Rating: 
Summary: Snide
Review: Like much of his recent work, this book by Wills does not engage those with whom he disagrees. It simply mocks them and reduces their position to a caricature.A case in point is the treatment of contraception. He produces a cartoon of the Church's position on the issue, then rants that a high school sophomore would never accept it. But the critique is dishonest. He never engages the serious arguments of Paul VI as to how contraception violates the unitive and procreative purposes of intercourse. Paul VI's argument was never a simple opposition to contraception just because church tradition opposed it. He never seriously examines Pope John Paul II's phenomenological argument about contraception. The philosophical arguments against contraception (by world-class scholars like Anscombe, Grisez, and Finnis) are never discussed. Wills simply can't seem to accept that others disagree with him on these issues, not out of dishonestly, but because they sincerely believe that the stronger argument is on the other side of the question.
Rating: 
Summary: Heavy-Heavy-Heavy!!
Review: "Papal Sin" is a very serious and challenging book. It's not light bedtime reading. The book is concerned with "misdeeds" of various Popes over the centuries. Many of these transgressions will be understood only by those well versed in theology or the inner workings of the Catholic Church. Far more significant, and easier to digest, are the reports of how Pope Pius IX declared Papal Infallibility or Paul VI condemned birth control, both over the strenuous objections of many bishops. Niether of these acts was based on scripture, nor are the bans on a married clergy or a female clergy. We learn that Saints Peter and Paul were married and many early disciples were female. In short, the Catholic Church is painted as an authoritarian, top down, selfish, Rome-centered, self-perpetuating hierarchy. The "rules" are whatever the current Pope proclaims them, whether or not they are based on scripture or even natural law. If one is a card carrying Catholic, it gets worse! The author takes the reader into the writings of Saint Augustine, Saint Jerome, Lord Acton and Cardinal Newman. He proceeds to delve into the considerations of an increasingly gay clergy (no surprise here!) and even questions the amount of devotion to the Virgin Mary! Even SHE cannot hide from Mr. Wills' pen. The end result is an often foggy story that can easily lose one who attempts to follow word for word.A "cafeteria" approach however, will be richly rewarding to the selective ones who take what they can.This lapsed Catholic got a refresher course as to just why he is that way- and likely to remain so. Devout Cathlics will be furious- and relish picking the chapters apart. Theology majors will have a field day. For these 2 categories, a 5 star rating is warranted. Give Mr. Wills credit, he has included something for everyone within the slowly turning pages of "Papal Sin".
Rating:
Summary: Pope Gary?
Review: I found this book too shallow and too predictable to finish. This is yet another in a long line of books bashing the Church, usually written by cultural Catholics who lack the humility to truly examine their faith. Whatever spritit is moving Mr. Wills, I doubt it is a holy one. If you are looking for substance, look elsewhere.
Rating: 
Summary: An Important Message Tendentiously Written
Review: There is a clerical joke going around that when the papal bull authorizing the ordination of women is issued it will begin, "As we have always said...." Corporations and their spokesmen tend to avoid ever admitting error, to interpret their actions in the best possible light, and even to bend the truth. The Catholic Church is like other organizations in this regard. However, the Church's mission reliably to proclaim truth has, as Wills observes, made it particularly inclined to continue asserting its position in the face of contrary evidence and has made its failures in truthfulness all the more reprehensible. That is unfortunately true. His book is a call for honesty, but it is not itself a totally honest book. Wills is not anti-Catholic. He is rather a faithful but angry son in a somewhat dysfunctional family. He is trying to persuade, but in his anger and advocacy is not himself beyond misunderstanding or misinterpreting the evidence. He presents lots of interesting facts and arguments for his side of various issues, but not for the other. His interpretations make more of a point about future direction rather than past fact. He will be very informative to the average reader, and the general drift of his argument may be true, but the devil is in the details, and the details are not necessarily trustworthy scholarship. A must read book, an important message, but don't swallow it whole.
