Advance Praise for The Sacred and Profane
Cardinal Blase J. Cupich
Archbishop of Chicago
“I first met Bill Hambleton in the early 90’s when he entered the Pontifical College Josephinum, where I served as Rector. While I cannot attest to the information he provides in his recounting of events, which on its face I find heartbreaking, I can say with surety that I have always admired him as an honest person and a faithful disciple of Jesus who loves the Church. There is no better testimonial that I can give for anyone.”
"I have spent my career studying why institutions fail to correct themselves — why some organizations learn from their worst mistakes and others simply protect themselves instead. Bill Hambleton's memoir is, at its core, a case study in that same failure, written not as theory but as lived experience. I found this book unflinching in a way that matters: it insists that an institution's claim to serve the truth means nothing if it cannot survive being told the truth about itself. This is a rare and necessary book — not an attack on the Church, but a demand that it live up to what it says it is."
Dr. John A. Nagl, LTC (Ret.)
Center for a New American Security, Author of Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife
Lanigan Chair in Ethics, LeMoyne University, President Emeritus, Loyola University Maryland
Rev. Brian F. Linnane, SJ
"Bill Hambleton has written an important and compelling book. In The Sacred and Profane he outlines the heartbreaking story of the disruption of his All-American youth by the experience of clerical abuse with grace and sensitivity. But more importantly, in my view, Hambleton exposes the continuing failure of the American Roman Catholic hierarchy to acknowledge and address their own fundamental role and deep complicity in what the hierarchy prefers to call the "clerical sexual abuse crisis." This crisis, as Hambleton explains so well, is ultimately not about the bad characters who committed these despicable crimes but about those with ecclesial authority who continue to cover up their own failures and those of other members of the clerical elite. The Sacred and Profane is a potent reminder that this scandalous history is not behind us but continues to scar the American Church and undermine prospects for Catholic identity. When will we learn?"
Dominican Sisters of Mission San Jose, Author of Inclusivity and Institutional Change in Education
Sr. Colleen Mary Mallon, OP
“The Sacred and Profane, Bill Hambleton’s brave and transparent memoir of faith and survival is fundamentally a poignant love letter to the Catholic church he continues to serve in love and with integrity. Bill documents a life journey marked by a profound personal faith and a vital spirituality, gifted to him early in his youth. And yet his deepest connection to the Divine would be staggeringly tested by the devastating betrayal of sexual abuse by a local priest and the equally catastrophic experience of ecclesiastical complicity.
Bill takes his reader into his confidence as he recounts the beauty, solace and mystery of his own steadfast practice of faith that, simultaneously and paradoxically, must grapple with the shattering failure of his church to face its own moral bankruptcy in the wake of clergy sexual abuse and the scandal of episcopal malfeasance. A story of deep faith and tenacious love for all that remains good, beautiful and true in the Catholic church, The Sacred and Profane is a testimony of resilience, bearing witness to the relentless love of a God who shepherds us beyond loss into freedom and wholeness.”
“In these pages, Dr. Hambleton shares his Christian pilgrimage, from a nurturing home to a call to the priesthood derailed by abuse to his efforts to hold the institutional church accountable for enabling abusers. Despite his painful experiences and disillusionment, he has remained a deeply committed Catholic. This is a personal and profound story of a faith that perseveres in spite of institutional failures. This book offers hope to anyone struggling to hold onto their faith inside a flawed institution.”
Assistant Professor of Christian Ethics, St. Louis University