Rating: 
Summary: Half the story
Review: I must agree with most reviewers of the book that this is a dishonest take on history.One example among others: Carroll cites Edith Stein's famous letter in 1933 asking the pope to condemn Nazi anti-Semitism. But he nowhere cites the encylical letter of Pius XII, Mit Brennender Sorge (1937), that condemns Nazi racism and that defends the supreme value of the Hebrew bible. The book is so full of tendentious anti-Catholic distortion of the history that the honesty of the author must be questioned.
Rating:
Summary: Not kosher
Review: No one would dispute that the Catholic Church had a tradition of anti-Semitism in the medieval and neoclassical periods. Although this tradition opposed the use of violence against Jews, it turned the Jews into objects of contempt and often provided theological grounds for violence. This book, however, refuses to recognize how much the Catholic Church had abandoned this anti-Semitic prejudice by the eighteenth century. Pius IX, for example, abolished the Jewish Roman ghetto and removed many of the legal restrictions on Jews. Pius XI denounced Nazi anti-Semitism in the courageous encyclical Mit Brennender Sorge (1937) and in many other addresses. Pius XII saved thousands of Jewish lives by his repeated diplomatic protests and humanitarian efforts. No one in the history of humanity has done more to heal the Jewish-Catholic rift than has John Paul II, the current pope. The problem is that no reader would know this from the bitterly anti-Catholic caricature of recent Church history offered by the book. The book's conclusion, where the author bitterly demands that the Church abandon its most basic moral and religious beliefs, reveals the agenda and bias that controls the book's unbelievably poor efforts at history.
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Summary: Historians, take note
Review: I can't judge the religion of the author. I don't share the endless fascination of many of our reviewers for the man's excommunication from the Catholic Church. As a professional historian, I can say that this book is not a book of history, as it claims to be. The author has not used primary sources to construct his case on the Catholic Church's attitude toward the Jews. Many of the secondary sources he uses (such as John Cornwell's discredited book) are not considered serious by professional historians. On the rare occasion when the author does use primary sources, he clearly distorts the source. I've noted at least ten Church documents where the author draws out several phrases that appear to be anti-Semitic, but where he ignores passages (in the same document) which explicitly condemn violence against Jews. Rarely have I read a book that so ruthlessly cuts the evidence to suit the author's personal biases. I'm completely baffled by the end of the book, where suddenly the author launches into Bob Dylan, contraception, women priests, and a hundred other topics that have nothing to do with the Jews. By the end of this overstuffed work I had the sickening feeling that the suffering of the Jews had been used as a means to end. The author had developed a cartoon of Catholic anti-Semitism in order to attack John Paul II, a man who has made extraordinary overtures to the Jewish community.
Rating:
Summary: Constantine's Sword
Review: Please look at George Neumayr's book review in the American Spectator [spectator.org.] He makes the point!
Rating: 
Summary: A Word of Caution on Reviews
Review: I'm sorry to be unable to write a review at this time but I must say a word about poor Edith Evans.She must have had to read the book three times to review it three times, each time with a polemic against the author rather than any substantive arguments. Three times read and three times unable to come up with anything more than the "anti-Catholic" cry of the uninformed. As a practicing Catholic I intend to buy this book, for Ms. Evan's reviews were indeed helpful. Anyone so misinformed or intolerant about her own faith giving three negative reviews just makes me want to buy it and read it!
Rating:
Summary: A Masterpiece
Review: Wow. This was a profound, moving, and unforgettable reading experience. The author's personal approach to the heady subject matter made this much easier to digest than a more stiff, academic writer could have ever done. James Carroll has opened my eyes to a long and tortuous history that I, as a Catholic, never new existed. I highly recommend this brilliant book.
Rating:
Summary: The Sacrament of Confession
Review: As I understand it, Catholic dogma requires that before one can be reconciled to God, one must first confess one's sins to a priest. In 12-Step programs, confession to another human being is a necessary prerequisite for recovery. In this book, James Carrol has written nothing less than a confession that can be part of Christian reconciliation with God, with Jews, and with each other. Contrary to the assertions of other reviewer, Carroll does not ignore the long history of pronouncements by popes against antisemitism. What Carrol does is point out the vast gulf between papal words and church action. While maintaining an official attitude of "do not slay them," Popes invented the ghetto and maintained one within sight of the Vatican until almost the end of the nineteenth century; popes allowed--and encouraged--forced conversions of Jews; popes tolerated--and encouraged--the Inquisition. Rather than trying to do a hatchet job on the Catholic Church, it seems to me, Carroll cries out for exculpatory material. One can feel his anguish as he confronts the sin of the entire Church. One can only wish that the Pope would be so honest.
Rating:
Summary: At last -- the truth.
