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Summary: Wills as Historian
Review: As an avid reader of LINCOLN AT GETTYSBURG, I was eager to watch Wills tackle the subject of history and truth in the Catholic Church. Other reviews of this book tend to be ideological, but credit must be given Wills for accurately describing the recent history of the Catholic Church. Both as an observer of the history Wills records and as a participant -- a fifty-year plus member of the Catholic Church -- I feel that he has accurately drawn the knot that binds the history together. Even as a young teen I saw the Second Vatican Council begin as an attempt to figuratively open the windows of the Catholic Church to the fresh air and inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Rightly or wrongly I had the expectation that the Council would lead us to become a Church of more active lay participation, more Biblical in Christian activity, and more dynamic as if we had experienced a twentieth century Pentecost. Well, to put it bluntly, I was let down. At the very least, Catholics thought we'd have better sermons on Sunday, and that didn't happen, either. Wills leads us to reject the hypothesis that God the Holy Spirit is acting in the higher levels of the Catholic Church, and we must accept the alternate hypothesis, that Church history is strongly explained by ordinary historical principles.
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Summary: God's Laws Or Human Laws?
Review: Author Garry Wills' thesis is that Catholicism has evolved from a church that valued the input of all of its members to an authoritarian institution that is "all head and no limbs." Since Pope Pius IX had the papacy declared infallible (when speaking ex cathedra) in 1870 we have seen the development of the concept that, in Wills' words, "the Pope alone is competent to tell Christian people how to live. No one else can have any say in the matter - not a Council, not the college of all bishops, not the national synods of bishops, not the Christian people." Mr. Wills devotes various chapters to authoritarian teachings that were not part of the early church such as birth control, priestly celibacy, women's roles, and the cult of Mary. He describes, for instance how Pope Paul VI and conservative cardinals tried to keep the birth control issue out of the Vatican Council. A committee was formed, and it was hoped that it would make a recommendation supporting the status quo. The large, prestigious committee voted overwhelmingly, however, to change the church's position on birth control. Paul VI disregarded their report feeling, presumably, that the church would lose face changing a teaching that has been in effect for centuries. Wills explores in some detail the biblical passages that are used to support various teachings, and finds them wanting. He relates the emphasis that St. Augustine placed on honesty in the church, and then deplores the modern church's frequent attempts to cover up unpleasant matters such as the banking scandal, and various cases of sexual abuse by the clergy. While there may be a feeling of great security in belonging to a church that rules with paternal authority, there should be room as in the early church for its members to have a say. Gary Wills is having his say. This is an excellent book that makes you think about how the church has evolved. Do many current teachings reflect the will of God, or the will of the Vatican?
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Summary: The truth will set us free!
Review: Garry Wills speaks the hard truth in this fascinating book about the papacy. As a practicing Catholic, I appreciate the frankness and thorough scholarship that Wills displays. In a church where many have a blind trust in JPII, Wills speaks out on difficult issues and makes connections that must be made. Wills gains credibility for me because he is a practicing Catholic who has the guts to say that the Church is more than the papacy and that's why he stays.
Rating: 
Summary: A point that needs to be made. . .
