Bad Catholic's Guide to Good Living

When I first saw mention of the book "Bad Catholic's Guide to Good Living" I wasn't much attracted to it. The title kind of put me off. But after one of the authors John Zmirak wrote me publicizing the book I took a look at the website. and was impressed by some of the reviews from people such as Fr. Rutler. So I ordered it from Amazon and gave it a shot.

I am certainly glad I did since it was an extremely fun read. Imagine the Marx Brothers mixed up with Butler's Lives of Saints and a Betty Crocker cook book combined together and then add a dab of apologetics. They go through the liturgical year picking out some of the regular feasts and those of some of the saints with some of the more whacky pious stories attached to them. Added at the end of most of these stories are recommended ways to celebrate the feast a long with appropriate recipes to go along with them. The writing is not for the overly pious and faint-of-heart. It is purposely over-the-top to good effect, though not in any way sacrilegious. There are also short essays on the sacraments that take a more serious tone for the most part and are actually pretty informative. Throughout the book there are interesting pieces of information along with hysterical takes on things.

So while at times I learned some interesting facts about the lives of the saints mostly I laughed out loud while reading it. For example "Some skeptics have asked 'If Jesus was Jewish, how comes he has a Puerto Rican name?' " So if you enjoy my sense of humor I can pretty much guarantee you will like this book. In fact I an rather annoyed that I didn't write it instead.