Why I Am a Catholic

Rating:
Summary: Keep Unity Exemplary and Most Firm
Review: Mr. Wills, I did not buy your new book "Why I Am a Catholic" for the reason you said you wrote it -- to get the explanation for how one could write all the criticisms of the papacy and the Church hierarchy's misdeeds, publish them to the public in "Papal Sin," and still remain a Catholic -- without looking "nutty."
My main purpose is to educate myself so I can lend a helping hand to my Catholic brothers and sisters in finding the root cause of their recent troubles -- which I think I have an insight into that no one else has yet to even approach -- and then help them formulate a solution. But first I had to find a missing piece to the puzzle of who and what the Church really is today -- and that piece was the laity. We had all heard from every segment of the Church and some lay action groups, but not from the majority of the laity, those in the pews. Then suddenly, there you were -- intelligent, well informed, even better spoken, and claiming to represent that majority of American Catholics living their faith under Vatican II. Now the full picture emerges and we can hope to see all those who, by the privileges they claim to equally share, must share equally in the responsibilities for what happened and for shaping remedies.
Whether you are a strong supporter of John Paul II, or his "loyal opposition,"is not really a critical factor in the recent troubles, as I see it. But since the audio of an interview with you posted on the NYT Web site and a review in The New Yorker promised a detailed confession of the American Catholic faith held by a majority of its laity, I felt it worth the time and money to have a look.
I admit that I have been wondering all these years how certain Americans have been rationalizing calling themselves "good" or "faithful" Catholics while seeming to pick and choose which teachings from Rome they would follow and which they wouldn't. Your book gives a full explanation of that and I find the mindset quite interesting. Catholics who are conflicted over such behavior of their own might find some real help in these pages. For with a historian's expertise you review thoroughly the formation of the papacy through the ages, give a blow-by-blow account of the meetings of Vatican II, and even expose some interesting facts about how miracles and the canonization of saints are processed in the front office. The end result is that the laity should not be dictated to, but have an equal voice in the run of things. You prove adequately that the Church is "the people of God," not just the pope. But I don't think you prove that he is nothing more than a useful, unifying symbol. And that, I think, represents the incredible blind spot your book appears to have.
I also admit I sometimes enjoy your style and wit as you skewer so much of an organization I left over thirty-five years ago, after having my own experience at the loving hands of some sweet and wonderful Dominican nuns and priests (I sincerely mean that), and being a "faithful" altar boy. I also hoped to compare notes, so to speak. But I was disappointed you don't open yourself up as I had expected -- mostly seeming to conceal yourself behind the authority of your favorite authors St. Augustine, Cardinal Newman, G.K. Chesterton, and others -- producing what strikes me as a much-too-long and tedious academician's dissertation for other academicians, while leaving out what I will call the simple truth of your personal convictions, especially those things you have come to know and believe on your own. For example, though you appear to take us through the specifics of your days in the seminary and how you left it, I still don't understand what was in your heart and soul that prevented you from becoming a Jesuit priest.
And I really would like to hear you explain exactly what you meant by that snippy little remark about Teilhard de Chardin, who you say impressed you "as a vaporous diluter of the Gospels' challenge." You went on and on about everything else, how about a few lines on the subject of what the Gospels' challenge is, or what it means to vaporously dilute them?
Mostly I was disappointed that instead of giving the logic of how the Apostles Creed embodies the reason you are a Catholic, you gave a traditional treatise on its underlying doctrines and launched into a completely impersonal, again, academic mode of defending and proving them. Nothing in those chapters really tells me why you are a Catholic.
In summary, your book has a vast amount of material and invaluable perspectives that someone might be able to use some day to change the Church in the direction you'd like to see it go. But I suspect that your way of focusing so much on the negative, without adding the balance of a more charitable consideration of your Catholic colleagues, without seeking to find and give credit where credit is due, will cause more division than unity, and make those changes less likely to happen. I've got one major example from Chapter 24, of the beam in your own eye preventing you from taking the beam from your brother's eye, but I'm out of space.
Let it suffice to suggest you consider the words of Pope John XXIII in his opening address to the Vatican II Council, then ask yourself if you honestly believe he would perceive your work as contributing to the fulfilment of his vision that sought " . . . the unity of Catholics among themselves, which must always be kept exemplary and most firm."
(Italics mine)

