Rating: 
Summary: tiresome novel, Martin's is better
Review: A tiresome novel of Vatican intrigue that's way short on the intrigue. All of the "good" characters are attractive, intelligent, liberals who are either agnostics or refer to God as She, and all of the "bad" characters are ugly, stupid traditionalists who are part of a vast right-wing conspiracy to deprive mankind of its sexual freedoms through religious dogmas. Does not compare with Malachi Martin's Windswept House when it comes to Vatican intrigue. But be forewarned. First, Martin's novel goes on for over 600 pages and then ends abruptly without resolving any of intriguing plots he introduces. Second, all of the good characters are noble, intelligent, courageous traditionalists who serve God the Father, and all of the bad characters are back stabbing, conniving, Satan-worshipping liberals who are part of a vast left wing conspiracy to deprive mankind of its family values through religious apostasy and sexual perversion. Pick your poison.
Rating: 
Summary: Blacky to the recue!
Review: Blackie, with some electronic help and the assistance of a Black Roman Princesss, prevents some ultra right wing skulduggery in the election of a new Pope. It is a glorious tale by a uneaqualed Irish story teller. That he is a preist, a sociologist, and part of the "liberal wing" of the american church is obvious and may spoil the tale for some. But everything could happen. May God intervene where Blackie can not. In any case you will increase your understanding of Vatican politics and how they affect you, no matter where and how you worship.
Rating:
Summary: An excellent and enlightening work
Review: Father Greeley presents an interesting and entirely possible scenario. A patently innovative story and great characters (Bishop Blackie is my favorite) make this novel a must read for anyone, especially Catholics
Rating: 
Summary: It Gets Even Better????
Review: I enjoyed most of the book, but would have appreciated it if Mr. Greeley's editor would have reworked the book a little. It really dragged on occasion and his all white or all black characters could have been nuanced for the readers sake. There are so few Catholic writers out there that I will buy and read anything he puts out I'm afraid, but I think there is a new star rising on the Catholic author podium. I recently finished "A Force of Habit" It has suspense, mystery, and characters who breathe. Spend more time on your next book, Mr. Greeley, but DO keep them coming!
Rating: 
Summary: Not bad, but not his best
Review: I enjoyed most of the book, but would have appreciated it if Mr. Greeley's editor would have reworked the book a little. It really dragged on occasion and his all white or all black characters could have been nuanced for the readers sake. There are so few Catholic writers out there that I will buy and read anything he puts out I'm afraid, but I think there is a new star rising on the Catholic author podium. I recently finished "A Force of Habit" It has suspense, mystery, and characters who breathe. Spend more time on your next book, Mr. Greeley, but DO keep them coming!
Rating:
Summary: Made a Protostant want to be Catholic
Review: I read other reviews and I think that many forgot that this is a work of fiction. There are no guide lines Greely has to meet. I believe he loves his faith and more to the point, he loves his GOD. I grew up protostant and through this as well as his other works have come to appreciate the Catholic Faith for its beauty and ageless grace. And as I send this review I am reminded ..Judge not lest ye be Judged.
Rating:
Summary: Aftermath of the Vatican II Council Fictionalised
Review: I write this as an Asian Catholic layperson.
Andrew Greeley uses a mystery genre to express his thoughts on some of the changes - and non-changes in the Catholic Church since end of the great Ecumenical Council, Vatican II. If we allow an author's licence for this genre, I'd say he expresses the view of an American priest pretty well while managing to entertain his readers in this genre.
I like the fact that he commented upon the fact that many of the hopes of the ordinary laity - and large sections of the clergy - for a more participatory Church have still to be realised several decades after the end of the great Ecumenical Council of the sixties; that John Paul II and the over-dominating Curia needs to find a more acceptable middle-ground than it has done since 1968. We find the centralised control from the Vatican very stifling.
Greeley has done a pretty good job - it seems to me - of illustrating and contrasting the conservative elements - typified by the shadowy 'Corpus Christi' - with liberal groups.
In typical light-hearted Greeley style, he brings out the differences between customary practices and true Catholic faith. Dogma with a light touch, I'd call it.
More power to your arm, Fr Greeley
Rating:
Summary: One of Fr.Greeley's best works. I hated for it to end.
