Why I Am a Catholic

Rating:
Summary: WHY I AM A (LONG-WINDED) CATHOLIC....
Review: Garry Wills, prolific commentator on things political, cultural, and religious, writes again. The only problem is, it takes about 250 pages for the reader to get to Mr. Wills' answer to the question why he remains in the Catholic Church if he has so many quarrels with the hierarchy, the papacy, and their pronouncements on various points of doctrine.

The book is divided into three parts. In the first part, Wills talks about growing up Catholic, his days in the seminary and the Jesuit order, how and why he left the Jesuit order, his work for the National Review and his lifelong infatuation with the 19th-20th century religious writer and journalist, G.K. Chesterton.

The second part is a dreary catalogue of depredations, deceits, abuses of power, and miscues by various popes through the millenia. Wills argues that the papacy in its modern form is a recent invention and that it has evolved several times through different forms. It goes without saying that he thinks papal infallibility has got to go. The second part seems to be a reprise of his earlier book, "Papal Sin."

The third part of the book actually gets around to Wills finally, at long last, answering the question why he remains a Catholic. This fifty page portion of the book is actually quite eloquent and thoughtful and could stand on its own as a book or as a magazine article. Wills's meditation on why he remains in the Church is organized around the clauses of the Apostle's Creed, which he treats with great insight.

I subtract 2 stars because of the redundant material and the interminable delay in getting to the answer to the question. I give 3 stars because the last section is quite good.

Rating:
Summary: Not So Personal
Review: Gary Wills has produced a follow-up to his previous rant about the papacy, Papal Sin, which I read. This volume finds the angry author even more defensive about his 2,000 year quibble with the papacy. His point seems to be that the Catholic Church went badly astray when it started making grandiose claims for the papacy, two in particular: (1) that Church and papal teaching is unchanging; (2) that the pope is infallible.

He recycles the arguments from the earlier book throughout most of "Why," focusing obsessively on popes.

Wills seems to have set out to create a highly personal apologia of his fidelity to Catholicism, but in the end he can't do it. The book remains a stiffly repetitious and scholarly diatribe revealing almost nothing of the inner Wills, except that he REALLY likes Chesterton, prays the rosary daily, and wouldn't give you a plug nickel for 90% of the popes.

Rating:
Summary: Will the Real Catholics please stand up?!
Review: I have not only read this book but I have read all of the customer reviews as well - so this review is somewhat of a review of the reviews as well as of the book itself. As many reviewers have noted, it really is three books in one; a history of Mr. Wills' growing up in the Catholic Church, a short history of the popes, and (finally!) a statement of why he is a Catholic. The first part is personally interesting as a "Journey of Faith," the second is interesting to history buffs (as I am), and the third is one of the best statements on what Catholic faith really can be (Chapters 21 & 22) that I have ever read. Wills, among other things, graphically demonstrates that a "Good Catholic" cannot possibly assent to all papal teachings for the simple reason that they have changed so much over the centuries and are contradictory in many ways. I only wish that his treatment of some of the popes had been a little more evenhanded. My knowledge of history, for example, suggests that Innocent III and Leo XIII were not quite as bad as Wills makes them out to be. Pius XII probably was. On the other hand, he is generally very evenhanded and relatively dispassionate in his writing. I did not at all see the anger some of the reviewers attributed to him, leading me to wonder if it were not really a projection of their own feelings in seeing someone who disagrees with their own position defend themselves so well. Mr. Wills' knowledge of history and dogmatic inquiry is excellent. In any event, traditional Catholics will hate it and liberal Catholics will love it. There doesn't seem to be much of a middle ground.

Let me close with a story of my own. I left the Catholic Church about 30 years ago over such issues as Wills discusses. I thought at the time that to be a Catholic was to violate all sense of my own personal and intellectual integrity and play the fool in addition. Iwas being asked, I thought, to check my intelligence (along with my coat) at the front door. I endured too many disparaging comments about "Cafeteria Catholics" and not being a "Real Catholic." I returned tentatively very recently to find (at least in the parish I attend)all the ideas for which I once argued accepted and welcomed. Birth control has been solved from the ground up - the people simply don't follow or believe the official church teaching. They don't even discuss it anymore! Traditional practices such as married men's and women's ordination are being seriously discussed, again by the laity. And, with the recent scandal regarding sexual abuse, we have realized just how badly a sexually repressed and naive clergy has mislead us. If I could have found what I have 30 years ago I probably never would have left.

