Rating: 
Summary: A Debate Starter, But That's About It
Review: First I would like to state something for the record. I am a practicing and believing Catholic. I know the Church is not perfect, and some of its failures are serious and in some cases, particularly the recent cover up of sexual abuse cases, criminally wrong and morally reprehensible. I am also somewhat middle of the road theologically. Perhaps since I am middle of the road, I can only give PAPAL SIN mixed reviews. I want the Church to preserve its strengths, namely the Sacramental life of the Church, its overall excellent record of human rights issues and social teachings since World War II, and its teachings on the sanctity of life. I also know there are many areas where change is needed, and I am anxiously awaiting change. Wills speaks about a number of issues in the book and many of the issues mentioned in his book have proven to be very true in recent years. He mentions the structural problems of the Church in detail, and how these problems are from the top down, so to speak. He also mentions issues such as pedophilia and gay clergy as issues. He also mentions hot button issues such as abortion, birth control, and controversy surrounding issues such as annulments. He also has an interesting point regarding the clergy shortage; Wills does not see celibacy as the only reason for the shortage. Wills argues that a major reason fort a vocational decline has as much to do with people not believing all that the Church has to teach. In each issue, Wills states the challenges and difficulties rather well. He knows where people disagree and why. This is probably the book's chief strength. Wills has his critics. Since he is a former Jesuit priest, his book is often viewed as nothing more than his anger at the Church. This is false. I have heard Wills speak publicly, and I believe he does love the Church, and in most cases stating he has an ax to grind and the book is only a means to grind the ax, is too simplistic. My problem stems more from the fact that he takes a little bit of this, a little bit of that, and combines it. While this happens all of the time in many books, for a book on Catholicism this can often be erroneous and misleading. Catholic teaching is a principle based, and arguments for and against must be based on principle. Wills knowledge is broad, which is good. His arguments are also broad, which is not as helpful as a principle based argument should be. Again when I heard him speak, he could not counter criticisms of his work which made me wonder, what are his conclusions based on? So is the book useful? Yes. In a time that people are sincerely trying to reform the Church, and have the best of intentions of doing so, Wills book poses interesting questions that need to be looked at and discussed in depth, certainly by the laity and clergy, but also by the hierarchy. However, if the book is read, it should be read firm a mindset that this author is presenting his opinion, and can base much of it on fact, but for the good and the bad, it is just an opinion.
Rating:
Summary: What a Strange Book
Review: No, despite what you might think from the title it's not about Pope Alexander and his son Caesar Borgia, it's a critique of The Church so wide ranging that the author felt compelled to write a sequel "Why I am a Catholic ", after receiving from 'total strangers' admonitions on the state of his soul, rosaries, etc. Mr. Wills had to assure his readers that he prays the rosary daily and yes, he is a Catholic. " Papal Sins " begins with a chapter entitled 'Remembering the Holocaust' which attacks The Vatican's "We Remember". A document issued in 1998, as not going far enough in taking blame for anti-semitism taught by previous popes, or for Pius the 12th failing to take a stronger stance against fascism. It's hardly even 'controversial' whether one thinks the author protests too much or is right on the money as to the wording of "We Remember" By the end of the book, however, the author makes statements that profess the following: 1. Priests should marry if they choose to do so. Contraception is hardly in the same category as murder and Paul the Sixth's Encycliccal "Humanae Vitae" was just plain silly. The argument that women cannot be priests because the twelve apostles were all men is specious; one could make the argument, following the same logic that all priests should be Jews, or like the apostles, should be married; the real reason is that in the first century women were considered inferior to men and this illogical view has been propounded through to the present day. Molestation of children by priests and the subsequent cover up by bishops is a terrible sin and indicative of what's wrong with the church hierarchy. Again, just a bit more 'controversial' 2. By keeping celibacy in the Latin rite, Pope John Paul the Second's real heritage to The Church is a gay priesthood. The hemorraghing of priests during the 70's and 80's was, for the most part, from heterosexual priests who left to marry. Now we're getting slightly higher on the controversial scale. 3. There is nothng in Scripture that recognizes a fetus as a human being. Note that Thomas Aquinas wrote against baptizing them. Abortion, by implication, is not a sin. Here, Willls loses the conservative wing of Catholicism, but presents his case with reasoned arguments. Increase the 'controversial scale' by a larger factor. 