Papal Sin: Structures of Deceit by Garry Wills

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Papal Sin

Structures of Deceit

by Garry Wills

Publisher: Doubleday; 1st edition (June 6, 2000)

ISBN-10: 0385494106

ISBN-13: 978-0385494106

Hardcover: Jun 2000,

326 pages.

 

 

From the Jacket

 

" 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.

 

www.bookbrowse.com/reviews/index.cfm?book_number=577

 

 

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Garry Wills, Papal Sin: Structures of Deceit

The Ecumenical Review, July, 2002 by John Jay Hughes

London, Darton, Longman & 2000, 334pp., 12.95 [pounds sterling].

 

Written by a Pulitzer prize-winning Catholic author whose previous books deal

with topics ranging from Richard Nixon and John Wayne to Abraham Lincoln and St

Augustine, this book is a publisher's dream. Wills takes aim at liberal

Catholicism's usual suspects: Catholic antisemitism, papal infallibility,

clerical celibacy, church teaching about the indissolubility of marriage and the

attempt to mitigate this through the annulment process, the rejection of women

priests, the condemnation of contraception, abortion, and homosexual acts.

 

The book will put heart into the dwindling ranks of liberal Catholics,

scandalize the pious, and confirm the familiar indictment of the church by

secularists who hold that there is no such thing as truth, only different

opinions. " Catholics have fallen out of the healthy old habit " , Wills writes at

the outset, " of reminding each other how sinful popes can be. " In the middle

ages Dante performed this service for his fellow Catholics, castigating popes

for greed, venality, and the quest for power and wealth. The sins of modern

popes, Wills contends, are more subtle: continuing to defend positions that are

no longer tenable, because admitting change could be tantamount to conceding

that the church, which claims to be the divinely guided teacher of truth, had

been wrong.

 

" The irony is that the very attempt to prove that the church has never changed

leads to innovating arguments, to modern adjustments or additions, that just

show how ill they accord with the monument they are trying to shore up. When

ancient props for certain moral stands are removed, or crumble of themselves,

the thing they upheld is not allowed to fall with them. New jerry-built

contrivances are shoved under them to keep them in place ... a rickety makeshift

that tries to pose as an eternal truth " (p.7f.). Responsible for this " structure

of deceit " , Wills charges, are the modern popes and their sycophantic helpers:

" not men who lack intelligence themselves, though it sometimes seems that they

believe all others do " (p.6). Let no one suppose that Wills is not skilled at

polemic.

 

The Ecumenical Review July, 2002

 

 

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Publisher Notes

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 admit that they could err or do wrong to others has

needlessly exacerbated their 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 distortion, evasion, and blindness. 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 it sexual

code....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.

 

 

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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 attempt 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. "