Type of bind: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 262.13
EAN num: 9780385494106
ISBN number: 0385494106
Label: Doubleday
Manufacturer: Doubleday
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 336
Printing Date: 2000-06
Publishing house: Doubleday
Release Date: June 06, 2000
Sale Popularity Level: 389710
Studio: Doubleday
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'The truth, we are told, will make us free. It is time to free Catholics, lay as well as clerical, from the structures of deceit that are our subtle modern form of papal sin. Paler, subtler, less dramatic than the sins castigated by Orcagna or Dante, these are the quiet sins of intellectual betrayal.'
--from the Introduction
From Pulitzer Prize-winning author Garry Wills comes an assured, acutely insightful--and occasionally stinging--critique of the Catholic Church and its hierarchy from the nineteenth century to the present.
Papal Sin in the past was blatant, as Catholics themselves realized when they painted popes roasting in hell on their own church walls. Surely, the great abuses of the past--the nepotism, murders, and wars of conquest--no longer prevail; yet, the sin of the modern papacy, as revealed by Garry Wills in his penetrating new book, is every bit as real, though less obvious than the old sins.
Wills describes a papacy that seems steadfastly unwilling to face the truth about itself, its past, and its relations with others. The refusal of the authorities of the Church to be honest about its teachings has needlessly exacerbated original mistakes. Even when the Vatican has tried to tell the truth--e.g., about Catholics and the Holocaust--it has ended up resorting to historical distortions and evasions. The same is true when the papacy has attempted to deal with its record of discrimination against women, or with its unbelievable assertion that 'natural law' dictates its sexual code.
Though the blithe disregard of some Catholics for papal directives has occasionally been attributed to mere hedonism or willfulness, it actually reflects a failure, after long trying on their part, to find a credible level of honesty in the official positions adopted by modern popes. On many issues outside the realm of revealed doctrine, the papacy has made itself unbelievable even to the well-disposed laity.
The resulting distrust is in fact a neglected reason for the shortage of priests. Entirely aside from the public uproar over celibacy, potential clergy have proven unwilling to put themselves in a position that supports dishonest teachings.
Wills traces the rise of the papacy's stubborn resistance to the truth, beginning with the challenges posed in the nineteenth century by science, democracy, scriptural scholarship, and rigorous history. The legacy of that resistance, despite the brief flare of John XXIII's papacy and some good initiatives in the 1960s by the Second Vatican Council (later baffled), is still strong in the Vatican.
Finally Wills reminds the reader of the positive potential of the Church by turning to some great truth tellers of the Catholic tradition--St. Augustine, John Henry Newman, John Acton, and John XXIII. In them, Wills shows that the righteous path can still be taken, if only the Vatican will muster the courage to speak even embarrassing truths in the name of Truth itself.
Amazon.com Review:
'Catholics have fallen out of the healthy old habit of reminding each other how sinful Popes can be,' notes Garry Wills in the introduction to Papal Sin: Structures of Deceit. In his book, Wills alludes occasionally to the most egregious papal scoundrels: 'In the tenth century a dissolute teenager could be elected Pope (John XII) because of his family connections and die a decade later in the bed of a married woman.' But most of the author's energy is devoted to an incisive analysis of recent popes' doctrinal pronouncements, which Wills believes have eroded the Church's moral authority and contributed to the drastic decline in vocations to the priesthood today. 'The arguments for much of what passes as current church doctrine are so intellectually contemptible that mere self-respect forbids a man to voice them as his own,' Wills writes. 'The cartoon version of natural law used to argue against contraception, or artificial insemination, or masturbation, would make a sophomore blush. The endeavor to whitewash past attitudes toward Jews is so dishonest in its use of historical evidence that a man condemns himself in his own eyes if he tries to claim that he agrees with it.'
In chapters that address all of the matters just mentioned, and many others (including women's exclusion from the priesthood and clerical celibacy), Papal Sin considers 'the connection between a Christian's truthfulness and Christ's truth.' Wills argues that 'the New Testament link between the two is brought about by the Spirit when he fills Christians so they speak without restraint.' A final chapter, of great rhetorical and spiritual power, finds hope for Catholicism in a 'church of the Spirit' where 'the poor have the good news brought to them (Matthew 11:5).' Wills is one of those rare and exceptional writers who can clearly discern and describe both sin and righteousness, and can boldly speak the truth about power. --Michael Joseph Gross
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Rated by buyers 
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Gary Wills one of the biggest "anti-Catholic Catholics" outdoes himself in this book full of lies and utter trash. He spouts such anti Catholic garbage such as Catholics think the Mass is "magic", he mocks an elderly Priest who he used to serve at the Alter with by mocking the Priests reverence for the Mass. He makes outrageous claims like the last supper had women at it but they were censored out by the Church. He claims to be Catholic but has no respect for the Priesthood calling Priests "the peoples eunuchs". He mocks laymen who believe in the Papacy and the doctrine of transubstantiation. He flipantly suggests God creates abortions when women have a miscarriage. Wills calls St Edith Stein a false saint (she died at Auschwitz)saying she was a tool of the Church. The list goes on. Many liberal Catholics find this book as detestable as Catholics. It's one thing to have opinions regarding the Church but another to publish a book full of lies.
Rated by buyers 
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Wills gives an honest, well written reflection on his own Catholic tradition and the conflicting voices within it. He chooses among those voices, deciding for himself which ones best reflect Jesus' teaching. Like many Catholics before him, he concludes we are called to use our freedom wisely, not give it up completely. We are urged to a personal relation with God, not blind submission to a human authority who claims to mediate between God and other people.
