An imperfect but certainly fascinating look at the church under Pope Francis.
A balanced look at the struggle for the future of Catholicism.
New York Times op-ed columnist Douthat (Bad Religion: How We Became a Nation of Heretics, 2012) delves into the decadeslong struggle between liberal and conservative forces within Catholicism. Starting with the Second Vatican Council, the author then covers the turbulent 1970s, during which the church struggled to find its way in the post-conciliar world. With the election of Pope John Paul II, a conservative interpretation of the Council took precedence and found its fullest interpretation in John Paul’s successor, Benedict XVI. With Benedict’s surprising retirement in 2013, however, the church had a rare opportunity to change direction, and it did so with the choice of Jorge Bergoglio as Pope Francis. Despite the many issues facing Catholicism, Douthat chooses to focus mostly on the question of how the church views divorce and remarriage. Some of this work centers on remarriage and the pope’s sometimes-ambiguous teachings and statements on the matter. While Francis is the central figure in such debates, most of the author’s commentary has to do with the many cardinals, and other clergy, whose activism on one side or another fuels the fires of division within Catholicism. Perhaps the book’s greatest attribute is the level to which it introduces average readers to the infighting among the Roman Curia and the larger family of bishops and cardinals who steer the church. Though largely sympathetic to Francis and Catholic liberalism, Douthat does play devil’s advocate on many occasions and, in his conclusion, provides some criticisms of the pope. However, the author is prone to an overabundance of speculation, often bogging down his otherwise solid analysis with a series of what-ifs. His attempt to see the current church through historical lenses—e.g., comparisons with controversies over Arians, Jansenists, and other heresies and schisms—is laudable but overdone.
An imperfect but certainly fascinating look at the church under Pope Francis.Pub Date: April 1, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5011-4692-3
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2018
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
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