Rating: 
Summary: truth well told
Review: The bits and pieces of history need a real story to make them hang together. Bringing almost 2000 years of Jewish-Catholic conflict into a straightforward and well-written narrative is a difficult enough task, but Carroll, by making it a personal story and drawing analogies out of his (and our) lives goes beyond anything I could have imagined. Excellent.
Rating:
Summary: Abomination of Desolation
Review: Carroll's awesome book, must reading for all Christians, painfully deepens my growing conviction that the Christianity I formerly embraced for the first 35 years of my life is the "Abomination of Desolation." I am in deep respect of those increasingly numerous Christians who, like Carroll, Crossan, Borg, Patterson, Spong, etc, upon discovering the truth about their faith and religion, their sacred scriptures, and Jesus, still are able to find in Christianity, and Jesus within Christianity, a viable faith and religion, however unorthodox and honest. I have no idea, cannot fathom, how they do it, but I admire and respect them for it. .... Including Spong's ability to still see in him, and worship him, as "Lord." Or Crossan's ability to see in him a "manifestation of God." To Jesus' question to Peter, and to James Carroll, (and to us all), "Will you go away also;" and to their response, "Lord, to whom shall I go?", I would suggest that if any continue to find God in the Hebrew scriptures of Jesus, you might try turning to Yahweh (the God of Jesus), or to Torah ("Love thy neighbour as thyself"), or to compassionate humanism. My own response, confirmed again by Carroll's important and honest book, has not yet allowed me to look with respect at the Abomination of Desolation known as Christianity. Whatever good has come from Christianity in the world is clearly that part which reflects Jewish ethics, and the common theme in Jewish scripture among the great social prophets (as was Jesus a great social prophet), that Temple and ritual and religion is secondary to justice and compassion, mercy and service, respecting the stranger. And that neither Yahweh God, nor humankind created in His image has any need, use, or interest in a bloody human sacrifical atoning "messiah." Or the Abomination that arose from this honest but mistaken view of the failed messiah and millenarian prophet, Jesus of Nazareth If I ever find God again, in will be within the Judaism of Jesus. Carroll's is only one of many Christian voices who tells me this is so.
Rating: 
Summary: Prejudice on parade
Review: This book is not a work of history. It is the painful autobiography of an excommnicated ex-priest on why he hates the Catholic Church. As the end of the book makes perfectly clear, the author hates the Church's teaching on revelation, morality, authority, sexuality---just about everything. It is in light of this ardent hate and resentment that the author risibly distorts the record on the Catholic Church on Judaism. Evidence is exaggerated and suppressed to suit the author's bitter pejudices. Evidence is even concocted, such as the absurd story of John XXIII criticizing Pius XII for his alleged "silence." In fact, John XXIII had nothing but praise for Pius XII, who personally approved the future John XXIII's rescue work for Jews in Turkey during World War II. A scholarly embarrassment motivated by raw anti-Catholicism.
Rating:
Summary: Teach Tolerance
Review: Whether or not one accepts James Carroll's tome on Catholic-Jewish relations as pristine history, flawed autobiography, philosophical digression or a combination of all three, it performs the useful task of reminding us that anti-Jewish hatred remains alive and well, even in America. For proof, one need only look at the number of anti-Jewish hate books selling in large numbers from this web site--starting with the infamous forgery, Protocols of Zion, which many reviewers herein support as Gospel. Add to that Henry Ford's hateful diatribes, also selling in quantity, and choice new poison by Michael Hoffman and Keith W. Whitelam. In between you'll find plenty of anti-Israel venom, for those who insist that anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism are not the same--despite assurances from the great Dr. Martin Luther King, among other sages, that they are indeed one. Many reviewers who rave about these hateful books profess to be Christians. Whether or not they are Catholic begs the question. Carroll's work, however flawed, serves as an important wake up call to all people of all faiths to examine their own hearts and root this evil out. Alyssa A. Lappen
Rating:
Summary: Appalling
Review: This book is an embarrassment. The author clearly hates the Catholic Church's teaching on everything under the sun. The final chapters, with his absurd fantasy of Vatican III, raises all the politically correct issues: contraception, celibacy, etc., etc., etc. This doesn't have a thing to do with the alleged subject of the book. The author then fabricates or distorts evidence to paint as black a picture as possible of the Church's history. This is not history. It's not even decent journalism. The Vatican's statement WE REMEMBER gives a much fairer and more eloquent presentation of this tormented topic.
