German theologian Ranke-Heinemann (Eunuchs for the Kingdom of Heaven, 1990), who was barred from teaching by the Vatican because of her view that the Virgin Birth is a theological idea rather than a biological truth, discusses some of the traditional teachings of the Christian faith and the Catholic church in this pedantic and overly didactic volume. The author contends that the questing mind is vital to Christianity but that, instead of reason and intellectual honesty, the Church has too often given believers a set of fairy tales to which they must profess adherence or be branded as heretical. Her intent is to help doubters and skeptics along in their inquiries. Faith, she believes, must seek understanding. To this end, she argues that the Church's account of Jesus' birth and childhood is a fabrication. Similar treatment is given to the various miracle stories about Jesus. Almost nothing certain, she asserts, is known about Jesus except that he lived and was put to death. The rest is all veneer to advance theological and political points of view. Such is the case, for instance, in the story of Judas the traitor, an incident, argues the author, invented to advance an anti-Jewish agenda. In fact, Ranke-Heinemann argues that many of Catholicism's ``fairy tales'' reveal deeply rooted anti-Semitism and sexism. The author advances all of her assertions as if they are somehow startling, even though most have been made by Protestant scholars and others for years. She too easily confuses the Catholic Church that banned her with Christianity as a whole.
Pub Date: April 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-06-066860-1
Page Count: 304
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1994
Only slightly better than a tabloid look at papal controversies.
A tale of two popes.
Novelist, screenwriter, and playwright McCarten (Darkest Hour: How Churchill Brought England Back from the Brink, 2017, etc.) provides a sensationalized examination of the Catholic Church’s two most recent leaders. The groundbreaking decision by Pope Benedict XVI to resign the papacy in 2013 led to widespread speculation and gossip about his motives, and the author digs into many of those theories. Describing Benedict at one point as “a frail and confused old man drowning in shallow waters while those closest to him watched,” McCarten is largely dismissive of Benedict as anything aside from an academic. Though he occasionally takes pity on the former pontiff—e.g., noting that his desires to go into seclusion went unheeded by his predecessor, John Paul II—the author mainly describes him as lacking any interpersonal skills and being utterly disconnected from the real world or the church he was called to lead. Benedict was a strong defender of orthodoxy, so his resignation came as a surprise; indeed, “the most conventional man in the Catholic Church [did] the most unconventional thing in its modern history.” McCarten sees in that decision a mixture of guilt over failures to stem the church’s sex abuse scandal and overwhelming inability to lead in the light of his own shortcomings and the Vatican’s continued scandals. Though the author is obviously more aligned with Pope Francis’ progressiveness, he does not spare the newest pope from scrutiny. He provides a disconcerting report of Francis’ career in Argentina, strongly suggesting that he was complicit, even if only through silence, with the brutality his nation faced in the late 20th century. Ultimately, though intermittently intriguing, this book is just another average addition to the well-saturated genre of Vatican intrigue works. Since the author fails to provide much new information or analysis, serious readers will want to look elsewhere.
Only slightly better than a tabloid look at papal controversies.Pub Date: Jan. 29, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-20790-6
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Review Posted Online: Dec. 8, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2019
The director of the Florilogia Institute in Sonoma, Calif., uses literature, current events, and the Bible to argue that the efficacy of ritual violence in human affairs has been undermined by the Judaeo-Christian concern for the victim. Bailie proceeds from a traditional anthropological understanding of how cultures are held together by sacred violence: Periods of social chaos are often resolved by acts of definitive violence that, because they establish order, become sacred to a community's memory; and such definitive acts need to be reenacted from time to time by the ritual death of one or more scapegoats. The author argues that the effectiveness of this social mechanism has been gradually eroded, over the course of history, by an awakening empathy for the victim. In the first half of his book, he traces history from Aeschylus, who glosses over the sacrificial death of Iphigenia prior to the Trojan War, to US intervention in Somalia and the beating of Rodney King, observing that the status of victim has now become the seal of moral rectitude. The result, he claims, is a crisis of culture that has led to the increase, not the decrease, of violence—part of which, he asserts, is due to the evaporation of the Cold War's useful conventions. In the book's second half, Bailie shows how the Bible itself struggles with the concept of scapegoat, especially when Abraham's God rescinds the traditional demand for human sacrifice and when the Crucifixion becomes the vindication par excellence of the victim. Throughout, the author displays an awareness of the Western literary and philosophical tradition, and if his prose is at times obscure, it is brightened by exciting insights. Demanding but stimulating fare for those who believe that human events are ultimately responses to ideas and attitudes.
Pub Date: March 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-8245-1464-5
Page Count: 326
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1995
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