McClory (The Man Who Beat Clout City, 1977) offers some prime details on a story that continues to reverberate through world Catholicism. The Pontifical Commission for the Study of Population, Family and Birth (which advised the Holy See on whether or not to overturn the edict that birth control other than the rhythm method is ``intrinsically indecent'') was born during the heady reformist reign of Pope John XXIII and realized under the guidance of Pope Paul VI. Unlike most official Vatican councils, the commission involved laypeople (both academic experts and nonexperts) in addition to ecclesiastical advisors. Patricia and Patrick Crowley, as co-presidents of the Catholic Family Movement, were two of those nonacademic laypeople. Over the course of the three years of the commission's activity, they watched their reformist hopes shatter against the rocks of conservative hardliners who convinced Pope Paul to retain strictures against birth control. Humanae Vitae, the watershed document the pope issued in 1968, stands as a monument in the minds of many to the entrenched, unmoving nature of the Holy See in matters most intimate to the lives of its faithful. McClory does an admirable job of tracing out—no mean task given the heavy secrecy of most of the proceedings—the whys and wherefores of how the majority of voices on the commission, who like the Crowleys sought papal tolerance of birth control, were torpedoed by energetic, well-connected opponents. The background sections on the nearly 2,000-year-old issue of Christian procreation and the more specific question of birth control are informative, if somewhat brief. Though other sources exist for most of what's here, this book does a nice job of keeping alive the issue of human life and Roman Catholicism. Though the foregone conclusion of this tale precludes high drama, interested readers will find much here to think about.
Pub Date: March 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-8245-1458-0
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1995
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.
