Mark Dowd

How can we reconcile belief in a loving God with the suffering of innocent human beings and earthly creatures in the natural world? This question, as old as the Old Testament's book of Job, has been mainly grappled with over the centuries by learned theologians and philosophers. But in this groundbreaking work, the author is sent on a journey across thousands of miles to speak to Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists, and Christians like himself following the 2004 colossal tsunami waves that killed more than 230,000 people. In the wake of such carnage, why do some people lose their faith while others emerge with it intact and strengthened? Are these events in the natural world really linked to divine justice as "punishment for sin"? And if not, what are the best possible explanations for why an intelligent and caring deity would fashion a world in which babies can die of leukemia and the elderly fall victim to deadly viruses such as COVID-19? This account will offer profound food for thought for troubled believers and curious agnostics alike.

This superb memoir of a gay, working class boy from Manchester exploring how to reconcile his sexuality with his Catholicism is all the more powerful because of his deep knowledge of and commitment to his faith. Spanning the late 1960s to the present day, Mark Dowd’s Queer and Catholic chronicles a changing attitude to same-sex attraction over more than half a century and is packed with stories in turn funny, deeply moving and spiritually insightful, including: coming out to his parents by talking in his sleep, training to become a Dominican priest before eloping from a religious order with an ex friar, and attending the funeral of his father – accompanied by his father!