“In God’s House” is one of the most well written works by an American novelist in years and it is an important book as it chronicles the origin of one of the most significant historic stories of our times, the clergy sex abuse scandal in the Catholic church, covering nearly 20 years and taking the reader from the first day of the first case to the highest reaches of the Vatican in Rome.
What is really important about this book is the credibility and authority Ray Mouton possesses to pen this novel. Those who have followed this story know Mouton has repeatedly been identified by media nationally and internationally and by authors of nonfiction books as an “insider” in the origin and development of the clergy abuse scandal.
Fr. Tom Doyle, the leading expert worldwide, a man who has testified on behalf of victims in over 1,600 legal cases worked with Mouton daily for years and he has written about Ray Mouton, Mouton’s book, and the crisis – “This plague of destruction would have continued unchecked had there been no Ray Mouton. From the outset Ray was at the center and on the edges of this rapidly developing storm. The reality of Ray against the world-wide institutional Church makes the image of David and Goliath pale by comparison. There are countless children who may never know Ray’s name but whose childhood will bear the result of his courage, his insight, his determination and his faith. Ray fought fiercely to save children from the church. I think Ray views his many years of work in writing this novel as if he were presenting a gift to the victims of clergy abuse, some who have no voice of their own, but I think this book may be a gift to the world.”
Combined with those incredible credentials and the strongest endorsement possible, one reading these pages also discovers that in the twelve years Mouton spent crafting this book, he brought to it great gifts as a writer, creating a powerful, suspenseful, fast-paced narrative that moves the story like a freight train as the pages turn themselves.
As a writer, I have read many books on a lot of subjects. None hit me any harder than “In God’s House” or stayed with me longer. This is a work that I feel should be read by anyone interested in truth, for as the author correctly wrote in describing “In God’s House,” “this is a book about truth.”
-Blaine Lourd