Rating: 
Summary: Anti-Semitic
Review: I was prepared for the anti-Catholicism of this book. But nothing prepared me for its snide anti-Semitism.The author criticizes Jews for believing that God has set them apart as a chosen people. He wants to abandon the entire idea of salvation. Having thrown out the New Testament, he then proceeds to trash the Old.
Rating:
Summary: Illogical
Review: This odd book tries to argue that the hierarchy of the Catholic Church promoted anti-Semitism, but it proves just the opposite. In its treatment of the patristic period, for example, it notes how the teachings of St. Augustine and St. Gregory the Great condemned violence against Jews. This teaching helped to reduce the popular anti-Semitism inherited from the pagan Roman Empire. In the medieval period, popes and councils repeatedly intervened to defend Jews against popular anti-Semitic "blood libels" still alive in rural populations. What the book proves is that the Catholic Church, with the popes in the lead, has systematically fought anti-Semitism and denounced those who attempted to kill and molest Jews. But the author uses his evidence to arrive at just the opposite conclusion. I wonder why.
Rating:
Summary: Anti-Catholic odor
Review: Written by an excommunicated priest, this book is not about the Church and the Jews. It is about the religious agenda of a bitter refugee from the sexual bacchanale of the sixties. Rather than opposing prejudice, it is awash in prejudice. It appeals to every anti-Catholic myth of the last decades. It even manages to be anti-Semitic. He claims that Jews should drop their claim to be God's chosen people. What's left?
Rating: 
Summary: A Book of Profound Courage and Passion
Review: Constantine's Sword is a gift that should be required reading for all concerned with the issues that divide out society and the societies of the world. While it is, foremost, a work of history, founded in scholarship, examining the painful 2000 year chronicle of the Catholic Church and the Church's promulgation of anti-Judaism, James Carroll, through his examination, asks the difficult questions - how it happened, why it happened and explores how, at different points in this journey, the course of history could have been changed. The questions raised by Mr. Carroll are relevant, not only to his examination of the Church, but to the issues of hatred, bigotry and fear of "the other" that invest our daily lives. He asks the questions and calls for solutions. There are a great many lessons to be learned by this examination. By weaving his personal confessions and an exploration of his own beliefs with the history of the Church, Mr. Carroll has written a book not only of great scholarship, but also of great humanity.
Rating:
Summary: Years and Years of Conscientious Neglect
Review: This is a very thoughtful and articulate view of the neglect (perhaps intentional) of the Church over the years. I'd like to see the Church remedy its ways and support efforts to eliminate prejudicial views from within its own quarters. Perhaps if the highest Church members read this book, they will be enlightened, as was I.
Rating:
Summary: James Carroll versus the Catholic Church
Review: On March 12, 2000 Pope John Paul II offered an apology for the sins committed against the Jewish people over the past 2000 years. Speaking of the Jews, he prayed, "We are deeply saddened by the behavior of those who in the course of history have caused these children of yours to suffer." James Carroll praises the pope for making this apology. But he also faults him for not explicitly including the Catholic Church among those who were the prime cause of this suffering. The main thesis of Carroll's book is that the official Church, as such, has sinned against the Jewish people and not just its erring sons and daughters, as the pope implied in his apology. To support his thesis Carroll recounts in great detail the tortuous history of the Jewish-Christian relationship over the past two centuries. This is a serious book and deserves a serious response. One would hope that a qualified Catholic apologist would consider Carroll's data and conclusions in specific detail and point out where he is in error. Otherwise, the Church's reputation will be substantially and unfairly damaged. However, there is the possibility that when an honest Catholic apologist confronts Carroll's accusation he may be forced to respond as Pope John XXIII did when asked what one could do against the condemnation of Pope Pius XII for his silence during the Holocaust. Pope John allegedly replied, "Do against it? What can you do against the truth?"
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Summary: This Book is Important
Review: Carroll has written what I believe to be one of the most important books of our time. In it, he argues that antisemitism is foundational to Christianity. For those who have felt it's brunt, the book is very sad, but it's a relief to see the story in print. One can only hope that it is a call to action. Others may think his argument is specious or corrupt, since he does nothing to personalize antisemitism for the non-Jew, which is the main flaw in the book. He never really answers the question of why antisemitism ought to be a problem for non-Jews, other than that it contradicts what Christ stood for. This is a shame of personal import: Only last year, for example, my nine-year-old son was told by another boy that he "killed Christ;" the boy claiming to have learned it in Sunday School. It still occurs. Carroll's point, that antisemitism is real, current, church-sanctioned and relevant, should not be ignored. The problem is that it can be.
Rating:
Summary: Hate Crime
Review: This work is not a serious study of the relationship between Catholicism and Judaism. The Church is held up to ridicule by the simple method of suppressing the Church's statements of condemnation of anti-Semitism and then quoting apparently anti-Semitic statements out of context. A professional historian can only wince at the vicious caricature of Pius XII, a man who heroically saved thousands of Jewish lives but who in this book emerges as a combination of Elmer Fudd and Adolf Eichman. This book is about the rage of an excommunicated priest who, despite his cloying claims to love the Church, has decided to don a white hood and burn his own anti-Catholic crosses.
Rating:
Summary: Jame Carroll's Cross
Review: This is a massive six hundred page history that reads like an adventure story. It is a narrative telling of the place of Jews in the religion of the Roman Catholic Church and the missed oppotunities of the church getting its spirituality straight. It is both a personal story and an unabashed polemic, as well as a very readable history. I am sure that biblical scholars will have much to quibble about, but Carroll marshals strong arguments that are quite convincing. I was very moved by the piety which seemed to motivate the book. I fear, however, that the book will turn over rocks that have a dark underside. Those who have a very different reading of history, politics and religion, will not likely be convinced. Nor will they be willing to enter the conversation in the good faith the author offers. I despair that Mr. Carroll's lovely attempt at self examination will become an opportunity for others to villify him and his attempt to heal his ailing church. It will all likely be done in the name of the cross.
Rating:
Summary: if you liked "Constantine's Sword..."
Review: I thought that James Carroll's book on the Catholic Church's long history of anti-Semitism was powerful, timely and readable. I can also recommend a couple other books on the same topic that I found helpful, "Holy Holocaust" by Moss Herbert and "The Soliloquies of Constantine" by the same writer. The form of these books is very different but the content is an authoritative continuation of James Carroll's ideas.
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