Shameless Bragging Update.

Edward Feser is interviewed about "Taking Aquinas Seriously."

He recommends Brian Davies "The Reality of God and the Problem of Evil"

//The first book you’ve selected is Fordham philosopher Brian Davies’s The Reality of God and the Problem of Evil.

This is the best book in print on the problem of evil. It develops two key Thomistic insights: First, you cannot properly understand the problem of evil without understanding the nature of God’s causal relationship to the world. Second, you cannot properly understand the problem of evil if you conceive of God in anthropomorphic terms—as something like a human agent, only bigger and stronger. If the world is like a story, God is not a character in the story alongside other characters; he is like the author of the story. And just as it makes no sense to think of an author as being unjust to his characters, neither does it make sense to think of God as being unjust to his creatures. While God is perfectly good, it is a deep mistake to think that this entails that he is a kind of cosmic Boy Scout, and that the problem of evil is a question about whether he deserves all his merit badges. Davies also shows how, from a Thomistic point of view, the approach to the problem of evil taken by contemporary philosophers of religion like Alvin Plantinga and Richard Swinburne is misguided and presupposes too anthropomorphic a conception of God.//

Oh....and look who has the number one review of the Davies' book.

Little old amateur me.

The Blogging Life.

Danusha Goska has posted my review of a book on Julius Streicher on her blog.

It should be interesting to see what the commenters say.

I notice that one comment points out that Streicher was executed for incitement to violence. If I was a judge, I am sure that I would have strongly considered executing such a loathsome toad. On the other hand, he had been out of power for years - prior to 1939. Perhaps he should have gotten the same treatment as Rudolf Hess, namely life in prison.

I am not going to shed tears for this waste of a human life, but it is an interesting question if you really take an absolutist view of the values incorporated into the First Amendment, such as letting Nazis march in towns where Holocaust survivors live or not preventing the publication of plans for building a nuclear weapon.

New book review

The Origins of the Cult of the Virgin Mary.

Book Review

As always, please go here and give my review a "helpful" vote.

				Traditions of Men: Understanding the Thinking That Separates Catholic Christianity from Its Protestants by Patrick Vandapool Edition: Paperback Price: $8.96
Unapologetic, engaging, energetic and accessible, July 16, 2013 Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?) This review is from: Traditions of Men: Understanding the Thinking That Separates Catholic Christianity from Its Protestants (Paperback) As a blogger, Patrick Vandapool is neither an apologetic about Catholicism or particularly ecumenical. Vandapool blogs at "The Unapologist" where is his area of interest is distinguishing Catholic and Protestant distinctives and defending and promoting the Catholic position. His blogging style is direct, efficient and not without a one-sided humor directed at Protestant positions. If you are a Catholic, you will cheer him on; if you are a Protestant, you will find him mean spirited. Vandapool's first book keeps the unapologetic, vigorous tone. It is most certainly not an ecumenical book. You will want to read this book if you are a Catholic wondering about the Catholic positions he addresses and/or the current state of the question on Catholic v. Protestant disputations, but you may not want to give this book to your Protestant friends. Vandapool's focus is principally on two issues. The first issue is based on Vandapool's perception of gnosticism in Protestantism. Thus, according to Vandapool, Protestantism's tendency to spiritualize or "docetize" things that are actually supposed to be real and material, such as the a real, visible church, runs throughout the Protestant worldview. This tendency has been associated with Protestantism's rejection of tradition and history. Thus, baptism - mentioned in the Bible as key to salvation - has been "docetized" into a symbol with no matter, while the "sinner's prayer" - never mentioned in the Bible - has become the key to salvation for many Protestants. (p. 22.) Cut off from a holistic tradition that mediates individual passages into a living tradition, Protestants have resorted to "proof-texting." (p. 43.) Vandapool writes: >>>"The Catholic position does not require a single proof-text, such as Matthew 16:18 - 20, because the remainder of the Bible surrounds the text, provides a larger context and provides more meaning to individual texts. Therefore, when Catholics read of of Peter being given the keys to the kingdom, they are not required to answer the begging questions with self-interested proclamations. In contrast, Protestantism is self-forced, necessitated by an interest in forming a kind of Christianity structured to elect or from God's clergy into the image of an entrepreneur, to deform, not reform, historical Christian ecclesial structure." (p. 45.)<<< And there you can see Vandapool's "in your face" style, but it happens to be accurate in that Peter's centrality doesn't appear mostly from a particular text, but from the repetition of Peter's name as coming in first in the list of apostles and acting first in his interactions with Christ and in post-resurrection apostolic actions. (See p. 48.) Vandapool's main interest in the second part of the book is on the issue of the ecclesial structure of the church. Vandapool scores solid points about the scripture establishing a hierarchical structure. Vandapool rehearses the fairly well-known point - as he points out, generally unknown to Protestants - that the giving of the keys to Peter has an Old Testament precedent in Isaiah 22 with the giving of the keys of authority to Eli'akim to act as the regent of the Davidic king. (p. 54.) As Vandapool points out, the docetized interpretation of Christ's words in Matthew 16 deny any reality in a real-world, here and now, material sense to words spoken by Christ and understood by Christians for at least 1,500 years. (p. 52 - 55.) Vandapool also addresses the importance of the priesthood. He makes the interesting point that where Catholic view priesthoods and ministries as being bestowed by God (Ephesians 4), Protestants tend to take or seize their ministry by appointing themselves as ministers and pastors, or by being appointed by denominations that have themselves seized or taken their own ministries by their "self-grabbed" authority. (p. 60 - 67.) This makes for an interesting divergence between the psyche of Protestants and Catholics in that Catholics acknowledge that Jesus gave authority to certain men, whereas Protestants are more likely to invoke their own "self-grabbed" appointment to interpret and decree. (p. 69.) (Vandapool also makes a point that I've often seen: "A common characteristic of Protestants who become Catholic is a story that includes seeing verses for the first time. Conversely Catholics who turn Protestant tend to be uncatechized or prefer a more laissez faire lifestyle." (p. 69.) Vandapool also helped clear up something that had recently stumped me - the notion that priests act "in persona Christi." I had recently explained that concept to a Protestant only to be told that he had never heard of it and couldn't recognize it as a Christian idea (notwithstanding my assurances that this, in fact, had been the way that all Christians had thought up until a comparatively short time ago.) Vandapool points out that the the idea of actin in persona Christi is dervied from 2 Corinthians 2:10. Although many translations have changed the working to undermine its historical meaning so as to read "I [Paul] have forgiven in the sight of Christ for your sake" instead of the traditional "in the person of Christ." (p. 10, fn. 6.) The original Latin translation of the Greek was "in persona Christi" referring to the Greek idea of using masks - persona - to represent the players in a Greek drama. That was useful. I wish I had the book a week earlier. Vandapool runs through a diverse number of issues pertaining to the subject of authority, priesthood and ecclesiology. He provides a very useful appendix of the Bible texts he cites in his discussion. The book is engaging, energetic, accessible and neither overly-long nor overly-scholarly. It ought to be read by any Catholic with an interest in learning more about their faith.  Comment | Permalink

A Post-Christian culture will be a slave culture...

...according to Mark Shea, because slavery is the normal state of fallen man.

Here is Exhibit "A."

