Every Saint A Sinner
About this ebook
Veronica Matthews is on a mission to get the Catholic Church to accept its share of blame for Father Paul Peña’s rape of her son. While Peña himself is remorseless, it’s salt on the wound that the Church she’s always loved won’t admit that institutional failures enabled repeated abuse of its flock. Instead, it acts like every other litigious corporation: offering carefully worded statements of sympathy while refuting any responsibility.
By all words and deeds Father Frank Muncy is Peña’s opposite: a humble servant loved by all for his extraordinary empathic gifts, which he puts to use as a drug addiction counselor. But when a grave accusation against Father Frank coincides with the reappearance of a figure from his past, Frank, a fervent believer in God’s ability to forgive and ultimately redeem, chooses to reveal a shocking secret about himself that is sure to ruin his reputation.
When a miraculous event connects the lives of Veronica, Paul, and Father Frank, it also poses a great challenge to the Church. Survivors of the clergy abuse scandal are vehemently divided: some feel that for the Church to acknowledge the miracle is to effectively minimize the clergy’s abuse against children, while others believe that the miracle is God’s mysterious creative repurposing of tragedy into a lesson about just how far his love extends—a lesson that will facilitate survivors’ healing.
Told with unflinching bravery and compassion, Every Saint a Sinner asks what greater good can be done not just despite but because of man’s sinful nature. It’s an emotionally resonant and morally complex meditation on transformation, empathy, and forgiveness.
DISCRETION ADVISED: This work contains scenes of abuse against children and adolescents.
About the author
Pearl Solas’s writing reflects her interest in the breadth and depth of the human spectrum, and in the contrast between cultural narratives about categories of people and the lived experiences of people within those categories. Every Saint A Sinner is her first novel, and her current work in progress is a memoir about being adopted at age ten after living in foster care for several years, and her adoptive mother’s efforts to encourage relationships with her biological family. Pearl lives in the Pacific Northwest of the United States with her husband, children, and two dogs.