Beyond Our Vision: The Journey of a Married Priest

Michael O'Kane, an idealistic Catholic priest in the Scarborough Foreign Mission society, was ordained in 1953 and spent much of his priestly life in Brazil before he left to be married in 1988. This book is an intimate personal snapshot of life in the missions. It is particularly acute when O'Kane analyses with much perception the grave damage done by the Vatican to the church of the poor, not only in Brazil but in much of Latin America. His is a genuinely gentle voice which lamentably agrees with famed missiologist Jose Comblin that "all appointees of Pope John Paul II took as their mission to destroy anything their predecessor had accomplished." Among those harmed was the prelacy of Itacoatiara deep in the Amazon where O'Kane had worked with his great Hamilton-born colleague and bishop George (Jorge) Marskell.