As always, please give me a "helpful" vote at this link.

			Hitler's Charisma: Leading Millions into the Abyss by Laurence Rees Edition: Hardcover Price: $20.01		52 used & new from $15.00
Hitler and the charisma of a "weird hero.", June 7, 2013 This review is from: Hitler's Charisma: Leading Millions into the Abyss (Hardcover) This is a very readable and interesting book that follows the arc of Hitler's political life in terms of his relationship with those who followed, assisted or were complicit in his remarkable rise to power. The idea of the book was to follow Hitler's life through the eyes of those who came within the sphere of his political influence, and while the book does follow that plan, it is actually more interested in the life of Hitler and therefore reads as a biography with occasional reflections on the issue of Hitler's "charisma." The information that the author, Laurence Rees, supplies is well-organized and insightful and often surprising. One interesting point is Hitler's political orientation may not have fully crystalized until after his military service. Notwithstanding the myth, Hitler was not a front line fighter. While he faced danger in running messages at the front, he slept in relative comfort behind the lines. During this period, he was considered odd and not very compelling. Hitler had a tendency to monologue on subjects - a trait he retained throughout his career. Hitler found something to criticize in everything he saw. After the collapse of the war effort, Hitler was at loose ends; he was described by one of his officers, Capt. Karl Mayr, as a "stray dog...looking for a master." Mayr also wrote at the time that "At this time, Hitler was ready to throw in his lot with anyone who would show him kindness." (p. 17.) (So, a plausible alternative history story might involve a Bolshevik Hitler.) In fact, Hitler remained in the Bavarian army during Communist take-over of Munich, rather than joining a right wing Freikorps to fight the Communists. Rees notes that many future Nazis - Himmler, Strausser and Rohm, for example - joined Freikorps, but Hitler was not one of them. (Interestingly, Rees also observes that "Fuhrer" was a term used in Freikorps to designate the leader of individual Freikorps.) Nonetheless, after the defeat of the Communists in Bavaria, Hitler was given a week-long political training course and was assigned to speak to soldiers about the dangers of Communism. Apparently, Hitler's ability to connect with other soldiers in long speeches appeared at this point. Hitler then visited the nascent Nazi party and gave an impromptu presentation, which was well received. Hitler thereby found an audience for the first time in his life. It was after this moment - by September of 1919 - that Hitler's virulent anti-Semitism makes its first documented appearance in Hitler's life as he spoke about the Jewish influence in the Bavarian Communist Revolution. Rees points out that this was not original with Hitler, but was a common trope among the right-wing movements. Rees organizes his analysis of Hitler's "charisma" through the observations of Max Weber. Weber observes that charisma is tied to a belief in a person's heroism. This belief in heroism is reinforced by factors including a distance between the follower and the "hero," and the "hero's" commitment, the "hero's" prophetic stance, and, of course, the life story of the "hero." In these factors, Hitler's weird personality actually helped him assume and maintain a heroic role. In other words, his inability to relate to other people apart from monologues, his lack of close friends, and his odd personality led to Hitler maintaining a physical and social distance from those who would follow him. Hitler also had a heroic life story in his military service and his receipt of the Iron Cross (which at that point in the war was being given out more liberally than previously in the war). Hitler's history, his weirdly dysfunctional personality, his egotistical belief in himself and his public speaking ability - fostered by his practice of monologuing to other people - all conspired to imbue him with a "charisma" for many people. These people were generally those people who (a) were looking for "savior" and (b) saw a "hero" in Hitler and (b) heard confirmation in Hitler's explanation for the ills of the world what they already believed. In post-war Germany, there were many who met all three criteria. There were also those who claim they never fell under the sway of Hitler's "charisma." Many of these people were from the older aristocracy, who didn't see in Hitler a heroic figure. On the other hand, as Rees points out, various individuals who claim not to have fallen under the spell of Hitler also acted or wrote as if they were jealous of the attention they weren't getting from the Fuhrer. Obviously, success and power, and a reputation for charisma carry their own "charisma." Rees points out the example of Fridolin von Spaun who paid no attention to the "small figure" in the "shabby coat" in the early 1920s, but who was spell-bound by Hitler in the 1930s. (p. 88.) My interest in Hitler and the Nazis was sparked by Christopher Hitchens' claim that "Hitler was a Catholic" and that the "Nazis were Catholic." At this point, my reading of reputable, objective historians has led me to the conclusion that this claim is absolute nonsense. (See The Holy Reich: Nazi Conceptions of Christianity, 1919-1945 and Resisting the Third Reich: The Catholic Clergy in Hitler's Berlin.) I'm going to add this book to the list of books that confirm that outside the fever swamp of new atheism, objective historians with no axe to grind put no stock in the "Hitler was a Christian" meme - Hitler was no believer in the Christian God: >>"What's missing from Mein Kampf - and this is a fact which has not received the acknowledgment it should - is any emphasis on Christianity. Germany had been a Christian society for more than a thousand years, and the belief in a Christian God and Christian redemption after death had been central to millions of German lives. But Hitler offers little of this comfort in Mein Kampf. He was later to alter his rhetoric about religion according to the time and situation, but his core belief is expressed here. And whilst he does say in just one sentence in Mein Kampf that a "religion in the Aryan sense cannot be imagined which lacks the conviction of a survival after death in some form" the thrust of the work is one of bleak nihilism. Hitler never elaborates on what possible "form" any life after death might take - nor whether he as an individual believes in it. As a consequence, the most coherent reading of Mein Kampf is that whilst Hitler was prepared to believe in an initial creator God, he did not accept the conventional Christian vision of heaven and hell, nor the survival of the individual "soul" - an analysis that, as we shall see, is borne out by many of his later private statements on the subject. For Hitler, there is little for the individual personality beyond the experience of here and now. We are animals and we face the choice of destroying or being destroyed."<< (p. 45.) Hitler's approach to religion was "opportunistic" and premised on his need to maintain his political viability. Hitler's personal distance from Christianity was clearly evidenced throughout his life: >>"There is no evidence that Hitler himself, in his personal life, ever expressed any individual belief in the basic tenets of the Christian church. He once said to Albert Speer, "You see, it's been our misfortune to have the wrong religion. Why didn't we have the religion of the Japanese, who regard sacrifice for the Fatherland as the highest good? The Mohammedan religion too would have been much more compatible to us than Christianity. Why did it have to be Christianity with its meekness and flabbiness."<< (p. 101.) Rees offers a "theological understanding" of Hitler's charisma. Hitler increasingly played a "quasi-religions role" in the Nazi state. (p. 101.)George Orwell noted that Hitler had an appeal premised on his seeming to be a man of suffering. (p. 99.) Hitler offered redemption to his followers, who had the embarrassment and shame of German defeat on their conscience. Hitler was venerated and children were taught that he was "sent from God." Hitler shifted the emphasis he placed on traditional notions of Christianity to a less precise idea of "Providence" (p. 101.): >>"Just who or what did Hitler think was this "Providence" who had "assigned" him his "path"? Almost certainly not the Christian God. As Hitler said to a group of Nazi leaders in 1937, "there is no universal agreement as to the specific nature of God" but "belief in God is one of the most ingenious and noblest presumptions of man which lifts us above the animals." So, most likely, Hitler was using what he saw as the ingenious device of a supernatural being in order to justify his own actions. If he was following "Providence," then his actions could only be questioned by that "Providence" - certainly not by mere mortals. And since he was the only route to this "Providence" then he could do whatever he liked and claim divine support. Moreover, the increasing ambiguity in Hitler's public speeches about whether or not his ideas of "Providence" bore any relationship to Christianity prevented any Catholic or Protestant clergy claiming that they had any special ability to interpret his claim of a direct link to a supernatural being."<< (p. 102.) In order to prevent his religious views from undermining his popularity, Hitler mingled two justifications for his authority - religion and scientific. On the one hand, Hitler claimed legitimacy from "Providence" and on the other he claimed that the fundamental laws of nature supported his beliefs. (p. 103.) These observations seem to tie directly into views outlined in Hitler's Theology: A Study in Political Religion (Continuum Resources in Religion and Political Culture). Rees says that Hitler developed a "bleak and violent vision" from various sources: Social Darwinism offered the idea that the essence of life was struggle, Arthur de Gobineau provided racism and the notion of the superiority of Germany came from Germany's spectacular success against the Russians during World War I. (Lees interestingly suggests that Hitler's attack on Russia was not necessarily as insane that we see it to be in retrospect; Germany had been spectacularly successful in its war against Russia during World War I and Stalin had decimated the German military with his purges.) Atheists and the contemporary mind tend to forget that the Nazis made extravagant claim for their regime on the basis of science. In Mein Kampf, Hitler actually outlined his "bleak and violent vision" and disclosed that this plan included eliminating Jews from Germany and fighting a war against Russia. Why didn't the German people listen to Hitler himself? Rees observes that the German people did not as a whole, or generally, as a majority, support either of these ends, even at the start of World War II. Rees points out that Hitler expressed his goals in sufficiently vague terms such that it permitted the German people to fill the broad goals with their own understanding of those goals, which often made Hitler's goals in their minds into metaphors rather than "action projects." The German people may not have knowingly signed on to either of Hitler's monstrous projects. An American might compare the German people's predicament with their having voted for "hope and change" and discovering that they had actually voted for the government to take over American health care. Rees does a wonderful job of explaining the personalities and machinations that led to the Nazis being handed power. I found it interesting to read about how General Ludwig Beck runs the gamut from initially supporting Hitler, and thereby giving Hitler a green light in his seizure of power, to being caused to resign, to, finally, committing suicide after his participation in the failed attempt in 1943 to assassinate Hitler. Hitler's personality and "weirdness" made his successes possible, but, as Rees points out, his personality and weirdness also made his defeat a reality. Rees does a terrific job of describing the end of the war, the loss of faith in Hitler's charisma and the end of his monstrous and barbaric regime. This book is very readable and very interesting. It provided some real insights into Hitler's personality and rise to power and sketches a general answer to the mystery of why Germany gave him the power to perform his evil deeds. Beyond that, Rees's book provides some fruitful material for reflecting on modern times and the pitfalls that modern democracies might have with modern charismatic leaders.  Comment | Permalink