Rating:
Summary: Or, "The Origin of Faith"
Review: Respected political and social columnist and commentator Garry Wills has taken on some controversial issues before, and he certainly does likewise here. Although "Why I Am a Catholic" was written from the vantage point of the Church's hierarchy and its relationship to the faith of the faithful, it is as most certainly pertinent to the fallout from the scandal of the American Church's apparent coverup of child sexual abuse by the pedophile clergy. While the title of Wills' work might imply a personal defense of his religious preference (and it is to a very limited degree), the book is more a history of Catholocism, its papacy and Scriptural creeds on which the faith of the faithful are based. In his trademark logic, Wills relates those factors to the Church's hierarchy and, as such, an unasked question of the reader arises: in just what do we as individual Catholics place our faith? The man-made bureaucracy and hierarchy of the Church? Or the Scripture from which our faith evolves? Whatever our private answer, we might be able to distinguish if whatever crisis we have is one of faith or one of man. Wills doesn't answer that question in his own personal recollections as a Catholic, but he offers a hint: unlike so many other Catholic memoirs, Wills has no bad memories or experiences. In the end, the complicated question of why we as Catholics stay that way is really so very devinely simple. Faith trusted to any man-made institution risks criticism and, many times, scandal. Faith entrusted to God, the true Father of our faith, will never be scandalized. For this Catholic (who voluntarily converted from Pentecostalism), why am I a Catholic? My faith is in the God of my Church, not the men who create and administer its bureaucracy. Certainly there are disagreements with some of the Church's political and social statements. But, just as Vatican II brought the Church into the 20th century, history supports the hope that another such conclave will bring it into the 21st century.

Rating:
Summary: Breathing life into faith
Review: Seeing Catholicism in historical context, and, in parallel, having the private spiritual journey of another soul laid bare, Gary Wills brings to his readers an extraordinary panoramic view of our faith and our Catholic tradition in a time of profound reflection and reconsideration.

All Catholics in America, during this time of crisis in the Church, are asking themselves, openly or quietly, "Why am I a Catholic"? Wills' well-researched observations and personal revelations are timely, challenging, and a blessing for all of us who continue to insist that our Church must again become the Church of history's most famous anarchist....Jesus of Nazareth.

Rating:
Summary: Thoughtful, reasonably complete review of the issues
Review: Some Catholics have tried in recent years to formulate Roman Catholic Christianity as an exclusive, rather tyrannical religion that requires its adherents to check their brains outside Cardinal Ratzinger's office before proceeding into the fundamental celebration of Catholicism, the Eucharist.

Garry Wills offers a ringing rebuttal. Although the first and last pages of the book are reasonably personal, the meaty middle provides enough in the way of history and apologetics to keep his critics busy for years -- if they bother to read it. Judging from the tenor of some of the negative reviews here, they probably have not.

Of considerable interest is the Wills' discussion of the influence of Chesterton in his life. This should surely surprise some who are determined to paint Wills as a renegade.

The book's final section, which examines the creed, could be read either as exegesis or as devotion.

The book as a whole speaks powerfully to those who feel that any dissent must be squashed, that dissenters must either convert to every jot and tittle of the current magisterium or leave. But, again judging by their reviews here, they are not reading the book; they are reviewing their understanding -- limited though it is -- of the author.

Why not five stars? For me, a non-academic, the book bogged down hard in the middle. If it had been published at its planned date instead of rushed into the stores last summer, might the author and editor collaborated for a more readable result?

Rating:
Summary: good fundamental explanation
Review: The book is a good, serious discussion by a person with strong beliefs. At times it may become too heavy for the average reader, but one never doubts the intention or dedication of the author. The book is definetely aimed at the serious scholastic. Another book I have read recently, "The Humanity of Their Discontent," approaches the same material in more entertaining manner, but in less depth. "Why I Am A Catholic" provides all the material one needs to defend the Catholic faith.

