Highlights an interesting aspect of the world’s smallest sovereign entity.
Former New York Times Rome bureau chief Hofmann (Umbria, 1999, etc.) portrays influential women in the papacy’s history, culture, and work force.
About one-tenth of current Vatican employees are female, and the author speaks with more than 40 of them, including nuns, housekeepers, lawyers, and art curators. But before delving into contemporary life, Hofmann details the history of women in church legend. Among those featured are “Popess Joan,” a ninth-century German who, disguised as a man, so impressed the papal city with her learning that she was made a cardinal and eventually elected pope, until an untimely pregnancy revealed her true gender; and Saint Catherine of Siena (1347–80), who convinced Pope Gregory XI to move the government of the church back to Rome. The present-day church, many women feel, has a strong antifemale bias and a “purple ceiling” beyond which they can’t advance. “The great number of sainted virgins and matrons, as well as female martyrs, attests to the conspicuous role of pious women in early Christianity,” the author notes. “Yet Saint Paul wrote to the Corinthians that ‘women must keep silent in the church.’ ” Judging from the profiles here, Paul’s admonition is still in force. Even though Sister Johanna is a highly qualified nurse, she works as housekeeper to an elderly cardinal who requested her services (without consulting Johanna herself) for six months, a “temporary” position that has lasted more than four years. A translator of papal addresses and other documents who declines to give her name expected to be promoted after her superior retired—after all, she had 12 years experience in the department, was multilingual, and cheerfully worked overtime. Instead, the position was given to a man with limited Italian-language skills. The future seems to hold more promise; some Vatican insiders predict that the continuing scarcity of priests will lead to women’s admittance to the priesthood, as well as forcing the church to drop the rule of clerical celibacy.
Highlights an interesting aspect of the world’s smallest sovereign entity.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-312-27490-4
Page Count: 208
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2002
Worthwhile reference stuffed with facts and illustrations.
A compendium of charts, time lines, lists and illustrations to accompany study of the Bible.
This visually appealing resource provides a wide array of illustrative and textually concise references, beginning with three sets of charts covering the Bible as a whole, the Old Testament and the New Testament. These charts cover such topics as biblical weights and measures, feasts and holidays and the 12 disciples. Most of the charts use a variety of illustrative techniques to convey lessons and provide visual interest. A worthwhile example is “How We Got the Bible,” which provides a time line of translation history, comparisons of canons among faiths and portraits of important figures in biblical translation, such as Jerome and John Wycliffe. The book then presents a section of maps, followed by diagrams to conceptualize such structures as Noah’s Ark and Solomon’s Temple. Finally, a section on Christianity, cults and other religions describes key aspects of history and doctrine for certain Christian sects and other faith traditions. Overall, the authors take a traditionalist, conservative approach. For instance, they list Moses as the author of the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Hebrew Bible) without making mention of claims to the contrary. When comparing various Christian sects and world religions, the emphasis is on doctrine and orthodox theology. Some chapters, however, may not completely align with the needs of Catholic and Orthodox churches. But the authors’ leanings are muted enough and do not detract from the work’s usefulness. As a resource, it’s well organized, inviting and visually stimulating. Even the most seasoned reader will learn something while browsing.
Worthwhile reference stuffed with facts and illustrations.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2005
ISBN: 978-1-5963-6022-8
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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