Amazon Review.

As always, helpful votes are appreciated.

				Rule 34 (Halting State) Offered by Penguin Publishing Price: $7.99		2 used & new from $7.99
5 Minutes - and, perhaps, a bit more - into the future., April 13, 2013 Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?) This review is from: Rule 34 (Halting State) (Kindle Edition) This is a police procedural novel set in Edinburgh, capital of the independent nation of Scotland, some time in the very near future - "near future" as in about 10 years from today, i.e., 2013. This is a future of "3-D" copy machines, near artificial intelligence, and globalization and surveillance gone wild. The story follows Borders and Lothian Detective Inspector Liz Cavanaugh as she is sucked into a highly improbable murder of a person loosely connected to local organized crime. Liz's usual beat is "Rule 34" violations, which are an internet geek in-joke that have become highly possible and hugely disruptive. "Rule 34" is the internet canard that there is nothing so improbably, unlikely or disgusting that someone hasn't turned it into internet porn. The problem in this near-future is that wild ideas in a society of "replicators" and social fracture and globalization can be imitated by many people very quickly and create all kinds of new dysfunctions. Because of her Rule 34 beat, Liz learns that other internet scam artists are being liquidated in other parts of Europe. This lead to the introduction of a disgraced Interpol cop - who had a hand in Liz's disgrace a few years before this story - and the two start investigating as other wildly improbable deaths of various internet criminals start showing up. The deaths are all incredibly complex and improbable, and seem to disclose a superhuman ability to plan and/or alter probabilities to bring together circumstances that lead to fatal accidents. They also seem to involve people who are somehow involved in phishing and spamming. In the near future, spamming is the essential industry for criminal enterprise because they need to advertise somehow, and in order to advertise they have interest people with their advertisements, which means getting past the future's highly-developed spam filters, which means developing something that approximates artificial intelligence. Stross also populates his story with other viewpoint characters. There is Anwar Hussein, a con recently released from prison for his spamming frauds, who has been talked into becoming the honorary consul for the Independent Republic of Issyk-Kulistan. (It is a tribute to Stross's braiding of his story into our world that there really is an Issyk-Kulistan.) There is also the Toymaker, a sociopath who represents the criminal Organization that supplies things that people want and needs the spammers to make people aware of what they want but can't get. There is also Colonel Datka and his boss Bhaskar, president of Khyrgistan, another real country, who seems to have something of a long game being played out. Over the course of the story these threads develop, weave around each other and finally come together for a satisfying ending. There were a few problematic elements. First, Stross seems to go out of his way to populate his book with casual, kinky sex. Anwar is unfaithful to his wife with men. One of the fulcrum character who links Anwar to other threads is the "Gnome," who is one of Anwar's homosexual assignations. Liz is a lesbian. One of the fulcrum characters who brings together various threads is Dorthy, one of Liz's lesbian lovers. Dorothy hooks up with the Toymaker for a night of casual sex, involving sado-masochism and "safe words," After he gets what he wants, he casually tosses her out of his apartment, making her feel devalued and used, which gets her to consider whether she was really "raped." The first murder seems to involve some kind of masochistic self-bondage. Stross is either pitching this book for the libertine left, or, perhaps, he is making a point about the continuing deterioration of conventional morality in the near future, or he really thinks all this is normal. I don't think this is a particular issue, because it does seem to project the near-future quality that Stross is aiming at, but for anyone with particular moral issues that this kind of thing might offend, forewarned is fore-armed. For my part, I found the characters' politically correct post-prandial recriminations tiresome. Another problematic aspect of the book was its use of a second person perspective at the beginning of various chapters. That was confusing and disrupted the flow of the story. It seems that there is a reason for that perspective, which is alluded to by the end of the book. however, that leads to the third problematic feature of the book, namely, the crime was never solved. Things to wrap up, and the Lothian and Borders Police Force think they have gotten their man, but the truth seems to be that there is something else floating around the global electronic ecosystem. But that may be an issue for a future book. The story works as both a police procedural and a view of things we may live to see. The story was interesting and gripping, and, as with all of Stross's books to date, I feel it fully justified my investment of time and money.  Comment | Permalink

