Why Does John Carroll hate the Catholic Church?

I discussed John Carrolls horrible latest rant yesterday. American Catholic does a pretty good job here at James Carroll Takes a Swing at the Church

The gold though is in one of the comments.

"Carroll, an ex-priest, has “isssues”. He never resolved his conflict with his father Joseph Carroll, an Air Force Lieutenant General.
Here is a good review of Carroll’s self serving memoir An American Reqiuem.
http://brothersjudd.com/index.cfm/fuseaction/reviews.detail/book_id/1147
Carroll has spent his life in continual revolt against everything his father held dear. Pathetic is too mild a term for James Carroll."

That book review sort of nails the underlying problem. A few years back I was stuck at someone's house on the most depressing rainy weekend. For some reason they had bought this book and Iened up reading it. The book review is very apt.

From the review:

These are the bare bones of the story and they suggest a young man whose opposition to the immorality of the Vietnam War causes a crisis of faith. In point of fact, the War seems to have had little to do with Carroll's personal crisis, certainly its morality had nothing to do with it, instead the story he has to tell is that age old tale of youth rebelling against authority. I'm loathe to engage in psychoanalysis, being both unqualified and not much of a believer in its efficacy, but Carroll uses the term Oedipal so often and the book is cast so clearly in the form of an Oedipal drama that it's hard to avoid doing so. Start with the fact that he outdoes his father by actually becoming a priest, where Joe fell short; continue with the way that this profession figuratively wed him to his pious mother, whose entry to Heaven would be virtually guaranteed by virtue of having borne a priest; move along to his utter rejection of his father's profession and an eventual adoption of complete pacifism; then conclude with his decision to leave the priesthood after his father had been forced out of government and crippled by disease. It's hard to see how Vietnam actually matters to any of this psychodrama : had his Dad been a butcher, Carroll would have become a vegetarian, had he been a fireman, Carroll would have been an arsonist. This is a mere story of generational tension dressed up in the ennobling guise of a great moral struggle.

The most revealing aspect of Carroll's self-portrait and the account of the moral dilemma he supposedly faced as a result of the War is his complete failure to consider the consequences of peace on the Vietnamese people. His opposition to the War, as he himself depicts it, is almost exclusively a function of the fact that he's made uncomfortable by the means that were being used to conduct it. There is not a single word of consideration here of what would, and did, happen to the people of Vietnam once America withdrew. The moral calculus at work seems to be that it is better that Vietnam be destroyed by Communism than that a single American have to commit an act which will trouble his conscience. That is a perfectly honorable argument to make, and a necessary corollary of pacifism. His failure to face it here raises the question of whether he's ever actually considered it. It would be entirely consistent with the totally selfish sensibility he brings to the rest of the issues he discusses for him never to have thought about this one.

Even this shortcoming would not be so bad were it not for the impact it has on the rest of the book. But one result of his failure to treat this issue is that he ignores what was certainly a central motivation of Cold Warriors like his father. They certainly prosecuted the War because they had considered the consequences of not doing so and found these consequences unacceptable. While it is possible, perhaps even accurate, to argue that they were wrong in their determination, simple fairness requires that Carroll give them their due and look at their legitimate motivations. Deprived, by the author, of the beliefs that drove them, they are presented as one-dimensional characters whose sole purpose is to stand as convenient villains in Carroll's little morality play. ......

Which brings us to the final legacy of the Baby-Boom generation. They have succeeded brilliantly in rebellion, in rejecting the institutions, the morals, and the beliefs of their parents and the other generations that came before them. The problem they have left behind is what should replace the Judeo-Christian culture which they've done their best to destroy. Destruction is relatively simple, give an idiot a sledge hammer and, sooner or later, he'll knock down a building. It's creation that's difficult. No number of idiots, nor any amount of time, will suffice to reconstruct that building. Perhaps in this sense James Carroll's book is a signal text for his generation : just as he speaks eloquently about rejecting the faith of his fathers but falls silent about what has replaced it, his generation stands amidst the rubble they have created and have no idea what to erect in its place........

That about hits the mark well. Replace figures from the Vietnam era with supposed "right wing Fundamentalist Bishops" and its the same story. It's all about dad. Well almost. There is perhaps much more anger!!!