4. Papal infallibility, even with the ex cathedra, and other clauses which restrict it, is in fact, nonsense. A political coup de etat pulled off by Pius the Ninth by gerrrymandering the votes. RACK UP THE CONTROVERSY 4. Devotion to Mary takes away from devotion to The Holy Spirit and, among other negative effects, produces a bunch of mama's boys who enter the preisthood with an idealized view of women, having never known a real one. St. Augustine's view of a valid marriage consisted in a couple who would prodeuce children and remain faithful unto death to each other , it is not a 'sacrament' to Augustine and it shouldn't be one for us. it leads to hypocrisy--60,000 annulments in the U.S.A with 90% of applicants approved. Ditto on confession or penance--not a sacrament. We are now in orbit on the controversial scale. 5. His tour de force, " The church should not restrict the priesthood to men. IN FACT, IT WOULD NOT RESTRICT THE PRIESTHOOD TO PRIESTS--TO MAGICIANS OF THE EUCHARISTIC TRANFORMATION." Ok, so er..what's left, Garry? If there's no apostolic succession and no priesthood with the power to celebrate mass and transubstantiation is a myth it would appear that we are off the scale. The author, a professor of history with a Phd. in classics is strongest when he argues point #4, referring to the Catholic Lord Acton and Cardinal Newman, who, at the time, unsuccessfully opposed Pius the Ninth. To quote Newman, in part: "Was St. Peter infallible on that occasion in Antioch when St.Paul withstood him? Was St. Victor infallible when he separated from his communion the Asiatic Churches? Or Liberius when in like manner he excommunicated Athanasius?..." As for the rest of "Papal Sins", no sweat and no news if you're a Protestant; Good luck harmonizing all of the arguments if you're Catholic. What a strange book
Rating: 
Summary: Papal Confusion
Review: The convoluted series of essays by Wills really misses the point. The inherent hierarchy of guilt created by the Church is ignored and philosophical gibberish invades our logic. A tough read with little enlightenment. Don't waste your time or money.
Rating: 
Summary: Too obsessed with "sinfulness", but very interesting
Review: "Papal Sin" is Garry Wills' attempt to show that, although one must admit that there have been no popes as unholy as the Borgias of the Renaissance, there is still sinful behaviour on the part of the papacy even today. The book goes into rather excessive detail to look at failures in various positions taken up vigorously by the Wojtyla papacy in the last twenty-five years. He gives a most interesting look at the canonisation of Edith Stein, who was a Jewish woman who became a contemplative Carmelite nun in the 1930s and was killed in the Holocaust. Stein was a very intelligent woman, but there is much objection to the way the Wojtyla papacy, in its haste to create saints out of martyrs, has canonised her as a martyr for Catholicism when in reality she died because of her race. The first part of the book is an excellent summary of the way in which the Vatican will not admit its judgement of Hitler was flawed and that it could have done far more to prevent the Holocaust. It points out, however, that the Vatican's main aim, as shown in the encyclical "Divini Redemptoris (Against Atheistic Communism)" was preventing the spread of Stalinism into Europe. The chapters about the teaching on female ordination and contraception are interesting but are, to say the least, not easy to read. However, the book does show the flaws in the Vatican's reasoning behind not only why female ordination should be banned, but as to why it should be a totally off-limits subject for Christians. The dense writing - like almost all replies to John Paul's important documents against female ordination - is very dense and not for the layperson. The arguments about "a shrinking Church" and the priesthood in general in the later part of the book are, to say the least, much easier to read and interpret. The chapter on "Humanae Vitae" is reasonable, but, as with "Ordination Sacerdotalis", too much time is spent with saying what most people, including non-Catholics, are already aware of. The last chapters are telling in the way in which they discuss the issue of "truth", but here Wills is not a broad-minded and as good at arguing as one would wish. Nonetheless, this book is a very interesting read even if it is obsessive in tone. Recommended for those who do want an insight into the papacy today.
Rating:
Summary: Well worth reading
Review: Garry Wills sets himself a high goal in this book -- to provide evidence of not only the Catholic Church leadership's "structures of conservatism" or "structures of tradition," but actual "Structures of Deceit."
Garry Wills clearly presents more evidence and argument in favor of his views than in opposition to his views. He is not quite an "honest broker" in this sense. Yet, most of his points are well-argued, and while one may certainly disagree with at least some of his conclusions, Wills makes a very good case for the proposition that the church leadership, in many ways in the past and present, twists scriptures and facts, and exposes the most vulnerable of its membership to abuse and unscriptural teachings and needless strictures on their lives, in order to maintain the power and reputation of the church leadership and priesthood.
