Prisoner of God by Michel Benoit
"Prisoner of God" is a revolutionary testimony against the Church and its methods, against the brainwashing to which many members are submitted, and the power and influence it exerts across a broad spectrum of society. It is also an account of the mysterious world of the abbeys: the monks' everyday life and the way they deal with solitude, silence and sexuality. A brilliant student with a promising career ahead of him as a biologist under the guidance of Nobel Prize-winner Jacques Monod, Michel Benoit decided at the age of twenty-two to follow the path of God and take on monastic orders as Brother Irenee. But after twenty-two years of self-sacrifice and a fraught quest for God, Michel was "discharged" by the Church. What happened? What mechanism led to the Catholic hierarchy rejecting one of its own?