Rating:
Summary: Imperfect People carry the Message of a Loving God
Review: The essence of Gary Wills' book is that the Catholic Church is imperfect lead by imperfect people in an imperfect world . . . and yet, in spite of all the stupid and bad things the institution has done (the crusades, for example), the causes the leaders have lead (for centuries maintaining the sovereign nation of the Papal States), and the horrors the world has experienced that could have destroyed other churches, the Catholic Church with its pontiff has remained constant and worthy of the name of the Chair of Peter.

Wills' book goes through the centuries of the Bishop of Rome, as it moved from the Apostle all the way to the current pope, and it can seem a bit long-winded. It did, I must say, spur me on to learn a lot more about the early Christian church, and I have gone on to learn a great deal more about how the early church decisions lead to important historical events like the great Schism of the 11th century. I am happy that Wills took the time to lay out the evolution of the Pope's position because it took me in places that I had never known about (like Pope Honorius who was declared a heretic by subsequent popes for naming someone else as a heretic earlier).

It is through learning about the Church leaders, whether they be the popes or other leaders within the Church (and Wills loves Augustine!), that Wills accepts the divine inspiration of the Church (the entirety of the Church, not just the leadership) through the centuries. He then goes to the core prayers of inspiration--the Apostles' Creed and the Lord's Prayer--and explains how they have moved him to be a better man.

A very good book.

Rating:
Summary: A timely book indeed!
Review: The prolific historian offers a timely confession of faith and an apology in the true sense of the term. Wills (James Madison, p. 244, etc.) is not just any Catholic: he studied for the priesthood, has worked in Jesuit and papal archives, and has written many books on moral matters and the intersection of politics and religion. For having dared question the Church's positions on matters of doctrine great and small, he has been nearly stripped of his membership as one of the faithful. "I am not a special case," he writes, "but in many ways a typical one." In light of all this, asked why he chooses to remain a Catholic, Wills answers with quiet dignity, "because of the creed." By this he means the creed offered by Christ in the Lord's Prayer (ever the trained classicist, he offers a new translation that hugs closely to the original Greek) and by the apostles, who pledged faith in "the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and life everlasting." Would that it were all so simple. Arguing against generations of doctrine on such matters as women's unsuitability for the priesthood, papal infallibility, and "peripheral stances taken by church authorities, some of which are not only non-binding but scandalous and morally repulsive," the author takes a long tour through Catholic history, separating the words of Jesus, Peter, and Paul from their later representatives and, critics might object, casting aside whatever does not suit him in search of a more user-friendly brand of Catholicism. Though immensely learned and capable of holding his own in any argument, Wills also calls on some heavy-hitters for backup, including English writer G.K. Chesterton (a favorite of clerical conservatives), saintly socialist Dorothy Day, and the brilliant Thomas Aquinas. Deserves-and will almost certainly find-a wide readership while garnering for Wills both praise as a principled oppositionist and condemnation as a heretic.

Rating:
Summary: Thoughtful examination of faith
Review: There certainly seems to be a lot of polarization in the readers' responses. I cannot believe the vitriol some folks lob at the author. Serious lack of charity involved, it seems to me. I found the book to be interesting and definitely a worthwhile examination of why, with all its faults, the Catholic Church still provides a spiritual home for the author. I trust folks who believe it is possible to question and doubt and still affirm faith. For those who are afraid ever to examine or doubt, one wonders what it is they fear. . . perhaps their faith isn't as strong as they believe. But this author is not afraid. And he is a good catholic.

Rating:
Summary: Thoughtful examination of faith
Review: There certainly seems to be a lot of polarization in the readers' responses. I cannot believe the vitriol some folks lob at the author. Serious lack of charity involved, it seems to me. I found the book to be interesting and definitely a worthwhile examination of why, with all its faults, the Catholic Church still provides a spiritual home for the author. I trust folks who believe it is possible to question and doubt and still affirm faith. For those who are afraid ever to examine or doubt, one wonders what it is they fear. . . perhaps their faith isn't as strong as they believe. But this author is not afraid. And he is a good catholic.

