A lucid account of Ratzinger’s long theological career and likely manner of leadership in the future; of particular interest...
Vatican watcher Weigel (The Truth of Catholicism, 2001, etc.) considers the course of the church under the previous pope and the possible changes that the new one will bring.
Joseph Ratzinger, elected pope by the College of Cardinals on April 19, 2005, is said to have been a less-than-willing candidate, feeling himself unfit “by reason of age and temperament.” Certainly many cardinals shared his reservations, though for complex reasons: Writes Weigel, there were those who wished to see greater engagement with globalization and human-rights issues, extending the concerns of John Paul II through the appointment of a Latin American pope; those who opposed Ratzinger because of his conservatism (and who promoted an apparently unfair Ratzinger-as-Nazi trope); and those who, as true hardcore clerical conservatives, wished to see the papacy restored to an Italian pope after a long turn in the hands of Karol Wojtyla of Poland. Weigel is at his best when documenting, in diary-like form, the ins and outs of Vatican politics and the inside deals that are struck in order to produce a puff of white smoke; his account here joins very nicely with recent intramural books, such as John L. Allen’s Conclave (2002) and John-Peter Pham’s Heirs of the Fisherman (2005). Less effective is his exposition of the problems now facing the church, some of which, as one of the faithful, he is presumably reticent to discuss at much length; one thinks of priestly marriage, women in the priesthood, the rooting out of sexually abusive clerics and the church’s stance on contraception. Nonetheless, Weigel looks squarely at plenty of difficult issues and offers a few prescriptions, including one by which the ecumenical Catholic Church would more actively help “those courageous Islamic scholars and religious leaders who want to challenge Islamist radicals and extremists.”
A lucid account of Ratzinger’s long theological career and likely manner of leadership in the future; of particular interest to reform-minded Catholics.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2005
ISBN: 0-06-621331-2
Page Count: 288
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2005
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
This a book of earlier, philosophical essays concerned with the essential "absurdity" of life and the concept that- to overcome the strong tendency to suicide in every thoughtful man-one must accept life on its own terms with its values of revolt, liberty and passion. A dreary thesis- derived from and distorting the beliefs of the founders of existentialism, Jaspers, Heldegger and Kierkegaard, etc., the point of view seems peculiarly outmoded. It is based on the experience of war and the resistance, liberally laced with Andre Gide's excessive intellectualism. The younger existentialists such as Sartre and Camus, with their gift for the terse novel or intense drama, seem to have omitted from their philosophy all the deep religiosity which permeates the work of the great existentialist thinkers. This contributes to a basic lack of vitality in themselves, in these essays, and ten years after the war Camus seems unaware that the life force has healed old wounds... Largely for avant garde aesthetes and his special coterie.
Pub Date: Sept. 26, 1955
ISBN: 0679733736
Page Count: 228
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1955
A very welcome instance of philosophy that can help readers live a good life.
A teacher and scholar of Buddhism offers a formally varied account of the available rewards of solitude.
“As Mother Ayahuasca takes me in her arms, I realize that last night I vomited up my attachment to Buddhism. In passing out, I died. In coming to, I was, so to speak, reborn. I no longer have to fight these battles, I repeat to myself. I am no longer a combatant in the dharma wars. It feels as if the course of my life has shifted onto another vector, like a train shunted off its familiar track onto a new trajectory.” Readers of Batchelor’s previous books (Secular Buddhism: Imagining the Dharma in an Uncertain World, 2017, etc.) will recognize in this passage the culmination of his decadeslong shift away from the religious commitments of Buddhism toward an ecumenical and homegrown philosophy of life. Writing in a variety of modes—memoir, history, collage, essay, biography, and meditation instruction—the author doesn’t argue for his approach to solitude as much as offer it for contemplation. Essentially, Batchelor implies that if you read what Buddha said here and what Montaigne said there, and if you consider something the author has noticed, and if you reflect on your own experience, you have the possibility to improve the quality of your life. For introspective readers, it’s easy to hear in this approach a direct response to Pascal’s claim that “all of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” Batchelor wants to relieve us of this inability by offering his example of how to do just that. “Solitude is an art. Mental training is needed to refine and stabilize it,” he writes. “When you practice solitude, you dedicate yourself to the care of the soul.” Whatever a soul is, the author goes a long way toward soothing it.
A very welcome instance of philosophy that can help readers live a good life.Pub Date: Feb. 18, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-300-25093-0
Page Count: 200
Publisher: Yale Univ.
Review Posted Online: Nov. 24, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