Review: I am only on page 249 but I had to stop just to let others know that this is a must read. James Carroll finally puts all of the pieces together for me so that I can not only see antisemtism but now I can unweave the roots.This book should be read by EVERYONE -- especially in the U.S. It demonstrates so clearly how prejudice starts. With that knowledge we hopefully can prevent this behavior from becoming part of our own lives.I am deeply indebted to Mr. Carroll for this exquisite work.
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Summary: SAID THE APOSTATE: SOME OF MY BEST FRIENDS ARE JEWS ¿
Review: CONSTANTINE'S SWORD purports to be a history of relations between the Catholic Church and the Jews. However, the author is a novelist and not a historian, and the failures of his research are clearly apparent throughout this 616-page narrative. For example, he notes that Rome "was perhaps the first empire to require of its subjects an at least outward show of assent to the proposition that the emperor, too, was God." {page 80}. But most ancient empires regarded their leader as either a god or divinely inspired (cf. Pharaohonic Egypt) and Roman rulers were generally deified only after their death. Historical inaccuracies are only compounded by omissions - this history jumps from shortly after the death of the second post-Jesus generation to c. 400 A.D. The seeds of anti-Semitism are covered in an opaqueness that omits most of the Church councils and their conclusions. Also, the author fails to note the special treatment that Jews received under the Julian-Claudian rulers and which was torn asunder once the Empire became Christianized. Mr. Carroll's understanding of Judaism is flawed. He cites certain rabbinical traditions with favor, but nowhere does he define how Hillel or other Jewish leaders developed their doctrine and how it affected their relationship with Christianity. The Kabala and its mysticism is noted but not placed in context. Similarly, the writings of Moses Maimonides appear without substance. In discussing the Jewish expulsion from Spain (1492), he mentions other expulsions only in passing (Germany, England, France) {page 360}. In lumping Sabbatai Zvi and the Baal Shem Tov together {page 389}, the author misunderstands the promise of delivery and the evolution of Judaism as well as the passage of time over a century. Often, the chapters may be summed up as "evil Christians/good Jews". But such a characterization does not develop an understanding of what happened or why. Finally, when the author reaches the modern era, there are certain inclusions and omissions that beg explanation. The forcible conversions of Jews in Rome even in the latter part of the nineteenth century are mentioned in a footnote (the infamous kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara) {page 446}, while Father Charles Coughlin, the "radio priest" of the 1930s, receives two pages {pages 437-438}. The author's conclusions of calling for specific reformations within the Church are unsubstantiated by his research and simply beyond the ability of the Church as it currently exists. However, the author's personal asides do not do justice to his call for reform. While it was interesting to see the difference between history as lived and history as perceived (the author's great-uncle, an Irish "patriot" died in 1916 -- to his descendants, he was a hero of Irish liberty; in reality, he died as a soldier fighting for Great Britain on the Western Front), it had little to do with the subject matter of the book. Even more aberrant was the author's Oedipal yearnings for his mother and his sexual feelings before Michaelangelo's Pieta {pages 35, 158}. Finally, it should be noted that the author was the son of a senior U.S. military officer stationed in Europe and his adolescence was spent within the womb of privilege. But the Vietnam Conflict drove Mr. Carroll into the arms of the resistance and he was/is a New Leftist with the Berrigan brothers. His descent into personal revelation may appeal to "New Leftists and pants-suited nuns", but his slapdash and haphazard reading and recital of history does a disservice to both Christians and Jews. Why a book of this breadth spends pages {pages 314-318} on the Bob Dylan-Pope John Paul II concert is certain to appeal to certain elements, but it does nothing to explain Church doctrine. Finally, the author's thesis that Church doctrine leads directly to Auschwitz in a direct genealogical descent is overdone. Many of the prior reviews consider whether or not the author has been excommunicated from the Church, and how this has impacted upon his conclusions. Excommunication is not a one-way process; while Mr. Carroll may not have been the subject of formal excommunication, his actions (including an unsanctioned marriage) clearly place him outside accepted Church dogma. His actions and his reluctance to accept the doctrine of Papal infallibility (now over a century old) does not bode well for his continued presence within his Church. His writing does not bode well for a valid historical perspective. Overall, this tome is New Age history and more likely to mislead than to explain.
Rating: 
Summary: Chilling View of Countries without First Amendment
Review: This personal view of the Catholic Church's antisemitism and antiliberalism is a timely reminder of what could happen to America if the Religious Right achieves its goal of tearing down our beloved wall of separation. Only 200 years old, America has not yet succeeded as a democracy, and one has only to read Constantine's Sword to see where her greatest enemy lies: Fanatic fundamentalism - whether Catholic, Jewish, Muslim - will destroy America long before "godless communism" does. Carroll is a courageous man who would have been silenced by his own Church long ago if he had not been protected by the humanistic First Amendment. Just 100 years before our Constitution was written, Christians were hanging women as witches on the basis of "spectral evidence" by hysterical young girls. It could happen again if we let it. This is a must read for all Americans, lest we forget and are condemned to repeat this barbaric history.
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