Rating:
Summary: More heat than light
Review: A thoughtful book pondering the mystery of how in this day and age an institution like the Catholic Church could teach against contraception, the ordination of women or abortion would be of great value. In order to write such a book, a person would have to enter into the spirit of the Church to try to understand why, from its point of view, such teachings might make sense. Unfortunately, this is a step Wills has resolutely refuses to take. For him, the Church is so obviously wrong about these teachings, that he does not even bother to argue against them. Instead, his book is focused on uncovering the intellectual dishonesty that (from his point of view) the Church employs in knowingly promulgating teachings that have no validity. Having taken this tack, Wills has no chance of presenting an objective account of the Church's positions. Several of the previous reviewers have noted that Wills' polemical screed fails to engage the issues in a serious way. Here are a couple examples of the shoddiness of Wills' research and the shallowness of his analysis. 1. Contraception. Nowhere in the two chapters on contraception does Wills address the possibility that there might be some validity to the Church's teaching that contraception is opposed to God's law. He offers some anecdotal evidence that Catholics felt like the Church's teachings against contraception *hurt* their marriages. Anecdotal evidence is always the weakest sort of evidence. And it is clear that the reason why Wills confines himself to such evidence is that systematic studies could not possibly show that the introduction of artificial birth control *strengthened* marriages. On the contrary, since the introduction of the Pill, divorce rates have sky-rocketed. While the reasons for the connection between wide-spread practice of contraception and the weakening of marriage bonds may not be clear, it at least raises the possibility that there is some merit to the Church's position. By shifting the weight of the marital act away from procreation and towards pleasure, the introduction of artificial birth control might well have weakened the sense of responsibility that in the past may have worked to keep marriages intact. We have now had nearly 40 years experience with widespread contraception -- surely in assessing the strengths or weaknesses of the Church's ban on artificial contraception, Wills might usefully have looked at the *actual* record of how contraception has impacted society. On a more minor note, Wills tries to characterize the Church's position on contraception as being out of step with other major religious traditions. In doing so, he carefully sidesteps the fact that prior to the Lambeth Conference of 1930, *all* of Christendom was united on this teaching. 2. Priestly Celibacy. If you read only Wills chapter on priestly celibacy, you would believe that Paul VI' encyclical on the subject is based on a willful misreading of the New Testament. I went to read the encyclical, Sacerdotalis Caelibatus, for myself. Imagine my surprise to note that the encyclical begins with a thoughtful description of the various arguments against priestly celibacy including this one: "The first (argument against priestly celibacy) seems to come from the most authoritative source, the New Testament which preserves the teaching of Christ and the Apostles. It does not openly demand celibacy of sacred ministers but proposes it rather as a free act of obedience to a special vocation or to a special spiritual gift.[2] Jesus Himself did not make it a prerequisite in His choice of the Twelve, nor did the Apostles for those who presided over the first Christian communities." Considering that all of chapter 8 is spent in making exactly this argument, one might have thought that Wills would mention that the argument itself is contained in the document in question. These are just a few of many examples which could be mustered. The irony of work like Wills' is that he claims to be on the side of truth. Yet, he has so blindly adopted all of the "truths" du jour, that he has written a book which is wholly unaware of the possibility that the "truths" du jour might be wrong.
Rating: 
Summary: The most important book I've read
Review: As a Catholic, "Papal Sin" is the most important book I've read about my faith (other than The Bible, of course). Mr. Wills articulates his positions thoughtfully and logically. While reading this book, there were a number of times where I truly felt as though scales were falling off my eyes. Some people have criticized this book asking why he remains a Catholic, or wondering why he would write a book that "bashes" his faith. Those critics miss the point. Mr. Wills does not "bash" the truths which comprise Catholic Christianity. Rather, his is a clarion call to preserve the truths of our faith by shining a light on the deceits which dimisish our Church's credibility. Read this book. Catholic or not, this book is an excellent presentation of how the most notorious teachings of the Church heirarchy has come to pass.
Rating:
Summary: True Faith
Review: There are without doubt certain "truths" in Catholic religious dogma that must be spiritually accepted by each individual as a basic foundation in the practice of this Christian faith. That said and understood, I also deeply believe that Papal interpreted and proclaimed dogma should not and must not... violate the intended spirit of its genesis. In this fascinating book, Mr. Wills documents and elegantly elaborates upon the self-serving causes, and disastrous effects of accumulated Papal deceit. On honest reflection, I do not see how this indictment can be ignored or denied by either the understanding of individual religious faith or, the recently imposed vehicle of Papal infallibility. A distorted vision that surreptitiously began as a male conceived and sponsored Vatican quest for Old World religious supremacy based on deceit, is now sadly reaping its just punishments. The only way to honestly reverse this incremental internal theological assassination, would be for the church to completely admit its past interpretive mistakes and then take positive steps to rectify them in the spirit of its true doctrine. Paradoxically, she would have to infallibly proclaim the now obvious fallacy of papal infallibility. My respects Mr. Wills, for the courageous strength of your true foundational faith.
Rating:
Summary: Authority and Ignorance
Review: Before I began reading 'Papal Sin' I feared it would be worthless--just a compilation of negative criticisms with no positive point. While I was reading, I was astounded, and by the time I finished the book I was angry, and not at Wills. Having received a superior Catholic education in the 1950s and 60s, I ought not to be encountering much of what Wills wrote about for the first time. Oh, sure, I knew about Augustine's "agnosticism" with regard to when a fetus gets a soul, and I knew of Thomas Aquinas' weird, authoritarian notions about women. And I recognized in Wills's logic a number of what Aristotle called informal fallacies. But Wills' book, overall, made me think about how ignorant Catholics have been kept, and how rules of the Church and pronouncements from priests and nuns assume an authority they neither have nor deserve. And then I thought of the ignorance of those nuns and priests: someone told them what to tell us and transmuted their desire to teach the good into their ability to terrify. 'Papal Sin' is worth reading. It can help Catholics shake off some of the "Because I said so" rules they've unnecessarily internalized, and it can help others see that all religious hierarchy needs to be examined and re-thought.
Rating: 
Summary: Why This Book?
Review: What was the whole point of writing a book just to make people feel bad about their Church? "Papal Sin"? Come on, this book is not only totally biased, but it seems to bare no point, as Wills doesn't say that Papacy is evil or anything, he does say it has its mistakes though. But doesn't every religion have its mistakes?
Rating:
Summary: Shrill and superficial
Review: I've been a Garry Wills fan, until recently. Wills is a good writer, and he CAN be a good historian. But when he deals with issues pertaining to his own religion, there certainly appears to be a big blind spot. The visceral replaces the analytical. Arguments give way to screeds. And political correctness displaces objectivity. Even for those of us who agree with his positions against the Roman Pontiff (I'm not Catholic), it's clear that this book should have been thoroughly overhauled, if not deep-sixed, instead of being published as is.
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