The last 75 years or so represent the first time in all of Christian history when the laity are at least as well educated on the average as the clergy. We are perfectly able to distinguish silly teachings from truer ones, the encrustations of centuries of tradition from the heart of the Gospel, the separation of the Pauline from the Christ-ian - as well as the hierarchy is. The Jesus Seminar has indicated how much of Christianity is mythological rather than veridical. This is truly the "Age of the Laity" - and the Church will be better for it!

Rating:
Summary: REFORMER OR BELIEVER?
Review: I will skip specifics, but the let's review the basics of this thesis. The author disagrees with many of the Catholic Church's teachings. He feels the Church needs to be reformed. So he makes public his grievances, rallying support from both dissatisfied laity and like-minded clergy members eager for change. He leads the charge with allegations of corruption (both within the clergy and of theology) while simultaneously openly criticizing what he sees as outdated, non-Scriptural, man-made traditions and disciplines.
The author described was Martin Luther. Whether you disagree with his version of Christian theology or not, the history that followed in the wake of the Reformation is indisputable. At last count, there are over 24,000 separate and splintered Christian denominations. All of them share one common denominator: they are not Catholic. They have "reformed" their own churches by working through their own doctrines and beliefs, picking and choosing the Catholic doctrines they originated from, then adding, modifying, changing, or totally ignoring those they choose not to believe.
Now we have Gary Wills, who attempts to explain "Why I Am a Catholic." Yet he follows the same pattern as Luther: he picks through Catholic theology and tradition, choosing those practices he agrees with and lobbies against those he disagrees with. Mr. Wills airs his disagreements publicly through media sources and publications that intrinsically despise the Catholic Church because of the moral high ground it claims to possess. These same sources would like nothing more than to undermine the faith of practicing Catholics by "objectively" relaying the claims of Mr. Wills as he "exposes" apparent hypocritical actions of the Church to non-believers.
The height of arrogance is displayed in this work; Wills is basically claiming to have determined mistakes of faith and teaching that has been overlooked (or intentionally ignored) by the combination of more than 2,000 years of the most brilliant minds and purest souls the world has known. He attacks papal infallibility, yet in a roundabout way claims infalibility for himself by claiming the practices of the Church Christ himself created has gone astray, but Wills in all of his intellectual glory can move it back in the right direction.
The author has many intellectual beliefs he feels supports his theological rebellion. He has lost sight of the basis of all true theological belief: FAITH. Those that believe in the Church: its hierarchy, beliefs, doctrines, traditions, etc., do so because of not only intellectual understanding, but through FAITH.
What is the oldest continuous government currently in power? America. 200+ years old so far. Do you know what the odds are against any earthly institution surviving 2,000 years? The Catholic Church is guided by the Holy Spirit and has flourished, despite adversity, heresy, and vocal dissenters such as Mr. Wills.
Mr. Wills is by definition a Protestant reformer, and a true Catholic dissenter. This plea is directed to Mr. Wills and other like-minded Catholic "reformers": there is 24,000 Christian denominations out there, many of which feel the same way as you and your supporters. Help the Catholics who believe in FIDELITY as a reform a favor: either find a denomination you agree with and immerse yourself into it wholeheartedly; or repent and open yourself to the saving graces and teachings of the Church. Mr. Wills, instead of attacking people's faith, use your God-given writing talents to help renew it.

Rating:
Summary: This book will make you happy....
Review: If you are a non-Catholic, there are probably 500 reasons why you won't want to be a Catholic (although you should).

If you are Catholic, you will get a convincing portrait of church history since apostolic times.

Other reviewers seem to fault Wills -- for stating the truth! They don't like what he says, but none of them refuted anything that he said.

