Papal sin : structures of deceit / Garry Wills.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Wills, Garry, 1934-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Catholic Church--Controversial literature.

Catholic Church.

Papacy.

Genre:

Controversial literature.

Physical Description:

326 pages : illustrations ; 21 cm

Edition:

First Image Books edition.

Place of Publication:

New York : Image Books/Doubleday, 2001.

Summary:

Papal sin in the past was blatant, as Catholics themselves realized when they painted popes roasting in hell on their own cathedral walls. Surely, the great abuses of the past -- the bastards, bribes, and wars of conquest -- no longer prevail; yet, the sin of the modern papacy, as revealed by Garry Wills in this penetrating book, is every bit as real as before -- and perhaps even more destructive because of its subtlety. Wills describes a papacy that seems steadfastly unwilling to face the truth about itself, its past, and its relations with others. The refusal of the authorities of the Church to admit that they could err or do wrong to others has needlessly exacerbated their original mistakes. Even when the Vatican has tried to tell the truth -- for example, about Catholics and the Holocaust -- it has ended up resorting to distortion, evasion, and blindness. The same is true when the papacy has attempted to deal with its record of discrimination against women, or with its assertion that "natural law" dictates its sexual code.

Though the blithe disregard of some Catholics for papal directives has occasionally been attributed to mere hedonism or willfulness, it actually reflects a failure, after long trying on their part, to find a credible level of honesty in the official positions adopted by modern popes. On many issues outside the realm of revealed doctrine, the papacy has made itself unbelievable even to the well-disposed laity. The resulting distrust is in fact a neglected reason for today's shortage of priests. Entirely aside from the public uproar over celibacy, potential clergy have proven unwilling to put themselves in a position in which they must support dishonest teachings.

Wills traces the rise of the papacy's stubborn resistance to the truth, beginning with the challenges posed in the nineteenth century by science, democracy, scriptural scholarship, and rigorous history. The legacy of that resistance, despite the brief flare of John XXIII's papacy and some good initiatives in the 1960s by the Second Vatican Council (later baffled), is still strong in the Vatican. Finally, Wills reminds the reader of the positive potential of the Church by turning to some great truth tellers of the Catholic tradition -- Saint Augustine, John Henry Newman. John Acton, and John XXIII. In them, Wills shows that the righteous path can still be taken, if only the Vatican will muster the courage to speak even embarrassing truths in the name of Truth itself.

Contents:

Remembering the holocaust

Toward the holocaust

Usurping the holocaust

Claims of victimhood

The tragedy of Paul VI: prelude

The tragedy of Paul VI: encyclical

Excluded women

The Pope's eunuchs

Priestly caste

Shrinking the Body of Christ

Hydraulics of grace

Conspiracy of silence

A gay priesthood

Marian politics

The gift of life

The age of truth

Acton's reckless truth

Newman's cautious truth

Augustine vs. Jerome

Augustine vs. Consentius

The truth that frees.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

0385494114

OCLC:

48067040