Wills also takes Jesus' teaching on forgiveness and sacrifice with the seriousness it deserves. Where Jesus argued "If you had known what that text means, 'I desire mercy, not sacrifice', you would not have condemned the innocent", Wills boldly concludes: "... Jesus is not a sacrifice. His Father is not the one whose aggressions need to be bought off. Jesus is not an item of barter in the exchange system set up by sacrifice. God does not accept victims. He sides with the victim against the slayers, reversing the whole logic of placation." (p. 307)
I think Wills stands for the real orthodoxy in Catholic faith, along with a whole lineage of other Catholic thinkers, leaders, or saints from the very first century forward.
--author of "Different Visions of Love"
Rated by buyers -
Every time I am looking for critical analysis of long-held dogmas and beliefs, I would always look for books which garner the most negative reviews. I would never go wrong.
Rated by buyers -
With the growth of the anti-abortion movement (a good thing), some Catholics made their opinion known on other temporal matters, including contraception and papal Infallibility. Wills reminds us that the Catholic church is run by men, sometimes very good and sometimes very flawed. Each is burdened with the original sin of self-interest. Instead of our popes serving others with love and understanding, many fall prey to other all-too-human and all-too-fallible interests.
A great read.
Rated by buyers -
If the reader is in search of a sophomoric rant, Garry Wills's "Papal Sin: Structures of Deceit" will not fail to please.
Yes, that is a strong statement, but it is hardly without justification. I begin by explaining why the book is a "rant" in print and then turn to the qualities which make it "sophomoric."
The book as rant: First, perhaps of least importance, the book contains no evident internal structure. The author jumps from topic to topic without any reasonably perceptible coherent plan or design, sometimes referencing recently discussed topics, sometimes referencing topics discussed much earlier, and sometimes telling the reader to "hang on" for additional information in later chapters. The conceptual disorganization is mind-numbing.
Secondly, the author feigns no endeavor of having written a book designed to CONVINCE a fair-minded person of anything. From the very first pages of his introduction, he sets forth as unchallengable truth his "conclusion," that is, in reality, his opinion, that the Papacy itself and the Popes of the last one and a half centuries are inherently and reflexively charlatans whose sole purpose is to hoodwink the Roman Catholic faithful on matters of dogma in an effort to consolidate power and to accrue unto any reigning Pope the status of a demigod. Certainly and very unfortunately, many people actually believe this thesis. The cardinal rule in debate and in persuasive prose, however, is to assume the sincerity, honor, and good faith of one's adversary. If the evidence adduced causes one to reach a contrary conclusion, then, fine. When one starts with assumptions of the insincerity, dishonor, and bad faith of his adversary, then, at best, he presents an impassioned statement motivated by personal opinion or political agenda, and, at worst, he, as a demagogue, seeks purposely to mislead his readers or listeners with with tautological argumentation that purports to be his "evidence" or "support." In other words, you know a guy has an axe to grind when he starts with ad hominem-styled attacks.
Now to the sophomoric nature of the author's method. First, my suspicions were heightened by seeing so many quotations which contained either an ellipsis, indicating the omission of primary source language, or a pair of square brackets, indicating the alteration of primary source language. (A conservative estimate is that one-quarter to one-third of all quotations make use of one of these conventions.) Whenever I encounter the repeated use of these devices of punctuation, the cynic in me immediately asks, "What is the author dropping -- or changing -- in the original text? How is he trying to twist it?" A supposedly scholarly work in particular should minimize the use of ellipses and square brackets if the scholar desires his work to be treated respectfully (let alone authoritatively) by others.
Secondly, given the quantity of footnote citations in the book, it is interesting to note when footnotes are NOT offered. There are several instances where Mr. Wills recites historical understandings and practices that differ from what he asserts to be pronouncements and practices promoted by the present-day Papacy. These go on for paragraphs and, often, pages at a time. Strangely, these recountings of history typically contain NO citations -- NONE. It's actually quite amazing. Regardless of what other learning the reader brings to the table, regardless of any other (contradictory) texts of which the reader is aware, the author clearly expects and demands his reader simply to accept unquestioningly The Church History of Garry Wills.
Thirdly, another fascinating point concerns the timing of Mr. Wills's citation of certain sources. For example, he fails to cite "The Catechism of the Catholic Church" until the reader has read two-thirds of the book. When someone is so single-mindedly bent on challenging and discrediting Roman Catholic doctrine, his readers (particularly those not intimately familiar with it) might reasonably expect him to present straightforwardly and simply an accurate, albeit brief, statement of the doctrine he challenges. Mr. Wills apparently finds this notion entirely unnecessary and dispensable. Actually, it's surprising that he had the audacity to cite "The Catechism" at all. A few chapters before he initially does so, he completely mischaracterizes the Sacrament of Reconciliation, i.e., Confession, as one in which the priest acts as the penitent's judge. That is plainly and patently wrong. Only God Himself is Judge; the priest, as the penitent's confessor, is God's agent who visibly and orally manifests God's forgiveness to the penitent. Had Mr. Wills consulted the discusion of the Sacrament of Reconciliation in "The Catechism" before setting pen to paper (or at any time before his book went to press), he would have been spared the embarrassment of such a misstatement of basic, ... Read More
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