Rating: 
Summary: HUMAN BEINGS KILL
Review: Catholics, Catholics, Catholics, Jews, Jews, Jews, Blah, Blah, Blah. What is missing from all of these postings is a recognition that the vast majority of human history is a river of blood and floating corpses. Human beings kill. Who do they kill? Those not of their family, band, tribe, chiefdom, religon, state, etc. Those who are Other. With Christianity there happens to be some sticky, bloody origins as well. But the fact of the matter is that the Catholic Church was not simply a religion during most of its life, but a ruling power as well, with all of the secular concerns and standard brutality of the day involved. Furthermore, many of the individual states throughout Christendom had a great deal of control over the "Church" within their borders, regardless of the techings/policy of the Pope and Church heirarchy. Estranged brothers are often the most brutal enemies there are, and the tension between the Church and Jews throughout history is hardly exceptional. Fundamentaly, this has nothing to do with religion or theology. This has to do with Human Nature, and all of this furor is illustrative of the simple-minded myopia which caused the very topic being discussed.
Rating:
Summary: Doubting Thomas?
Review: . . . then follow up this book with William Nicholls' detailed and scholarly CHRISTIAN ANTISEMITISM. I thought I knew a lot about the subject until I read Nicholls' impressive work.
Rating:
Summary: Don't!
Review: This is an incompetent book written by a likable former priest who has become a decent novelist. Unfortunately, the author gives the impresssion that he knows a lot. He doesn't. He may well feel a lot, but turning personal feelings into historical facts is not a good idea -- psychologists call it projection. But odds are that he will receive abundant praise -- from people who know even less than he. Biblically, historically, theologically (and not just from the point of view of Roman Catholic Theology but of living Jewish thought and tradition as well), what Carroll has to say is all prejudiced. He writes well, but in doing so he gives truth a bad reputation. As a Southern Dutch cradle Catholic who has become a Jesuit priest and a professor of theology in the United States (and who has taught in interreligious encounters at the Hartman Institute and the Elijah School in Jerusalem) I have to say: if you want to buy the book because the author can use the royalties, buy it by all means. If you want to read a book by an author who implies that his personal feelings are the center of world history, buy it! The price is great for so big a book. But both the book and the author are featherweights where the truth is concerned. If I were an intelligent Jew with an interest in Christians, I would be ashamed to be seen reading it. Frans Jozef van Beeck, S.J. Senior Professor of Theology Loyola University Chicago
Rating:
Summary: Structure of Deceit
Review: This self-indulgent book doesn't make its case. The author claims to write a history, but he does not use primary sources, relies strongly on secondary sources by anti-Catholic journalists, and systematically distorts Church statements to remove clear and extended condemnations of anti-Semitism. Reading this book, one would never know that Pius XI delivered a well-publicized enclyclical denouincing the Nazi regime in 1937, with three sections entirely devoted to the defense of the Old Testament and a criticism of anti-Semitism. One would also never know that in the same year, Eugenio Pacelli (future Pius XII) delivered an address at Lourdes denouncing the barbarism, especially the anti-Semitism, of the Third Reich. The entire purpose of this bogus "history" is the effort of an excommunicated, embittered priest to trash an institution in which he no longer believes.
Rating:
Summary: And the Denial Continues
Review: This is the kind of in-depth look the Catholic Church has needed for centuries. This book clearly points to how its search for worldly power is a constant stumbling block for the institutional Roman Catholic Church, and how its penchant for denying that very fact leads to more grief for the world. Scanning the reviews posted here -- particularly with an eye to surnames -- it's clear that many Catholic individuals are eager to keep their blinders on. The first step to solving a problem is acknowledging that one exists. Luckily for the world Christian no longer equals Catholic, and those of us who share a history with the Roman Catholic Church can work to correct Christian errors, even if the Roman Catholic Church persists in its policy of denial.
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