You'd like to read this book to clarify a lot of facts about the emergence and evolution of the papacy. You will come away convinced about the need for Spirit-led democracy in the Catholic Church.

Rating:
Summary: A sentimental journey that loses its focus
Review: In "Why I Am a Catholic," Garry Wills appears far too eager to justify his faith and ignore church history and the problem of child abuse. With the detachment of a psychiatrist, Wills writes about the church with warmth, apparently eager to regain the comfort of his childhood faith by ignoring the past and present sins of the church hierarchy. Many of us would like to live in the world of our youth, where goodness prevails and faith is unquestioning. Unfortunately, it is just that unwillingness to question that has made it so easy for the church to fail the faithful by hiding behind its cloak of respectability and creating an aura of mystery. Wills rightly reserves some of his harshest criticism for Cardinal Ratzinger's relenting attack against those who stray from the concept of Papal authority. But he does not go far enough. What I would like to know is where is Wills' responsibility in continuing to perpetuate the myth of Catholicism? History has proven that the Catholic Church has failed too many of the faithful. Wills should read Jerry Marcus' novel, "The Last Pope," to see how even a book of fiction can reveal far more insight into the Catholic Church and how far it might go to perpetuate its own power.

Rating:
Summary: Three Books in One
Review: In 'Why I am a Catholic,' Garry Wills has taken a Trinitarian sort of approach to structure. He gives us three books in one, unfortunately none of them make up a very good book on their own or combined.

Book I, the shortest, and most personal is an account of Mr. Wills' emotional and intellectual attraction to Roman Catholicism. It's interesting and intermittently touching, but more a pamphlet than anything else.

Book II: is a short history of the Church vis a vis the Papacy. Interesting, if not a little dry, and Hans Kung did a much better job in his, 'The Catholic Church: A Short History,' however the accounts of Pope John XXIII and Vatican II were fascinating.

Book III: is Mr. Wills' short, dry, and barely readable exegesis of the Apostle's Creed.

The only other work by Mr. Wills that I've read was, 'Lincoln at Gettysburg: The Words that Remade America,' and it was a stunning piece of research and writing. I had hoped for more of the same, but what I got with, 'Why I am a Catholic,' was mostly warmed over history. Perhaps it works as a response to 'Papal Sin,' but it's flat on its own.

Rating:
Summary: It Is His Choice
Review: Mr. Wills has written this book not to answer those who charge he either is not, or should not be member of the Catholic Church. Rather he is answering why despite the very real problems he has raised about the Pope and Vatican, he chooses to remain a catholic. To be critical of the Pope, or of church hypocrisy does not qualify a person for excommunication. There was a time Mr. Wills might have been tortured or burned at the stake, but today the power of the Church in Rome is not what it once was and the ability to control information and manipulate facts is difficult to impossible, as it should be.

Pope John Paul II can reasonably be said to be preoccupied with, "Mary". The final Fatima Prophecy that he claims predicted the attempt on his life is so absurd that no amount of twisting of the prophecy is credible, yet John Paul II persists in his belief. The emphasis he places on, "The Virgin Of Fatima", is bizarre. The Pope has a commission that he organized and he has directed to study that she, "Mary", is co-redeemer of the human race. Evidently he does not feel that Jesus Christ as the one and only redeemer, is fair to his obsession.

It is not possible to comment on all issues raised, but there are a number that serve as indicators of how far the Papacy has separated itself from, The Church, the congregants that are the church, not the elite few that wander the Vatican's bureaucracy. Nor are powerful Cardinals like Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger who specializes in revisionist history, or Cardinal Alfredo Ottaviani, the spin doctor and manipulator of Vatican II, the true church.

Bishops are not chosen based upon intellect or merit, rather they must past three tests regarding contraception, ordination of married men, and be free of even having discussed the ordination of women. The result as Mr. Wills states, "is an intellectual desert created by John Paul and called peace".

