displays key tensions agitating the still medieval structures of today's church. Surprising, shocking piece of fiction from a well-known scholar quite obviously off on a lark. He''s created a bigger-than-life bishop, a liberation theologian who does aikido, drinks Dewar's, canoodles on a regular basis with his shrink-lover and leads his flock into near-schism while the Vatican pushes for his quiet resignation and a psychotic stalker tries to kill him. If this novel is a mischievous preview of the church-to-come, we''re in for quite a roller-coaster ride. What fun! Robert Blair Kaiser, author, contributing editor, Newsweek magazine "Eugene Bianchi''s fast-paced novel centers in the liberal reforming bishop of San Francisco, Mark Doyle, in love with his therapist. Around them swirl all the conflicts of contemporary Catholicism: liberation theology, the role of women in the church, celibacy, homosexuality, pedophile priests. Dark forces opposed to church reform conspire against them, plotting violence and assassinations of priests, in a story that ranges from Nicaragua to Northern California and Rome. A fun read you will not be able to put down until you finish." Rosemary Radford Ruether Carpenter Professor of Feminist Theology Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, California