Review: A true scholar of Christian history must ultimately confront the fact that most modern tenets of Catholicism were derived from "majority votes" (by no means "unanimous" votes) of the early Church's bishops and learned leaders--and NOT by one, annointed individual (i.e., a pope.) Many of these original Church tenets were hotly debated by the early Christians--even Peter and Paul disagreed about issues of "proper" worship. Topics of disagreement among early Church leaders ranged from subtle nuances of ritual to outright cannons of law. In 300 AD, for example, the concept of the three natures of Christ (Trinity) was quite controversial and by no means readily recognized or accepted. Many Catholics today would be shocked to learn that this issue was only decided and formalized by a close, majority vote of a council of Church elders in 325 AD in the city of Nicea in Asia Minor. The "Nicene Creed" was in serious trouble at first, rejected by Emporer Constantine. Present-day Catholics would be practicing a very different faith if not for the intervention of Emporer Theodosius in 379 AD who made the Nicene Creed accepted theology by imperial edict. The point is, the very articles of faith the Catholic Church considers bedrock today were hardly that in the beginning when the concepts were first floated. These "infallible truths" only became such over time and tradition. The Catholic Church has been a continually evolving source of theology throughout it's 2000 year existence. Why should that stop now? Why such an empahasis on preserving traditon (non-marriage of priests, no female ordination, etc.) simply over custom? And that's ALL it is--in the early Church, priestly celibacy and female exclusionism were non-existant. Catholicism should be a flexible instrument. Christ said to his young Church: "What thou bindest on earth shall be bound in heaven; and what thou loosest on earth shall be loosed in heaven." In other words, you don't have to be so rigid. There is room for flexibility and adaptation. "Truth" can and does change. (Remember the Old Testament Law of "stoning" as the punishment for adultry? Christ changed that to "let he without sin cast the first stone." He also changed, "An eye for an eye" to "turn the other cheek," something some reviewers on this page seem to have forgotten.) The Church can and should change to meet the changing needs of mankind. Christ founded His Church to benefit and serve mankind, and NOT the other way around--a fact many people--including some Church heirarchy--persistenly ignore. An excellent expression of these points--and a convincing work of support for Garry Wills' PAPAL SINS--is the provocative and hotly debated suspense thriller, THE LAST DAY, by Glenn Kleier (Warner Books, 1998). This novel takes Garry Wills' points to an intriguing, compelling conclusion. The extrapolations are fascinating.
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Summary: Gary Wills highlights a profound question.
Review: It is easy to assume that Mr. Wills' aggressive presentation of his research and observations are, in large part, a response to the Vatican's increasingly aggressive suppression of inquiry and debate among those scholars and religious whose positions are subject to its authority. The book raises the issues of Papal authority and honesty in its examination of the Vatican's position on contemporary theological, moral and social issues (historic anti-semitism, birth control, priestly celibacy, a female priesthood, human sexuality and others) which have become intensely questioned by many within the church. Although the above issues are specifically addressed, they in fact highlight the fundamental philosophical themes of truth: its nature and its discernment. The question of truth's nature finds Mr. Wills challenging the Vatican's "classical view" that truth, once it has been discerned, embraced and integrated by the church into its theological model, is unchanging. The alternative "historical view", embraced by many theologians and inherent in Mr. Wills' challenges, contends that truth continues to be discerned within the context of our ever advancing knowledge regarding our physical world and social evolution. As to truth's discovery, the Papacy has long viewed the discernment of truth as it relates to faith and morals as its exclusive domain, seen as being both biblically derived and spiritually protected from error. The Papacy sees its authority further supported by its long held "monarchical view" which positions the Pope via "divine right" at the apex of the pyramid of the faithful with possession of the exclusive prerogative of interpreting God's will. Alternatively, Mr. Wills and many other scholars have found that during much of the church's history, truth's discernment was the product of collegial consensus by locally elected bishops; a "democratic view" if you will, that saw the Holy Spirit working through the whole church and not the Pope alone. The essential problem, as Mr. Wills sees it, is that the classical-monarchical view embraced by the Vatican has required it to rely increasingly on evasion, deception and intellectual repression to defend its positions and past actions. The Papacy's steadfast defense of its positions, the author contends, has much to do with its perceived need to protect the underpinnings of its moral and institutional authority which in turn is derived from the theological and institutional model it is defending. The issues debated in the book may be more significant today than ever before because they are being raised by a burgeoning community of educated and informed believers, who are the beneficiaries of a dramatically expanded understanding of our physical world, our history and our human evolution; we might even be on the threshold of a theological renaissance. Whether the philosophical, spiritual and social insights that structure our institutions, traditions and beliefs should be seen through the eyes of the past, or whether they should be reexamined and possibly redefined to permit humanity to embrace a fuller understanding of God's plan and Christ's message, seems to be the underlying question of this book.