New Amazon Review - 

Helpful votes appreciated - 

				Wolfhound Century Offered by Hachette Book Group Price: $11.04
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful  A classic of the roman a clef, alternate-history, urban-fantasy 1940s Russia genre, April 12, 2013 Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?) This review is from: Wolfhound Century (Kindle Edition) Vissarion Lom is a police officer working for the state in strange version of an alternate 1940s-era Russia. Lom lives in Lezarye, which around thirty to forty years before, experienced some kind of take-over by the Vlast - a Russian word meaning "authority." The Vlast is presently governed by the Novozhd, an avuncular man, with a bushy mustache. The Vlast are at war with the Archipelago, which seems like a titanic struggle, involving massed attacks with planes and tanks. The Vlast maintain domestic control through informers, meticulous records of its citizens, and the willingness to liquidate troublesome members of society. Clearly a part of the fun is decoding the roman a clef of the story. Lezarye is Russia; the Novozhd is Stalin; the Vlast is the Communist Party. The capital of the Vlast is Mirgorod and seems to be St. Petersburg based on the story about how the "Founder" - Peter the Great, perhaps - founded it on the muddy marshes of the Mir. Likewise, the character Joseph Kantor may very well be a Lenin who didn't realize his destiny, although, if so, he shouldn't be a contemporary of the Novozhd, so, perhaps, he's Trotsky. That's the familiar part, albeit any fantasy story based on Slavic roots is going to be alien, but then the world turns 90 degrees into fantasy. It seems that angels have been falling on Lezarye for the last 300 years. These angels seem to be gigantic beings who arrive dead. The angels don't seem to fall outside of Lezarye. Besides being awesome signs of something outside this earth, the flesh of the angels seem to have remarkable effects, the skin can be used to craft mudjhiks - from the Russian for "peasant" - golem death machines. There also seems to be a natural magic whereby some people can control the elements and the elements - wind and rain - have a personality. There are literal giants, suggesting - maybe - that the Nephilim didn't die out in this alternate history. In addition, there is a strange kind of alternative-history, science fiction substory, as Vishnik, and some others, start to notice that the alternate history of a world without angels seems to be breaking through into their world. Lom is reassigned from a dreary backwater far to the east of Lezarye, past the impenetrable forests, to Mirgorod in order to find a terrorist. The terrorist is Joseph Kantor, whose father led a rebellion and was executed. Kantor was sent to the gulag, escaped and made his way to Mirgorod. In Mirgorod, Kantor set up a terror cell and is apparently working for a living angel, trapped on earth, in the impenetrable forest, and the angel wants to escape. The angel sets Kantor the task of destroying the Pollandore, a seed of a possible future where there were no angels, crafted by the old gods before they fled in the face of the angels. So, Lom is looking for Kantor and Kantor is looking for the Pollandore. Lom's pursuit of Kantor is assisted by the deus ex author of coincidence as Lom reunites with his old friend Vishnik. Vishnik knows Maroussia Shoumian, who knows Kantor, because he is - or is supposed to be - her father. As Lom closes in on Kantor, all hell breaks loose in the Vlast. There are plots within plots as the angel's conspirators pull the trigger on their own power play. Lom and Maroussia go on the lam with the plan of activating the Pollandore. They get the help of a giant. There is giant versus golem action. Lom begins to remember that he shouldn't be as loyal to the Vlast as he has been... ..and then the story ends. This seems to be the first part of a multi-part story. Fore-warned is fore-armed. If you are looking for a self-contained story, this is not it. I was surprised by the fact that this is only the first part of complete story. I think the book should have been clearly advertised as part of one of a larger book. In addition, it seems obvious from this review that the back-story is complicated because there is so much going on with the alternate history tropes and the fantasy tropes. On contrast to the complex, crowded backstory, the main story of Lom looking for Kantor is comparatively simple, until the political coup happens and then the unanswered question is, "what's going on?" Obviously the answers will come in the next installment or installments. For all the complexity, I liked the story. I liked the use of Russia as the departure point for this alt-hist/fantasy. I liked the use of Russian words and terms, which caused me to break out the dictionary. I found the author's writing to be clear, direct and engaging, and his use of short chapters as keeping the story moving along. I became involved in Lom's story and I want to know where it goes from the end of the story. I want to know about the angels and the giants and the Pollandore and the rest of the complicated back-story. So, since it kept my attention and made me want to follow the characters, I think that the book is worth my investment of time, and I'm giving it four stars.  Comment | Permalink

Hey, Catholics! If you think that they are deliberately distorting history and making things up to defame you...

..they are!

In this case, "they" are the liberal scholars who publish books like "Hitler's Pope" and "The Popes against the Jews."

Long-time editor/publisher/liberal Catholic Justus George Lawler writes:

//The final irony of this larger scenario is that these lockstepping liberals are doing the very things they have accused the Vatican and assorted hierarchs of doing: protecting their own prerogatives and interests rather than those of the larger community; taking care of their own concerns often to the disadvantage of the interests of others; reinterpreting their own well-established rules to favor their shifting views; covering over obvious abuses of long-sanctioned regulations in order to justify their own practices or prejudices. Nor should the latter be read as referring only to incriminating sexual matters among various national episcopates. It must also be read as referring to other kinds of Catholic groups and less blatant offenses, such as - to take an example out of the air - doctoring public statements on the seemingly noble grounds of exposing bad people. It is remarkable how many abuses, whether of word or deed, can be justified by invoking the greater good. As other better-known defenders of Christian and American "values" - appearing in TV newscasts, not in Catholic journals - invariably and repeatedly say, "just looking out for the folks." But even these biased commentators would draw the line at tinkering with papal encyclicals, much less with rewriting them.//

Go to the link and give my review ofLawler's "Were the Popes against the Jews?" a "helpful" vote.

Thanks

New Review -

Helpful votes at the link are appreciated.

