Life in the Barrios

Quebec missionary and cleric Claude Lacaille shoots from the hip: “Wojtyla and Ratzinger had left us naked and exposed to the savage repression of our tyrants and had delivered the shepherdless sheep to the wolves. The Church’s history will record that these men were a formidable obstacle to the evangelization of the continent.”

This stark and severe judgement of the two pontificates that preceded the current papacy of Francis—that of John Paul II and Benedict XVI respectively—is without nuance, historical balance or measured scholarly assessment. But it is precisely what Lacaille believes and is a consistent thread that winds itself through the searing disclosures and oracular proclamations that define Rebel Priest in the Time of the Tyrants: Mission to Haiti, Ecuador and Chile. And the author has his reasons.

Part memoir, part testimonial, part screed and part homily, Rebel Priest in the Time of the Tyrants is at its best when recounting...