NCR's own Bob McClory has a new book, and it's getting lots of press attention in the Chicago area. The subject is Father Michael Pfleger, the firebrand white pastor of a nearly all-black church on the city's South Side. Pfleger is used to being in the spotlight--usually for his social justice activism but during the 2008 presidential campaign for mocking Hillary Clinton.
Radical Disciple: Father Pfleger, St. Sabina Church, and the Fight for Social Justice (Lawrence Hill, $24.95) is the seventh book by McClory, a longtime NCR writer and retired journalism professor.
He has also written about the Papal Birth Control Commission, democratization in the church and famous dissenters.
Coincidentally, as this Chicago Sun-Times article points out, McClory, a former priest, served at St. Sabina from 1964 to 1971, leaving just four years before Pfleger was assigned there.
Pfleger is in every Chicago journalist's Rolodex, as this WGN reporter admits during her recent interview with McClory.
I haven't read the book yet, though it is getting positive reviews. And readers of NCR know they can expect solid, in-depth reporting and lively writing from McClory.
The book also has its own Facebook page.