			Pius XII and the Holocaust: Understanding the Controversy by José M. Sánchez Edition: Paperback Price: $15.56		58 used & new from $4.70
An objective and scholarly examination of the evidence on the "silence of Pius.", March 4, 2013 Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?) This review is from: Pius XII and the Holocaust: Understanding the Controversy (Paperback) This book is a comprehensive, objective survey and assessment of the arguments pro and con on the putative silence of Pius XII on the Holocaust. The author, Jose M. Sanchez, is a professor of history at Saint Louis University. His purpose was to survey the arguments found in the major scholarly and popular works to judge the strengths of various arguments for or against Pius' behavior during the war. Sanchez approaches this work as a professional historian, albeit he admits up front that he is a practicing Catholic. Nonetheless, his work does not come across as an "apologetic" to defend Pius; in fact, it seemed to me that Sanchez bent over backwards to find merit in the criticism of Pius. The first issue that Sanchez approaches is what is meant by the "silence" of Pius. Sanchez notes that critics of Pius often use the term "silence" in an vague way as if to include the entire period of Nazi rule from 1933 through 1945, which is inane, since, as Sanchez points out, the Holocaust didn't start until 1941: //The words "the silence of Pope Pius" have acquired a life of their own, meaning things to different critics, sometimes having no connection to Pius at all. The controversy has become a free for all for anti-Catholics and Catholic defenders, anti-clericals and clericals, libertarians and authoritiarians, allowing all to vent their feelings and frustration regardless of the facts.// [p.3] One of the things that Sanchez is good at, which is often forgotten by critics and defenders, is that history unfolds in pieces. The Nazis of 1933 were not the Nazis of 1942. Likewise, even in 1942, even with knowledge of Nazi atrocities, as Sanchez points out, opponents of the Nazis still didn't necessarily conclude that the Nazis were aiming at total racial annihilation. We know it now. We can't get that central fact out of our minds. But the people then didn't. And that fact separates us from them. Sanchez does an excellent job of summarizing Pius's biography and character. His thesis is that while the attempts to impugn Pius' motives are not substantiated by the evidence, nonetheless Pius' character - rigid, humorless, cold, diplomatic - is the reason that subsequent generations have turned on Pius after Pius' death and the publication of Hochuth's "The Deputy," particularly when compared to his charismatic successor, John XXIII. This seemed to me to be the place where Sanchez was stretching to show his fairness and objectivity. Most people alive today don't remember Pius at all. John XXIII was followed by Paul VI, who was no charismatic whirlwind. The change in the perception of popes as "rock stars" was really John Paul II. Frankly, I think Sanchez misses the obvious point that critiques have some other agenda than issue of Pius in World War II. Rabbi David Dalin in The Myth of Hitler's Pope: Pope Pius XII And His Secret War Against Nazi Germany points out that much of the anti-Pius criticism is an intra-Catholic dispute that involves liberal Catholics who want to knock down, basically John Paul II, who denied their cultural dreams. On the other hand, Sanchez does acknowledge that for many, Pius does give a single human face for anti-Catholics to demonize, which is not far off from Rabbi Dalin. Sanchez also does a nice job of laying out what Pius did say about the Jewish Holocaust during the war. Pius directly - or his proxies - said quite a lot. Pius condemned the Nazis for their racism and the murder of defenseless people on the grounds of nationality and race. The Vatican radio and newspaper condemned the Nazi atrocities against Jews. Pius protested against Nazi atrocities to the Nazis. When I got done with that section, it seemed to me that the issue boiled down to, why didn't Pius himself personally specifically denounce Nazi atrocities against Jews and only Jews between the beginning of 1942 - when information about Nazi atrocities was probably beginning to filter through to him - and September of 1943 - when the Nazis occupied Rome? When you put it that way, it seems like the issue is no longer about Pius' motivations, but rather about how Pius' critics can thread their way through the facts in order to find something - anything - that Pius didn't do in order to gin up their case. On which point, Sanchez is good - almost the first historian I've read to say explicitly - in pointing out that our current perspective on the Holocaust was not necessarily what the people of the time were experiencing. Today, we have the luxury of focusing on the Jewish Holocaust, but in doing that we lose sight of all of the other victims of the Nazis. What Pius was dealing with was an undifferentiated human disaster, where not only Jews were being killed but Poles were being killed in equal numbers. Pius didn't explicitly address the Polish Holocaust either, which implies that there was something other than indifference or anti-Semitism at work. Further, Sanchez points out that Pius was not only dealing with the Nazis during this period; the Communists had been actively engaging in the murder of Catholics in Spain up until 1939. Sanchez then deals seriatim with the reasons proposed for Pius's putative silence. He quickly knocks off the ones that he doesn't find persuasive at all. For example, he gives no credence to the claim that Pius was an anti-semite. As he notes: //This is the unstated under-current in the arguments of many of Pius' strongest critics. Few say it outright, because they regard it as a fact - taken for granted - given the history of the papacy and the hothouse of ecclesiastical politics and training n the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, where Jews were viewed not only as "Christ-killers" but more importantly as purveyors of cultural modernism at a variance with traditional Christianity. It is also the simplest explanation for the critics of the Pope.// [p. 71] A problem for the theory is that it is essentially unsubstantiated or based on a distortion of the record. Cornwell's putative quotes about Pius' supposed anti-Semitic statements from his time in Communist occupied Munich is dismissed by Historian Istvan Deak, who is not sympathetic to Pius, but finds the comments "[not] convincing ...proof of Pacelli's anti-Semitism."[ p. 73.] (Sanchez also points out that Ronald Rychlak in Hitler, the War and the Pope demolishes Cornwell's interpretation and reveals Cornwell's inadequacy as an historian. [p. 5, n. 9]) Sanchez finds the anti-Semitic charge unsubstantiated on the grounds that Pius treated Jews and Catholic Poles alike. [p. 74.] Separating the Jewish wheat from the Catholic chaff would seem to be an insurmountable problem for the critics. Sanchez also believes that the claim that Pius was motivated by fear concerning the security of the Vatican or fear of capture or concern for Rome is unlikely. For much of the war, Italy was a German ally and the Mussolini showed no interest in alienating Italian Catholics. [p. 74 - 77.] Sanchez also does not credit that idea that Pius acted the way he did because "Vatican diplomacy was always cautious." Sanchez points out that Vatican diplomacy can be bold - as when dealing with Communism after 1945 or with Mussolini before 1945 [p. 94], but Vatican diplomacy is mostly "prudent." However, Pius could show that he was not always prudent, such as when he acted as the intermediary between anti-Nazi Germans and the British. [p. 94] Sanchez give more credence to other reasons, including Pius' stated reason that he wanted to remain neutral in order to mediate an end to the war. Although this seemed unlikely under Hitler, and particularly after the unconditional surrender policy was adopted by the Allies, there was always the chance of an overthrow of Hitler, which could change the game. [p. 110 - 112] Sanchez scores a solid point on this subject: //The German conspirators of the July 20, 1944 plot, believed that a compromise was possible with the Allies; they would assassinate Hitler and set up a government of national restoration and give up Germany's gains. The Allies they contacted told them to go ahead, but said they could make no prior commitments. If the German conspirators accepted this proviso and went ahead with their plans, it is difficult to fault the Pope for making the same assumption - namely that a compromise was not out of the question.