John Bradshaw: A Sober Teacher for Our Troubled Times (Book Review)

Duluth, MN (OpEdNews) July 9, 2010 -- John Bradshaw's RECLAIMING VIRTUE: HOW WE CAN DEVELOP THE MORAL INTELLIGENCE TO DO THE RIGHT THING AT THE RIGHT TIME FOR THE RIGHT REASON is the most important meditation on certain key points in Aristotle's thought since Bernard Lonergan's INSIGHT: A STUDY OF HUMAN UNDERSTANDING (1957) and Eugene Garver's ARISTOTLE'S RHETORIC: AN ART OF CHARACTER (1994). (Disclosure: Most of my publications are meditations on Aristotle's points about act and potency. I agree with Dante's characterization of Aristotle as the master of those who know.)

A former seminarian for the Roman Catholic priesthood and a recovering alcoholic, Bradshaw is also the author of three self-help books about recovering from a dysfunctional family that became #1 NEW YORK TIMES bestsellers:

(1) BRADSHAW ON: THE FAMILY (1988)

(2) HOMECOMING (1990)

(3) CREATING LOVE (1992).

Bradshaw's remarkable book HEALING THE SHAME THAT BINDS YOU (1988; rev. ed. 2005) was also a NEW YORK TIMES bestseller, but never #1.

Because Bradshaw himself was for nine years a seminarian for the Roman Catholic priesthood, as I myself was also for about eight years, we should note that the morally bankrupt Roman Catholic moral tradition brought us the priest sex-abuse scandal -- the scandal of abusive priests enabled by enabler bishops. So Bradshaw's book RECLAIMING VIRTUE should be required reading for the morally bankrupt bishop of Rome, Pope Benedict XVI, and the other morally bankrupt Roman Catholic bishops.

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