This book is also interesting to the non-Catholic curious about the actions of the Catholic Church in World War II, the origin and development of many Catholic teachings, and fascinating stories about the origin of the Catholic sects which are encroaching their churches on the concentration camps where so many Jews were killed.
Wills assumes too much prior knowledge on the part of the reader in the chapters on Newman and Acton, and the book has a very skimpy index.
Rating: 
Summary: Papal Sin
Review: If you are a Catholic hater, and want something to fuel your hate, this is the book for you. But, if you are interested in truth, at least get a copy of the Catechism of the Catholic Church and better yet, in addition, read anything by a brilliant, faithful Catholic mind, such as Scott Hahn, Peter Kreeft, Patrick Madrid, or David Currie.
Rating:
Summary: Papal fallibility
Review: Wills barely touches on Pope Pius XII's complicity in the atrocities of Adolf Hitler, since that situation has been thoroughly detailed in John Cornwall's Hitler's Pope. Instead, his primary targets are Pius IX, Paul VI and John Paul II, three men who by all logic should have destroyed the Catholic Church, by showing it to be the plaything of megalomaniac popes best described as sick jokes. On John Paul's adamant denial of equal rights to women, Wills shows the absurdity of his forbidding the ordination of women on the ground that Jesus' (mythical) Twelve Envoys were all male, while simultaneously forbidding priests from marrying even though at least some of those same envoys(those who did exist) were married. John Paul and his predecessors were able to doublethink because "New Testament passages are twisted, omitted, distorted, perverted," so that they came out meaning whatever the pope wants them to mean.
Wills devotes two chapters to the sexual abuse of children by pedophile priests, and makes a strong case that papal enforcement of priestly celibacy is the primary cause. Homosexual men are drawn to the priesthood because it gives them access to lots of unattached men and boys, and because precedent tells them that, no matter how many times a pedophile priest is caught, the church will do everything in its power to cover it up. Wills cites a survey of 101 gay priests, of whom those ordained before 1960 reported that their seminaries had been 51 percent gay, while those ordained after 1981 remembered that their seminaries had been 70 percent gay. He concludes that, "John Paul's real legacy to his church is a gay priesthood."
I found little in Papal Sin with which to disagree, other than Wills' self-inflicted blindness that prevents him from recognizing his Bible as an anthology of fantasies qualitatively equal to those of the Brothers Grimm. This book should be mandatory reading for the minority of Catholics who continue to believe that right and wrong are whatever the current pope says they are.
For my complete review, see "A Humanist in the Bible Belt" early 2003.
Rating:
Summary: A counterfeit by any other name ...
Review: By exposing their more than obvious apostasies of the past, can the Roman Catholic church become a new and improved 3-dollar bill?
Rating:
Summary: Totally Misleading
Review: I was terribly disappointed with the content of this book. The author presents his "theories" as factual historical information. It seems to me that he wrote this book simply out of spite for the Catholic Church. Any scholar who is familiar with the history of western civilization and the Catholic Church's hierarchy knows these stories Wills presents, to be totally false. Several examples he gives in the book are completely fictional and give a powerful weapon against Catholics, if only his stories were fact instead of fiction. This book is a complete waste of ones time if they are looking to learn about the history of the papacy or the Catholic Church. Look elsewhere!
Rating: 
Summary: Devastating indictment
Review: Gary Wills is a practicing and committed catholic as well as a rightly celebrated author (Nixon Agonistes et al). It is important to bear this in mind as you read this scholarly, well-researched and devastating indictment of the Catholic hierarchy up to, and very much including popes ancient, modern and current. Wills builds his case methodically, chapter by chapter, and presents a vision of the structure of the catholic church as committed to defending its past no matter how tortuous the reasoning. Whether focused on the church's responsibility towards the jews and in particular its behavior before and during world war II, or on the current pope's near medieval obsessions that may make John Paul II's principal legacy, according to Wills, a "gay clergy", the analysis is relentless and unanswerable. His passages on Humanae Vitae and its predictably tragic consequences are particularly compelling as are his descriptions of the rank manipulation of Vatican Councils in the 19th century and the origins of papal "infallibility". Although completed before the current wave of pedophilia scandals, it prefigures this massive problem with an analysis of cases in Texas. Whether on the status and contribution of women, on the rise of Marianism, or the fuller involvement of the laity in the church, Wills is unerringly perceptive --- and right. This should be required reading for every cardinal and bishop in the United States, in fact the entire hierarchy of the church. It is neither an easy subject nor an easy book to read, but it demands your attention from the moment you start. (I was slightly stunned to find a copy at Costco -- when I looked again, it was no longer there).
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