// [p. 110 - 111] Sanchez also knocks down the canard that if Pius had only condemned the Nazis or Hitler, then German Catholics would have risen to stop Hitler and the war. Sanchez, again, makes a point that few - actually, none of the historians who I have read - have ever made, namely the effect of the Kulturkampf on the German Catholic psyche: //Let it be said at the outset that the German bishops, always with some exceptions, were scarred by Bismarck's Kulturkampf of the 1870s; they were particularly sensitive to the charge that they were not good Germans because they owed their allegiance to the Pope rather than to the German state. They felt this charge deeply, and as a result were inclined to give unqualified support to the nation, particularly in World War I.// [p. 81] Sanchez points out that Pius had grounds to fear that if given a choice between their faith and their nation, German Catholics would choose their nation. In fact, Pius' nuncio to Germany, Cesare Orsenigo (who for the first time I learn was disliked by Pius for being weak with the Nazis), was telling Pius that he feared mass apostasy "unless the clergy appeased the regime and relieved members of the church of the conflict of conscience to which they were not equal." [ p. 101] Sanchez makes a point that I have only slowly formed from reading in this area, namely: //The Nazi regime commanded an immensely powerful state. Most Germans, whatever their religion, if put to the test would choose their state over their church because it was the more immediately powerful of the two. It is a fact of modern life, historian perceptively notes, that, as in nations everywhere, "a German Catholic thought of himself as a German who happened to be Catholic, not the reverse." For the Pope to have asked German Catholics to oppose the brutal Nazi regime would have been for him to ask for heroic resistance on the part of the people; and while there are instances of Christians who resisted the regime, they paid for it with their lives. The mass of people were not capable of such heroic actions.// [p. 101] Sanchez also knocks down the canard that Pius feared Communism and therefore was pro-Hitler. The evidence that this is false is too strong to put much time on it, including Pius acting as the conduit for anti-Nazi Germans to the British. Even John Cornwell's execrable "Hitler's Pope" doesn't accept this theory. For his part, Sanchez notes that while Pius might have felt that Germany could be a bulwark against Communism, Hitler - who had ceded half of Poland to the Communists in a cynical violation of its treaty with Poland - was not a bulwark against Communism. [p. 105] Further, Pius also refused to condemn Nazi atrocities because then he would have been obliged to condemn Communist atrocities. Finally, Pius also permitted American Catholics to provide aid to the "Russian people" even if it was aiding the Communist party. (p. 106.) Sanchez ultimately concludes that the best explanation for Pius not giving an unqualified or clear condemnation of the Nazi holocaust was a combination of his communication style, which tended to couch things in diplomatic language, and his feat that a sterner condemnation would make things worse for the victims of Nazi aggression. Pius himself explained on numerous occasions that he was concerned that a condemnation would have brought down an even worse persecution on the Jews, and others, than they were already experiencing. [p. 116] Likewise, contemporary and subsequent witnesses corroborated this concern. [p. 117] This concern was clearly based in fact since Dutch Archbishop Johannes de Jong's public protest against the deportation of Dutch Jews resulted in greater persecution by the Germans, including the deportation of Jews who had converted to Catholicism. [p. 117] Defenders and detractors agree that fear of retribution was a factor in Pius' approach but they dispute its significance. [p. 118] Many of the detractors play "Monday Morning Quarterback" arguing that things could not have gotten worse for the Jews, but they ignore the fact that Pius was not privy to the Nazi's plans of total extermination: //The difficulty with this question is that it assumes that Pius knew that Germans were going to kill all the Jews. It is here that the problem of the time sequence is crucial for understanding the Pope's actions. It was, of course, common knowledge that the Jews were being persecuted, herded into ghettoes, and transported to eastern Europe. By late 1941, the Pope knew that large numbers of Jews were being killed by the Germans. Did he know that the Germans intended to kill all the Jews? If so, when did this fact become apparent to him? Another facet of the problem is that by mid-1943 when Pius certainly knew about the ferocity of the German terror against the Jews, he was also aware of the German terror against all people. Did Pius distinguish among the victims of the Nazi terror? The Germans did not kill all the Poles, or Greeks, or French, or other subject people. But they might be tempted to kill more if provoked by the Pope, and it appears that Pius so believed. Furthermore, there were thousands of priests - both Germans and Polish - in German concentration camps who might have been the victim of Nazi reprisals for a papal protest; and everywhere there were Jews who had converted to Catholicism who had, in may cases, so far been spared, and who might also have suffered.// [p. 119] Another Pope might have made a different decision. Was Pius' decision right or wrong? On the whole, it seems right, but at the very least it was not a dishonorable decision. Sanchez' s writing style is easily accessible. I tore through this rather short - approximately 177 pages - book in short order. Sanchez goes for the key issues and he brings a broad viewpoint to the issue, which is a nice change of the typically narrow-focus and buried assumptions in most such books. On the whole, I thought his treatment was fair, and I came away with the conclusion - his conclusion, actually - that the critics are extremists, who want a Pope with powers that even the most pious Catholic doesn't expect from popes. Sanchez concludes: //It is easy to criticize both defenders and critics, to take a middle position and argue that both are extremists. In fact, most of the Pope's critics tend to extremism, while the defenders tend toward moderation. This is because the critics have taken the position that the Holocaust would have been much diminished, or even averted by strong papal action, while defenders of the Pope argue more convincingly that a strong papal protest would have had little effect on the Nazi machine of destruction.// [p. 178] And: //What seems apparent is that throughout the years of controversy, the critics of Pius (and his defenders, less so) have tended to make their judgments less on the basis of an impartial reading of the documents than on their preconceived sentiments. This situation probably will not change. Pius remains an alluring target for those opposed to clericalism or the papacy or the Church or the clergy, or simply to authoritarian systems.// [p. 179] This is a very good resource on the subject. I recommend it highly.  Comment | Permalink

