James Kavanaugh

James Kavanaugh (September 17, 1928 – 29 December 2009) was an American Catholic priest, author, and poet best remembered for an iconoclastic call for reform published in 1967. He left the priesthood within a few months of the book's publication.

Born in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and ordained in 1954, Kavanaugh served as a parish priest in Lansing and Flint, Michigan before earning a doctorate at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. His 1967 book, A Modern Priest Looks at His Outdated Church, became a national bestseller.