This book is a memoir of an unlikely relationship between the author, Karen Hall -- a television writer and producer of hit shows like M*A*S*H, Hillstreet Blues, Moonlighting and The Good Wife -- and conservative Jesuit biblical scholar Fr. Paul Mankowski, SJ, who died in September 2020. It exposes the silencing of Fr. Mankowski by his religious order for airing its dirty laundry and for upholding the two-thousand-year magisterium of the Catholic Church.
With the same page-turning prose that brought her singular Hollywood success, Hall reveals how Fr. Mankowski was "canceled" long before the dawn of today's pervasive Cancel Culture took root.
If you're tired of modernists overrunning the Church and silencing those who are striving to safeguard it, or if you've ever been criticized for defending Catholic teaching or standing for the integrity of the liturgy, this book is for you. Fr. Mankowski, as Hall describes him, was a brilliant, hilarious, pugnacious (a former boxer!), sometimes scathing, and yet convivial and loyal friend.
In these candid and revealing pages, you will learn harrowing details of his heroic suffering due to leadership failures and abuses in his community which sometimes left victims dealing with PTSD and other mental health issues.
You will also discover never-before-told facts about:
- Fr. Mankowski's draconian suppression by errant members of his own order
- Hall's own journey from agnosticism to rediscovering the Faith of her youth
- How the "straw man fallacy" was applied to Fr. Mankowski
- Actual letters from Fr. Mankowski's superiors -- and his replies
- Excerpts from Fr. Mankowski's articles defending Catholic truth and his silencing as a result
Hall's show Vows, based on Fr. Mankowski, and his impact on her book, Dark Debts
As you read about the friendship and dialogue between Hall and Fr. Mankowski, you will be struck by their shared passion for truth, the Faith, writing, storytelling, and supporting each other in prayer. Tragically, you will also see how certain prominent and heretical members of the Jesuit order continued to malign him after his death.
Above all, you will observe the boundless love Fr. Mankowski felt for the Church and his willingness to suffer to help effect reform in his order. It was his faithful witness that inspired Hall to pen these captivating pages and bring to light the true story of an unsung hero, a story that is sure to inspire others suffering persecution in the priesthood and in religious life to stand up and speak truth to power.
Author Bio: Karen Hall is an American television writer best known for her work on such television series as M*A*S*H, Hill Street Blues, Moonlighting, Judging Amy, The Good Wife. She has been nominated for 7 Emmy awards and 6 Writers Guild of America awards. She has won the WGA award and the Humanitas Award, the Women in Film Luminas Award, and many others. Her novel Dark Debts was a Book-of-the-Month Club Main Selection. She is a parishioner at Incarnation Catholic Church (Anglican Ordinariate) in Orlando and is married to her high school sweetheart, Chris Walker. They have four children.