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				Anti-Catholicism in America: The Last Acceptable Prejudice by Mark Stephen Massa Edition: Paperback Price: $17.76		43 used & new from $4.99
Anti-Catholic Prejudice - Ancient and New, February 24, 2013 Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?) This review is from: Anti-Catholicism in America: The Last Acceptable Prejudice (Paperback) Mark S. Massa's "Anti-Catholicism in America: The Last Acceptable Prejudice" provides a broad survey and insightful analysis of a deep and virulent strain of bigotry in America that was imported from Europe, was present at America's founding and popped up throughout American history,, and has managed to make into the internet era. Anyone who believes that anti-Catholicism is a historical relic need only visit any number of websites occupied by atheists or what one would hope are fringe Protestants. What one finds there is a fairly continuous theme of ululating hatred for Catholicism and the Catholic Church. Father Massa - writing in 2003 - notes the breadth and depth of anti-Catholic hatred in the waning years of the 20th Century and beginning of the 21st, from anti-Catholic plays to anti-Catholic editorials in mainstream papers to the casual implication that Catholic Supreme Court nominees are suspect as having a potentially unhealthy "allegiance" to the Pope to over-the-top accusations by Planned Parenthood that the Catholic Church is at "war with women" (p. 42 - 45), and concludes that somehow Catholicism doesn't "fit in" to American society. Massa writes: "The very randomness of these examples of what have termed Catholic-bashing - spanning the cultural spectrum from up-scale magazines of cultural comment and mass-market newspapers on the east coast to street theater in the Bay Area on the west coast - form a disturbing web of evidence. Some Catholic observers have argued that it is as though Catholic iconography, leadership, and sensibilities are somehow perceived by large sections of U.S. culture as fair game for attack, in ways that the beliefs and practices of other groups are not. Other Catholic commentators argue that this prejudice has been created by the problematic positions of the church itself on a number of social, sexual and political issues. But what both groups would agree on is that Catholicism somehow doesn't fit into North American cultural values and presuppositions. But why?" (p. 45.) Father Massa provides a fascinating account of the history of American anti-Catholicism. I knew about the Know - Nothings and Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s, but I had never heard of the Order of the Star Spangled Banner, which in 1854 was a potent political power, or the American Protective Association, which in the 1890s organized boycotts of Catholic businesses, organized anti-Catholic riots and claimed a half-million supporters. (p. 30.) Likewise, the revived Klan in the 1920s had created a three-million member strong invisible empire through slick sales techniques and had as one of its principle aims the extermination of Catholicism. Father Massa's book came out too soon to include the San Francisco Board of Supervisors' Resolution that characterized the Catholic Church as both a foreign power and inimical to the values of San Francisco in refusing to accede to a legal demand to place adopted children in the households of homosexual couples. This example fits wonderfully into the historical survey whereby Catholicism is distrusted as a foreign power and suspected for its communitarian values. After the initial history, Massa looks at various thematic issues in recent history, including Jack Chick's anti-Catholic comic book empire, which reaches more people than any church or theologian; and Jimmy Swaggert, who until his own implosion was the most popular Evangelical preacher of his age and virulently and explicitly anti-Catholic; and Norman Vincent Peale's effort to gin up anti-Catholic hatred in order to derail John F. Kennedy's presidential campaign; and an extensive academic program that assumed deficiencies in Catholic educational culture were caused by Catholicism without bothering to check out other possible explanations; and Paul Blanshard, whose 1949 book was endorsed by John Dewey and influentially made the argument that Catholics could never be good Americans. These vignettes are well-told. Father Massa is an excellent writer with a gift for understatement and light humor. The factual stories he recounts are fascinating and read like mini-biographies of small players in history, such as, the enigmatic Jack Chick, John Courtney Murray, Paul Blanshard, Normal Vincent Peale, or Jimmy Swaggert, the musical preacher who started his career by touting his relationship to his cousins Jerry Lee Lewis and Mickey Gilley. What ties the history and thematic elements together is the theory that Father Massa offers based on the views of a theologian named David Tracy. Tracy's theory is that even prior to doctrine and creed, a believer is raised up in a fundamental way of conceiving reality. For the Catholic that way of conceiving religion is "analogical." God is not a distant "other" who views the world as hateful sinners. Rather, for the Catholic, the world bears an analogical relationship with God. God is part of the world and particularly present in the sacraments. This worldview translates into sociology, with Catholicism tending to be more communal, defining individuals within society. An alternative worldview is "dialectical." Under this approach, God is a distant other who views the world as hateful and deserving of condemnation. Only those few individuals who individually form a personal relationship with Christ can hope to find salvation. This dialectical approach has sociological implications in loosening the sense of community and elevating the role of the individual in isolation as the basic constituent of society. [Incidentally, although he does not use the same terminology, Michael Allen Gillespie in The Theological Origins of Modernity covers much of the same territory.] Protestantism is dialectical. America is a Protestant country, both in its origin and presently. Consequently, the cultural norms are dialectical, which means that there is a fundamental disconnect with people whose culturally "knitting" is analogical. Father Massa ably points out the "dialectical imagination" in the context of Jimmy Swaggert and Jack Chick. Both seem to demonstrate a cultural context where religion is spirituality reduced literally to "me and Jesus," without any community, except to the limited extent that a preacher may preach the Word on television or the reader may find a 24 block comic book. Father Massa is also very good on the minor abuse scandal that has been the recurrent subject of constant media coverage. Father Massa analyzes this issue as an example of a dysfunctional kind of analogical thinking. The scandal is an example of "mysterium iniquitatis" - the mystery of evil. The pedophiles were filthy and vile, but the bishops who re-assigned them were often very decent men and, often, on the "right side" of social issues, such as immigration and other issues. So, the mystery of evil is, "what could they have been thinking?" Father Massa cuts the bishops no slack - the bishops can be forgiven, but they cannot be excused. (p. 189.) But understanding is the first step to a reformation. Massa believes that what may have misfired was a misapplication of the analogical way of thinking whereby the Church, which to Catholics is the Body of Christ, was confused literally with the Body of Christ in the here and now. An answer, therefore, may be to become more dialectical and to realize that loyalty to the Church is not loyalty to Christ or the Gospel. Father Massa concludes with an examination of whether modern anti-Catholicism is entirely new or a revival of the old anti-Catholicism. His conclusion is "yes and no." Anti-Catholicism is hardly the last prejudice. But anti-Catholicism does exist in modern America, and modern anti-Catholicism retains its Reformed Protestant roots with a dialectical critique of Catholicism. What is new is the coopting of these dialectical tropes by secular and anti-religious critics of Catholicism, which brings us back to the internet atheists I began this review with. Massa concludes with this sad, hopeful and realistic appraisal: "Catholic citizens of the United States were and are, outsiders, "others" in a culture shaped and still powerfully influenced by Protestant language and presuppositions. This is neither a bad thing in itself, nor a retreat to victimization language. Religious outsiders have a revered place in North American religion, beginning with the New England Puritans themselves, then with their outsider saints like Roger Williams and Anne Hutchinson, right down to Ralph Waldo Emerson. It is disingenuous for Catholics to feign surprise, anger, or grief to learn that they are not in the mainstream of their culture, or that they are perceived as such by a number of their fellow citizens who shape cultural tastes. Such has always been the (blessed) lot of the saints in every age. As St. Paul was at pains t remind them, "We have here no lasting city, but seek the one that is above." This in no way lessens the urgency of Jesus' command to be both wise and blameless in our age; but perhaps it offers some peace to those who are aware that Catholicism doesn't completely fit into the lively experiment that is the United States, and probably never will. That's the good news." (p. 198.) With the issues defined that way, we may hope he is right. We don't seem to have much choice in the matter.