Rating:
Summary: What Garry Wills Dislikes About Catholicism
Review: There's more to being Catholic than simply calling yourself one.

In his effort to undermine the authority of the Church to which he claims to belong, Wills uses an overly narrow definition of "bishop" to dispute that Peter was the first bishop of Rome. (No first Pope, no current Pope--get it?) Being free from the Pope, apostolic succession, and 2,000 years of authentic Christian teaching would allow Mr. Wills to remake the Church is his image instead of Christ's.

The "Church of Garry" would have no bishops with authority, no Virgin Mary, no Incarnation, no Resurrection, and no doctrines that bind the conscience of the faithful.
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What does it mean to be Catholic? A recent piece from Ascension Press provides much of the answer: You should strive to know, love, and serve God the Father through His Son Jesus Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit (Jn 6:27, 17:3; 1 Cor 8:3; CCC 1).

You need to commit yourself to being a disciple of Jesus Christ. Since Christ continues to act in the world through the Church with which He is one body, Catholics believe complete discipleship involves adhering to Christ's Word as presented in the teachings of the Catholic Church (Eph 4:11-16).

You need to follow the teachings of the Church. This means assenting to all that the Magisterium (the pope and the bishops united with him) teaches as true concerning faith and morals and, by God's grace, living accordingly (Mt 18:15-18; 2 Thess 3:6; CCC 150, 892). To his disciples Christ said, "Whoever listens to you, listens to Me. Whoever rejects you, rejects Me. And whoever rejects Me, rejects the One who sent Me." (Lk 10:16) The Magisterium carries on this mission. When the Magisterium teaches, it is Christ teaching us through it.

You need to receive Christ's grace through the sacraments. This includes receiving the sacraments of initiation - Baptism (Acts 22:16), Confirmation (Acts 8:14-19), and the Holy Eucharist (Acts 2:42)); the sacraments of healing - Reconciliation (Jn 20:21-23) and Anointing of the Sick (Jas 5:14-15)); and those related to the particular vocation to which God is calling you - Holy Matrimony (Eph 5:31-32) or Holy Orders (1 Tm 4:14)). The sacraments are visible, effective signs of Christ's invisible action (CCC 1113, 1127, 1129).

Finally, Christ exercises His pastoral and kingly authority over His followers through the pastors of His Church (Eph 1:22-23, 4:11-12). You need to obey their lawful authority as a way of obeying Christ (1 Jn 4:6). Following the pastors includes observing the six precepts of the Church (Jn 14:16):

1. Attend Mass on Sundays and Holy Days (Ex 31:13-17; CCC 2180).

2. Confess one's sins at least once a year (if one is conscious of mortal sin) (Jas 5:14-16; CCC 1457).

3. Receive Holy Communion during the Easter season (Acts 2:42; CCC 1389).

4. Observe appointed days of fasting and abstinence (Acts 13:2-3; CCC 2043).

5. Contribute to the support of the Church (Gal 6:6).

6. Observe the marriage laws of the Church (Rom 7:2-3).

These precepts are all ways our basic Christian commitment to follow Christ is lived out in His Church.

It is important to remember that these precepts are minimal acts of discipleship. Some people adopt a sort of legalistic approach to such requirements and ask "What is the bare minimum I have do?" This is something like a husband asking, "How often do I have to kiss my wife?" This is not a sign of a particularly healthy relationship. The precepts of the Church are more like a sketch, a basic outline of a portrait of a disciple. It is the task of each of us to use the gifts God has given us to fill in that portrait with the oil paint of faith, hope, and charity, and make it as beautiful as we can.

To find out more about "what it means to be Catholic", skip Wills and try reading books like "Catholic Christianity" by Peter Kreeft" and "Living the Catholic Faith" by Archbishop Charles J. Chaput. Or simply read "The Catechism of the Catholic Church", referenced as "CCC" above.