Back-door infallibility has been raised to an art form as utilized by Pope John Paul and Cardinal Ratzinger. Church decisions are described as definitive, irreformable, or already infallible. Ratzinger's deputy Tarcisio Bertoni stated in 1996 with supreme arrogance, "such papal teachings are infallible, even though not defined as such". Quite a spin, perhaps his calling was actually from Washington D.C.

One area I found extremely interesting in this exceptional work was the chapter entitled, "Fighting Vatican II". It is broken down in to these headings Collegiality, Ecclesiology, Exegesis, Liturgy, Intellectual Freedom, and Ecumenism. Interesting may be the wrong word, for what was attempted with varying degrees of success was appalling.

Ever wondered why The United States had no Catholic President until John F. Kennedy, I had. The Vatican had maintained a series of teachings that guarantied no Catholic would step foot in the oval office as its occupant. The Vatican maintained a sweeping policy of intolerance toward any view it had not decreed like, "the errors of Protestants and others has no rights, that the American Constitution is a second best hypothesis to be corrected toward the thesis of church establishment". What was the church to do? No problem, they simply un-muzzled a Jesuit writer, John Courtney Murray whose writings they had forbidden to be published. Murray had been critical of a host of positions maintained by the Vatican, so he became a convenient outlet for releasing timely clarifications to assure voters that Kennedy would not overthrow the constitution. Murray became Time Magazine's man of the year, and John Kennedy became president. Who says the Vatican lacks flexibility?

Forgery is documented tradition in Rome. A visit to the Vatican will show massive commissions of art that are nothing more than Papal fantasy. If the church wanted authority it had no claim to, it simply created forged documents, wrote lies. There was the Stakhanovite forging for papal privileges for Symmachus in the 6th century. The ninth century brought the forgeries to benefit bishops by Isidore Seville. They are now known as the "False Decretals". These are a tiny representation of manufactured church documents, but none can begin to compete with the grandest fraud, hypocrisy, swindle, you choose the word, for, "The Donation of Constantine,". Mr. Wills breaks the forgery into 5 main sections, it is to be admired for its brashness, audacity, and its fiction. It also serves as a pillar for the habitual deceptions of Rome.

Mr. Wills has nothing to apologize for, and those that would like to see him leave the church are either obedient to the Vatican without condition, or have irrational fear for what the truth may change. The reality is that 70% of Catholics now live in third world countries where Catholicism is modified by local beliefs and customs. Institutions that trained priests and nuns continue to empty, and the Pope's record of creating more saints than all his predecessors combined may serve political purposes but it does not replace living servants of the church. Creating saints of one person who championed The Protocols of The Elders of Zion is disturbing, canonizing a person who never existed is impossible to justify.

The conduct of the church at many levels regarding the hundreds of priests, bishops, etc. who are pederasts is indefensible. Cardinals who admit to shuffling known offenders about refuse to step down, and John Paul says and does nothing. So now donations to the church can be added to the list of necessities the church is losing. Congregants understandably do not want to give their money that may eventually settle another case of child abuse at the hands of a priest, money the church uses to pay the victims of a most reprehensible crime perpetrated by men who no child should fear. The action and inaction of John Paul and his minions on this issue must rank with the most offensive, amoral conduct of power that ever has issued from Rome.

Rating:
Summary: Bourgeois Brat
Review: Mr. Wills is at best a scribbler at worst a demagogue, and he is writing for a public that is moved by demagoguery.

If anyone doubts that much of the North American Church is already in schism with Rome, let him read this book.

Little Gary comes across as a self-satisfied, middle-aged brat.

Rating:
Summary: What is a Pirine Charism?
Review: Mr. Wills is notably well read and educated. Unfortunately, for someone like myself who is brought up in a highly "superstitious" Catholic upbringing.

This book proved to be too scholastic for me. Mr. Wills brought out terms and references within the faith which I need to constantly look up from the web.

I've read Cathecism of the Catholic church and the History of Christianity but those books were just side notes compared to what Mr. Wills is trying to say.

It's just not a good read, as I find it extremely hard to understand. I would have hoped that there's a disclaimer somewhere saying, please read a Beginners Guide to Catholism, or History of Catholism first before attempting to read this book.