Rating: 
Summary: Sloppy
Review: Garry Wills is my favorite author, so I was was glad to see the new book, and especially happy that his fine-tuned mind would be focusing on the topic at hand. But, while I learned some valuable historical information from the book, I was disappointed by it as an intellectual artifact. Basically, Mr. Wills is not consistent and thorough in his religous thinking. On the surface, it seems that the bases of his arguments against various Roman teachings are chosen at random. Sometimes he objects to a doctrine by showing the lack of Scriptural support for it; this makes him sound like a standard Protestant. At other times he appeals to the authority of church 'Fathers' (Ignatius, Augustine); this is a standard Roman approach. Sometimes his objection is on the ground of 'common sense' or 'vox populi' (e.g., the couple in chapter 6 that does not find the rhythm method of birth control congenial). As a result, his critique of Papal (and other Roman) pronouncements lacks a positive principle of authority, and offers no framework of thought out of which to test or generate doctrine. The connecting thread behind the hodge-podge of religious ideas he accepts and rejects is his political liberalism, which is the foundation of his more general mental superstructure. This comes as no surprise; we all know Mr. Wills as the 'anti-Buckley'. What is disturbing is how nakedly this bias shows through, and how seemingly unaware he is of the inconsistencies it leads him into. His mindless analysis of 'homosexual' scripture texts (chapter 13) is a distressing case in point. As a Christian who is not a Catholic (and who actively opposes Catholicism), I find a lot in the book to support my point of view about 'The Church'. But while certain points he makes are 'incisive' and others are 'timely', as a whole his criticism is not coordinated.
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Summary: Wills Gets 5 Stars...
Review: merely for saying that JP II's legacy is a gay priesthood. How the Catholic Church, with its well-known pedophilia scandals and their coverups can pretend to be an "authority" on "natural law" (is celibacy "natural?") boggles the mind. I often find Wills nauseatingly moderate but this one hits the mark.
Rating: 
Summary: Not the book we expected from Garry Wills
Review: Garry Wills must be writing too much. One of his recent books, the one on St. Augustine, received much deserved praise. His book on the necessary evil of big government was a diatribe for liberalism and a shameful support of tyranny, since the best explanation for the horrors of Nazi Germany is the power of the State. We might have expected a man of Wills' talent to produce the book about the papacy we need, expecially Catholics. Papal Catholicism is not real Catholicism; the emphasis on the popes and their every word and deed is a relatively modern development, the result of the French Revolution's assault on Christianity and of the disastrous First Vatican Council (well exposed by Wills). Catholics need to realize that the essence of Catholicism is not the eunnuch-like personalities of most popes but the robust masculinity of Christian heroes and saints. Wills does a good job of revealing the heroic stature of Augustine, but his expose of papal sin is too one-sided, too selective. Yes, Pius IX was an hysteric and an intriguer, but not all his denunciations in his Syllabus of Errors were misguided. Who can say after the horrible 20th Century that he was wrong about the evils of democracy, liberalism, statism, and yes even bible societies! By tarring the papacy with too wide a brush Wills has made it certain that Catholics will ignore this book and only anti-Catholic bigots will like it. Garry Wills could have done much better, he is capable of doing much better.
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Summary: Troubling, but it needs to be said
Review: Garry Wills is not a hatchet man. This book is not an unfair attack, nor are its criticisms unfounded. Wills discusses in detail the problems confronting the Catholic church today and adds some intriguing problems that are not yet widely discussed, but which probably will be in the near future. This book is a must-read for any Catholic concerned about the state of his/her church. Furthermore, the reader needs to ask the question that Wills is unable to address effectively: if a believer begins to reject elements of Catholicism on the grounds that they are impure or of strictly temporaly origin, is that person still Catholic?
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Summary: You know you shouldn't look...
Review: Reading "Papal Sin: Structures of Deceit" is like driving past a bad auto accident -- you know you shouldn't look, but you stare anyway. Dr. Wills exposes the wreckage of fallibile papal power in this easy-to-read book. Rather than coming off as an anti-Catholic diatribe, one can sense the author's anguish as he shows how "The Church" has abused its power and damaged the truth. Recommended for anyone interested in why the Catholic church continues, against all reason, to prohibit birth control, ban women priests, and enforce a celibate (and increasingly gay) priesthood. Warning: the chapters on the Holocaust are extremely disturbing (but you'll want to look anyway).
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