Review: If you would like a behind the scenes glimpse of what goes on when picking a Pope, you must read this book.
Rating:
Summary: A flat, predictable reproduction of Fr. Greeley's columns.
Review: In the introduction to this "novel," Father Greeley, a priest of the Archdiocese of Chicago and pop sociologist who teaches at the University of Chicago and the University of Arizona, implores his readers not to mistake any of his characters for real-life people. And for good reason. Several of Fr. Greeley's characters bear striking resemblence to real-life personalities. Cardinal Menendez, Fr. Greeley's "progressive" hero whom holds all the politically correct opinions required of a modern hero, resembles Carlo Maria Cardinal Martini, the real-life Archbishop of Milan, who like his literary incarnation is the hero of the worldwide media. (A fawning piece in the august Economist magazine of London recently appeared, heralding the Milanese cardinal as ushering in a new Catholicism for a new Europe: Politically centralized; morally decentralized!) Fr. Greeley's villains -- and make no mistake about it, they are not merely his opponents but his enemeies -- are equally transparent. An African cardinal, named Valerian, could easily be the traditionalists Bernardin Cardinal Gantin of Benin or Francis Cardinal Arinze, both of who serve in Fr. Greeley's hated Roman Curia (the central offices of the Church) and are frequently mentioned as successors to our real-life Slavic Pope. The traditionalists, uniformly stupid or evil in Fr. Greeley's reckoning, struggle vainly to stop the Menendez juggernaught. But their efforts are easily batted down by Cardinal Cronin of Chicago, presumably Fr. Greeley's stand-in for the (real-life) late Cardinal Bernardin of Chicago. The eminence grise behind the Eminence is a certain Bishop Blackie Ryan who, working hand-in-glove with a husband and wife team from the New York Times and CNN, masterfully, almost effortlessly, thwarts all efforts to deny Cardinal Menendez, a widower from Spain, the papal throne. Bishop Ryan's machinations appear effortless because Fr. Greeley never allows any real or substantial or prolonged threat arise to his hero, a! nd for a reason: Fr. Greeley is too close to his hero and what he represents; the battle for him to too real to permit any real doubt, any convincing drama, to shadow the chances of Cardinal Menendez. And so Fr. Greeley's novel is as flat and predictable as the American High Plains -- although, to be fair, the people you meet in Kansas and Nebraska are more companionable. Blackie (Bishop Ryan), for instance, reveals himself as a full-thoated hater of Rome. To read his first-hand description of St. Peter's is to be in the company of a man with a deep revulsion for the Church of which is a leader. And Milford Cronin, the Grand Elector of the Conclave, describes his vernerable brothers in the Sacred College in terms that I will not reproduce here; his nicer comments are that the other Cardinals are morons. Another of Fr. Greeley's heros, the NYT correspondent, says that the delegates to any Democratic National Convention would inspire more confidence than the Sacred College. At one point the sly feigns and clever, distracting formulations of Cardinal Menendez bear so patent a resemblence to President Bill Clinton's that Fr. Greeley is moved to have one character remark that the last thing the Church needs is the pontificate of William Jefferson I. That Fr. Greeley puts this remark in the mouth of one of his villains (i.e., a tradionalist who, by Fr. Greeley's lights, is by definition a idiot) indicates his approval of the advent of a new Clintonesque style to papal addresses. In any event, Fr. Greeley would have been better advised to write a non-fiction book about the next papal conclave, along the lines of "The Next Pope," a recent book by a British ex-Jesuit who took up cudgels against John Paul long ago. In doing so, Fr. Greeley could have dispensed with any literary pretense and produced a tome that corresponds with his well-known opinions. However much one may have disagreed with him, that book could help but be a better read than "White Smoke."
Rating: 
Summary: IMPOSSIBLE!
Review: It is fiction of course. It can not be otherwise for what it contends may happen is IMPOSSIBLE! Many reviewers are upset. Upset perhaps but they should not be worried. The Church is protected by Christ's promise that it will not err. Any person of faith sees this book as FICTION. It is a poor attempt to disguise Greely's left wing theology as fiction. The message to those liberals who find "hope" for their cause in this book: IT AIN'T GOING TO HAPPEN. Recommended reading: "Women Priests And Other Fantasies" Greely and his followers are delusional.
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