A bit too reverent to withstand scrutiny, this will find a welcome audience among believers but is unlikely to bring many...
A concise catechism of the Catholic faith, with specific reference made to common objections of nonbelievers, by papal biographer Weigel (Witness to Hope, 1999, etc.).
Weigel’s approach is unusual insofar as it proceeds from ten (often highly skeptical) queries (e.g., “Does Belief in God Demean Us?”), meant to reflect prevailing contemporary views, which the author addresses in the course of portraying the outlines of Catholic belief. The influence of Pope John Paul’s thinking on Weigel is evident from the start: He quotes the pope extensively, and he makes use of the pope’s distinctive terminology (the result of his philosophical training as a phenomenologist) throughout. The result, in consequence, shares many of the same strengths and weaknesses that keen-eyed observers have credited to the Holy Father himself: original, bold, and erudite, but also frequently obscure, highly analogical, and sometimes downright eccentric in its meaning. And, also like the current papacy, the author is wont to straddle the fence a good deal—arguing, for example, that the exclusion of women from Holy Orders does not entail a repudiation of postwar feminism and that the (vehemently antidemocratic) political doctrines of modern popes were not contradicted by the Second Vatican Council’s endorsement of religious freedom. But this is a refreshing account all the same, forthright in its unwillingness to gloss over controversial questions and highly original in its reliance on literary works (e.g., the poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins, the novels of Evelyn Waugh) to illustrate moral or philosophical arguments. In its contrast of the “brave new world” of modern technological man to the “better world” of the Church, it is very much a continuation of the underlying theme of Weigel’s biography of John Paul II.
A bit too reverent to withstand scrutiny, this will find a welcome audience among believers but is unlikely to bring many others into their ranks.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-06-621330-4
Page Count: 208
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2001
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The name of C.S. Lewis will no doubt attract many readers to this volume, for he has won a splendid reputation by his brilliant writing. These sermons, however, are so abstruse, so involved and so dull that few of those who pick up the volume will finish it. There is none of the satire of the Screw Tape Letters, none of the practicality of some of his later radio addresses, none of the directness of some of his earlier theological books.
Pub Date: June 15, 1949
ISBN: 0060653205
Page Count: 212
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 17, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1949
Hannah Arendt is one of the world's most profound political scientists: her scholarship is sterling, her philosophical- psychological insights staggering; two of her books Origins of Totalitariansim and Human Condition are among the few significant works in her field and our era. Whenever she publishes, it is an event. And although she is not at her best in this close study of the American and French revolutions and their meaning for the 20th century, still on every page we are in the presence of a mind of high individuality, great interest and intellectual integrity. It is her thesis that the Founding Fathers were faithful above all else to the ideal of freedom as the end and justification of revolution and thereby they assured its success. On the other hand, the Rousseau-Robespierre misalliance, the idea of the general will binding the many into the one, the transformation of the Rights of Man into the rights of Sans-Culotte, not only ultimately led to the Reign of Terror but also the whole catalogue of post-1792 ideological corruptions. The malhcurcux became the enrages, then the Industrial Revolution's miserables. And the Marxist Leninist acceptance of the new absolutism, which was done in the name of historical necessity and the name of the proletariat as a "natural" force, subsequently absolved both tyranny and blood baths as stages along the way... A powerful indictment and illumination, both immediate and enduring.
Pub Date: March 15, 1963
ISBN: 0143039903
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 13, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1963
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