Rating: 
Summary: A Mixed Review
Review: Traditional Roman Catholics are apt to find Cahill's book unsettling. Not only does he devote too much space to accounts of numerous scandals in the church's past, but he also seems to believe that a conservative pope will almost always be bad for the church.In spite of these shortcomings I still recommend POPE JOHN XXIII - especially because of the description of the pope's early life and career. I will look forward to reading a really definitive biography of this inspiring person when it finally becomes available.
Rating: 
Summary: One of the Good Popes
Review: Whether you are a Catholic or a non-Catholic will doubtless have massive implications for how you approach this book. I am a non-Catholic with very little grounding in the history or structure of the Western Church or of the Papacy. For myself, I would not have fully understood why Angelo Roncalli's Papacy was considered successful without the not so brief but engaging Papal history that takes up 72 of the book's 241 pages. It is a dizzying survey of Papal history, and obviously not definitive, but it gives Pope John XXIII a context within which to appreciate him. Some Catholics may take such a history for granted, and want to get to the meat of Roncalli's story. But, the author has to take into consideration those without a Catholic background so they can understand why he was not only a good Pope, but a good person. Cahill does make much out of what Pope John XXIII had to contend with in the form of conservative Cardinals and Vatican administrators. There are times Cahill seems too harsh towards these people, and possibly he overplays it to demonstrate Roncalli's legacy. However, the Catholic church does have the reputation as one of the most conservative institutions in the world (there are many examples as to why, the case of forgiving Galileo about 300 years after the fact is only one), so perhaps Cahill's depiction is accurate. It is ultimately hard to know for a Vatican outsider, but Cahill's book, skewed or not, is a great starting place for non-Catholics on the subject of the Papacy.
Rating: 
Summary: Not much information
Review: With what appears to be very limited material to work with, Cahill is able to create an insightful description of one of the most significant and underappreciated figures of the 20th century, Pope John XXIII. Cahill does a remarkable job of laying the foundation for possibly the most influential papacy of the last millennium. The narrative concisely demonstrates how the people in which John encountered and the times in which he lived were central to developing the pope that not even he knew he would become. I was particularly fascinated by the incredible joy and cleverness he brought to his papacy and how those skills served him well as the architect of the Vatican II council. The most moving passages in the book juxtapose the culmination of the first session of the council with John's failing health and eventual passing. While I understand that the Penguin Lives biographies are not intended to be the definitive works of the historical subjects they feature and instead are intended to provide a canvas for some of our more talented writers to explore these figures, I was still left wanting by this biography. 70 pages are dedicated to the history of the papacy and another 20 are dedicated to the popes that follow John, to include a particulary critical view of John Paul II. In the end, this short biography of John, is even shorter. Despite my reservations, I still highly recommend Cahill's work as an insightful and entertaining study of a truly wonderful human being.
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