Popes and Politics: Reform, Resentment, and the Holocaust (Handbooks of Catholic Theology)

Rating:
Summary: True and False Reform
Review: Lawler has impeccable credentials as a liberal Catholic and a scholar who is concerned with the reform and renewal of the Catholic Church. In this book, he takes on fashionable writers such as Gary Wills and James Carroll for the sake of real scholarship and real reform. He shreds the pretensions to sound scholarship of these and some others popular in the press. Citing not only their mistakes as "researchers", he decries the ideology that has led to the poor history and analysis. Besides this kind of demolition, he proposes models such as Cardinal Newman and Cardinal Congar as alternatives to the media centered sound bites feeding "papaphobia". The second to last chapter on the spirituality necessary for patient and enduring reform I found especially helpful.

Rating:
Summary: A Challenging New Rhetoric for the Papacy
Review: Lawler's impressive scholarly detailing guides even those unfamiliar with the theology of the papacy through a series of reviews which focus in part on the difficult period of the Holocaust. While Lawler has constructed a carefully developed argument that responds to recent popular analyses of the papacy, the greatest value of his POPES AND POLITICS rests in his propositions for reform. He provides the meditative direction for necessary change in the future by moving away from the easy, "admire nothing," fadist papal criticism of many theological commentators; and he offers paradigms which will allow the contemporary church to realize the lasting role of the papacy. With wit and comprehensive scholarship, Lawler can always be counted on to awaken and provoke thought in all but the most dead-minded readers.

Rating:
Summary: A Challenging New Rhetoric for the Papacy
Review: Lawler's impressive scholarly detailing guides even those unfamiliar with the theology of the papacy through a series of reviews which focus in part on the difficult period of the Holocaust. While Lawler has constructed a carefully developed argument that responds to recent popular analyses of the papacy, the greatest value of his POPES AND POLITICS rests in his propositions for reform. He provides the meditative direction for necessary change in the future by moving away from the easy, "admire nothing," fadist papal criticism of many theological commentators; and he offers paradigms which will allow the contemporary church to realize the lasting role of the papacy. With wit and comprehensive scholarship, Lawler can always be counted on to awaken and provoke thought in all but the most dead-minded readers.

Rating:
Summary: Foggy Criticism
Review: Lawler's subject is timely and could have been an important contribution to the Pope-Holocaust debate. But he blew it. His writing is offputting and inaccessible to most. He seems more interested in parading his erudition than enlightening his readers. It's a poorly organized, convoluted slog through obscure allusions and flat attempts to be clever. Even William Buckley would give up on it. I'm sure he has something worthwhile to say on a subject vital to many of us. As I might once have told my english students: Read E.B. White's "Elements of Style" and start over.

Rating:
Summary: Foggy Criticism
Review: Lawler's subject is timely and could have been an important contribution to the Pope-Holocaust debate. But he blew it. His writing is offputting and inaccessible to most. He seems more interested in parading his erudition than enlightening his readers. It's a poorly organized, convoluted slog through obscure allusions and flat attempts to be clever. Even William Buckley would give up on it. I'm sure he has something worthwhile to say on a subject vital to many of us. As I might once have told my english students: Read E.B. White's "Elements of Style" and start over.

Rating:
Summary: Responds to many previous published works
Review: Popes And Politics: Reform, Resentment, And The Holocaust by educator and papal expert Justus George Lawler is a meticulous, scholarly accounting that responds to many previous published works about the Vatican and the papacy, including those written by James Carroll, John Cornwell, Garry Wills, Susan Zuccotti and more. A brilliant, intense, and persuasively argued study, Popes and Politics covers a range of critical topics, including a thorough re-assessment of Pope Pius XII, the incorporation of Shoah into Catholicism, debate over German and Israeli "revisionist histories" and more. Popes And Politics is high recommended as an inherently engaging and informative study, and a seminal contribution to Papal Studies and Holocaust Studies supplemental reading lists and academic reference collections.