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			Papal Primacy (Theology) by Klaus Schatz Edition: Paperback Price: $24.95		32 used & new from $17.13
A penetrating introduction and survey of the history of papal primacy., February 3, 2013 Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?) This review is from: Papal Primacy (Theology) (Paperback) Klaus Schatz's "Papal Primacy: From its Origins to the Present" focuses on and integrates the history of the specific issue of the claim of the bishop of Rome to primacy within the Christian church. Schatz' work is truly "catholic" in its chronology, starting with the texts of the Gospels and then working its way through the early church, the imperial church, the medieval church to Vatican I and Vatican II. For people like myself who have read the history of the papal claims "episodically," i.e., in the context of individual historical periods or papal reigns, the virtue of this book is in connecting the dots or showing the picture that the puzzle pieces are forming. For example, Schatz confirms that one of the historical facts that tended to support the Roman church's claim to having some kind of charisma in relation to the teaching of orthodoxy was that time after time the Roman church simply ended up on the "right" side of theological disputes. On Arianism, Monothelitism, Monophysitism, the dating of Easter and other issues, the side that the Roman church ultimately prevailed. Schatz observes: "Nonetheless, there is no avoiding the question: How is it that in fact Rome always took the right side from the very beginning, even though it by no means had the better theologians or the better theology? The better theologians were in the Greek-speaking East or, as far as the Latin regions are concerned in North Africa from the third century onward." And, yet, Rome's history of common sense seemed to speak to something about the Roman claim to some kind of pre-eminence as the city where Peter and Paul had died. Schatz's obvious thesis is that the idea of Roman, then papal, primacy developed over time, often, perhaps typically, in response to historical developments outside the church, such as the development of nation states. And, yet, notwithstanding this development, which added new elements to Roman claims, there was also a continuity in the Roman claims that became more and more accepted as the Roman claims expanded. (p. 16.) Schatz' claims that the question of whether the "primitive church was aware, after Peter's death, that his authority had passed to the next bishop of Rome" "must be answered in the negative" (p. 2.) and that if "one had asked a Christian in the year 100, 200 or even 300 whether the Bishop of Rome was the head of all Christians...he or she would certainly have said no." (p.3.) But, nonetheless, there is the Letter of Clement (ca. 95 AD) attesting to the Roman church's sense that it had some responsibility for other churches, albeit this sense of responsibility was shared by other churches, such as Corinth, who wrote a similar letter to the churches in Greece. (p.5.) Also, from the earliest times, the Roman church was consistently praised for its obedience to the faith. (p. 10.) By the mid-second century, the Bishops of Rome were assuming a leadership role in the Quartodecimanian controversy by appealing to the Roman tradition for dating Easter as normative over that of other traditions. (p. 12.) Schatz offers a nice bit of detail by pointing out the role that Rome paid as a kind of "communications hub" for passing letters of recommendations - or "communion letters" - vouching for the Christian membership of travelers from the East to the West. (p. 17.) During this time, the apostolic origin of Rome caused it to be ranked with the other great sees of Alexandria and Antioch. (p. 18.) (Jerusalem and Constantinople would come later.) Communion of the bishops was important, according to Schatz, and Rome was held in high esteem, but Schatz does not believe that Rome was by this time considered to be the sine qua none of Christian communion.(p. 21.) In the third century, Rome's prestige had become more institutionalized: by 385, Pope Siricius was answering questions from Spain, Rome was seen as outranking the other apostolic churches as a matter of divine prerogative and it was being substantially acknowledged that no council was valid without the assent of the bishop of Rome. (p. 29 - 30.) Roman claims to primacy were resisted and embraced, often depending on whether the Roman position favored the position taken in the disputes of other churches. Thus, where Rome's position supported a theological position, that side would tend to talk about Rome's position as guarantor of orthodoxy and as the heir to Peter. As the turbulent fourth and fifth centuries wore on "it repeatedly appeared that the East could not achieve peace on its own and depended on Rome and the communion of the West in order to obtain it." (p. 48.) Thus, Rome would be appealed to in turbulent times with language recognizing Rome as the successor of Peter, and when the crisis passed, the East would walk back its previous laudatory comments. (p. 47.) (During this period, according to Schatz, the idea of infallibility was not necessarily the infallibility of the bishop of Rome but that of the Roman church. (p. 50.))This phenomenon appears to explain why supporters and detractors of the claim of Roman infallibility can mine the non-Roman sources and find continuous threads supporting their respective positions. (p. 61.) A similar schizophrenia informed imperial dealings with Rome. Justinian, for example, treated the Bishop of Rome as the head of the Christian church. Other emperors acknowledged that the Bishop of Rome was not subject to trial. (Interestingly, Pope Gelasius in 494 was adumbrating a "two powers" theory of the relationship between the church and the state. (p. 47.) Schatz also provides a fascinating analysis of the medieval development of papal claims. Schatz offers the interesting insight that one of the factors that contributed to the growth of the viewpoint of Rome as the center of the Christian world - apart from possessing the graves of Peter and Paul and a first rate bureaucracy - was the formation of European-wide religious orders, such as the Dominicans and Franciscans, who worked outside of the Diocesan system under a special patronage of the pope. These institutions seemed to point to the papacy as exercising direct control over the life of Europeans at "ground level" in a way which was not possible previously. (p. 83.) Schatz also gives short shrift, and provides a thorough examination, of the famous False Decretals of Isideor, forged around 850 AD, which are usually offered as the basis for papal claims in the Middle Ages. Schatz points out that the decretals were forged in an effort by Carolingian suffrage bishops to weaken the claims of their nominal superiors, the Metropolitan bishops, by strengthening the claims of the Metropolitans superior, the Bishop of Rome. (p. 70.) This phenomenon of "preferring the pope at a distance" seems to be a recurrent fact of European ecclesiastical history. (Cf. p. 142 (Austrian prince-bishops support papal authority over the claims of their metropolitan bishops in pre-Revolutionary Hungary.) Further, the False Decretals of Isidore didn't actually create new doctrine. Schatz writes: "Thus, the immediate intent of the False Decretals was not the strengthening of Roman authority. Instead, they made use of the acknowledged authority of Rome in order to break the much closer and more dangerous authority of the metropolitans. To that extent they are first of all a testimony to the degree to which the positionof Rome was already acknowledged as a matter of course: For even, or especially, in a forged document one appeals to notions of law that already seem at least plausible in order to support one's own doubtful claims." (p. 70.) Hence, Schatz is not impressed with the claim that papal centralism destroyed collegiality, as Dollinger claims; rather he finds that it was the self-immolation of collegiality that created papal centralism. (p. 72.) Schatz does however find the trend in the middle ages of describing the church as dependent on the pope, and denying the reverse, to be "dangerous." Schatz does a nice job of explaining his concerns, particularly in the context of the Great Schism. On the other hand, it also appears that this was a thread of papal theology that ultimately was not adopted, in that at Vatican I, the basis of papal infallibility was the pope's obligation to consider the teachings of tradition. Schatz's discussion of the conciliar crisis is fascinating and informative. Schatz takes the reader through the back and forth on the claim concerning the relative authority of pope and council, which arose out of the Great Schism and ended with schismatic councils. Schatz has a nice explanation of Haec Sancta, which defines the councils' pre-eminence, and the non-dogmatic nature of an "emergency measure. (p. 112.) I was surprised at how much I did not know about the period after the Reformation until Vatican I. That period saw the evaporation of the gains made by Pope Gregory VII in the Investiture Crisis. The goal of that crisis for Gregory was to have local churches select their bishop, rather than the monarch, who would then be invested by the pope. As the modern nation-states emerged, the monarchs simply assumed the power of appointment. (p. 133.) Moreover, the emergence of the modern state, which simply made the church a branch of the government, as in the case of the French Gallican church, put an end to the debates about conciliarism. (p. 133 - 134.) The turn to the definition of papal infallibility was surprising. I had often heard Vatican I described as a reaction to the loss of papal temporal power in Italy. Although that had some merits - in the sense of a showing of solidarity from below than an atavistic grab from above, according to Schatz - it was apparently the destruction of the Gallican churches of the ancien regime that cleared the way to a full-throated ultra-montanism. Prior to the French Revolution, the French Gallican church was adamant in its position that the pope could not define any matter of faith or morals for the French church which the French church did not assent to. The French Revolution suppressed that Gallican church, and Bonaparte entered into a concordat with Pius VII in order to obtain legitimacy. As part of the concordat, all bishops, whether "Constitutional" or Gallican, were required to resign on orders from the pope. This was a power that the French church never had recognized previously. After the Revolution, parish priests again preferred the "pope at a distance" to their superiors. A similar evolution was occurring in Germany. In Britain and Spain, the leading Catholics were converts for whom the essence of Catholicism was the papacy. Lay Catholics came to demand a definition of papal infallibility throughout the 1830s through 1860s. Vatican I responded to that impulse. Schatz concludes by pointing out that the history of papal primacy shows a continuity and a development. While the period of the early Nineteenth Century focused on the pope, earlier eras had focused on the Church of Rome as being infallible. The definition of Vatican I maintained continuity with this tradition by making the pope's infallibility a special dimension of that infallibility, albeit one found in the special office that exists in the Roman church. All in all, this is a fascinating and eye-opening book. I think Catholics of all impulses should read it. Traditionalist Catholics may find it challenging in that the form of papal primacy and infallibility do not appear as a bedrock institution at all times throughout history. On the other liberal Catholics should also find it challenging because the institutions of papal primacy and Roman infallibility do appear as a constant feature of the Roman church going back to the earliest information we possess. All in all, this book is even-handed and seems to be a scholarly work as opposed to one of apologetics.  Comment | Permalink