"An important book for Catholics who take their faith seriously."

“I can hardly think of a book more needed today. It is well-researched, to the point, clear, up-to-date, and helpful for the many Catholics today who are confused, on the edge, marginal, or suffering . . . I just wish that there were some way of getting it to every Catholic. In our pastoral work today, your book is a great help.”

"Richard A. McCormick, S.J., introduces this little book by a Benedictine who evidently shares the problem many Catholics have today: how to be true to the church when it creates crises in faith . . . Central doctrines are not at stake . . . There is no effort here to promote individualist dissidence, or arrogant, narcissistic ‘going of one’s own way.’ This is for people of deep faith and alert conscience who find good reasons to disagree with the church; Kaufman also sees good reasons for them to stay in it.”

“Philip S. Kaufman’s Why You Can Disagree and Remain a Faithful Catholic is an education in discrimination. With abundant historical examples he shows that not everything that is taught is infallibly taught. There are degrees of teaching, nuances. A Roman Catholic is definitively committed only to that to which the Church has definitively committed herself. The ‘hierarchy of truths’ of which the Second Vatican Council speaks has always to be kept in mind. Dom Philip focuses on three questions: the ban on birth-control, which he says is ‘a non-received’ teaching; the possibility of looking again at divorce and remarriage in the light of the practice of the Orthodox Churches; the need for bishops to be elected according to the practice of the first millennium. Although most Catholic bishops are today appointed by the Pope, this is a very modern development. The classic statement is that of Pope Leo the Great in the fifth century: ‘He who governs all should be elected by all.’ ”

“Philip Kaufman makes a convincing case for conscientious dissent from official teaching—a happy combination of in-depth research and reasoning which insists on the right of the People of God to know.”