Cardinal Manning

Cardinal Manning: A Biography by Robert Gray, 327 pages

Henry Manning did not set out to become a clergyman.  Financial pressures forced him away from a promising future in law and politics into a clerical career in the Church of England.  He did not set out to become a Catholic.  A long process led him from his upbringing in the heart of Evangelical piety into a more grounded, apostolic faith, and only a genuine crisis of conscience drove him out of Anglicanism.  Having become Catholic, however, and a Catholic priest, he did set out to take a leading position in the Catholic Church in England.  Conscious of his own considerable gifts, he was not reluctant to use them to guide the Church and society in the direction he thought best.

In his own time, Manning was highly esteemed.  Although his conversion cost him many of those dazzling friendships he had made in his youth, his tireless efforts for the working classes of England won for him an admiration far broader and no less genuine.  This was enhanced by his emaciated appearance, which seemed to be a visible record of long decades of prayer and fasting - Chesterton recalled seeing him in his cardinalatial robes looking like "a ghost clad in flames."  Subsequent generations were not so kind.  Comfortable secular scoffers had Lytton Strachey's infamous hackiograpy, which depicted Manning as an ambitious hypocrite.  Among Catholics, Manning's troubled relationship with St John Henry Newman caused his reputation to decline even as that of Newman grew.

Robert Gray's biography, then, is an important recovery.  For Gray's even-handed account of Manning's life, thought, and work reveals a man who was, indeed, ambitious and driven, yet fully aware of these tendencies in himself and determined to fight against them and, where possible, bend them towards good.  In the end, the reader is likely to echo the sentiment of the author, "if Henry Manning is not saved seventy times seven times, God help the rest of us."

Father Coughlin

Father Coughlin: The Tumultuous Life of the Priest of the Little Flower by Sheldon Marcus, 232 pages

For his supporters, he was one of the few men with the courage to defy the Establishment and take a stand against the vested interests responsible for the Great Depression, steering America between the Scylla of Fascism and the Charybdis of Communism.  To his enemies, he was a demagogue exploiting the desperate masses, an ignorant loudmouthed bigot, a Catiline in a Roman collar.  In his own account, he was a simple priest preaching the social doctrine of his Church.  For over a decade Father Charles Coughlin held forth to an audience of millions, both on the radio and in his journal Social Justice, providing critical support to FDR in the 1932 election, when he coined the slogan "Roosevelt or Ruin", but turning against him when the New Deal proved insufficiently radical.  Hatred of bankers and financiers segued easily into anti-Semitism, Anglophobia into Teutonophilia, horror at Communism into sympathy for fascism.  In 1942, he narrowly escaped treason charges for his vocal opposition to the same president he had helped put in power ten years earlier.

Those years of feverish activity are the only reason anyone is interested in a biography of Coughlin, and they are the subject of the overwhelming majority of this book.  Unfortunately, Sheldon Marcus' biography is a confused jumble of news reports and personal reminiscences, without narrative flow or structure.  Marcus seems singularly uninterested - or perhaps assumes his audience will be - in the substance of Coughlin's political positions, but also provides only the barest glimpses of the personalities involved.  The author might be praised for his willingness to present multiple conflicting accounts of the same events and let the reader judge which is the most plausible, but the result is an undifferentiated mass of information more likely to confuse than edify.

Smoke of Satan

The Smoke of Satan: How Corrupt and Cowardly Bishops Betrayed Christ, His Church, and the Faithful...  And What Can Be Done About It by Philip F Lawler, 193 pages

In 1972, St Paul VI chose to use the ninth anniversary of his election as the 261st successor of St Peter to warn the faithful that "through some fissure the smoke of Satan has entered the temple of God."  Indeed, by then the smoke was already oppressively thick, but, as Phil Lawler explains, most of the bishops responsible for teaching, governing, and sanctifying their dioceses were unwilling to admit it.  Chosen for high office on the basis of administrative ability rather than spiritual, moral, or intellectual virtues, these false pastors abdicated their responsibilities in order to maintain the pretense that all was well, even as corruption rotted the Church from within and entire generations were given pottage in place of their birthright.

This is a necessary book, and Lawler is the necessary man to write it.  Certainly no one can honestly accuse him, with his long history of criticism of the handling of sexual abuse cases by bishops and popes alike, of exploiting the present phase of the crisis to attack a pope he disagrees with theologically or politically.  Indeed, there is little he says here that he did not already say a decade ago in his seminal work on the Boston abuse crisis, The Faithful Departed.  The difference is in the approach and tone - the earlier book was primarily a historical analysis, while the current work is an urgent call to action.  This is, of course, a reflection of the pontificates in which they were written - whereas in 2008 it seemed as if the forces of renewal were in the ascendant, by 2018 it was clear that the highest offices in the Church were occupied by men who prefer vague sentimentality and the esteem of the powerful to right reason and the salvation of souls.

Building A Bridge

Building A Bridge: How The Catholic Church And The LGBT Community Can Enter Into A Relationship Of Respect, Compassion, And Sensitivity by James Martin, SJ, 150 pages

“The New York Times bestselling author of The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything and Jesus: A Pilgrimage turns his attention to the relationship between LGBT Catholics and the Church in this loving, inclusive, and revolutionary book. On the day after the Orlando nightclub shooting, James Martin S.J. posted a video on Facebook in which he called for solidarity with our LGBT brothers and sisters. "The largest mass shooting in US history took place at a gay club and the LGBT community has been profoundly affected," he began. He then implored his fellow Catholics--and people everywhere--to "stand not only with the people of Orlando but also with their LGBT brothers and sisters." A powerful call for tolerance, acceptance, and support--and a reminder of Jesus' message for us to love one another--Father Martin's post went viral and was viewed more than 1.6 million times. Now, Martin expands on his reflections in this moving and inspiring book, offering a powerful, loving, and much-needed voice in a time marked by anger, prejudice, and divisiveness. Adapted from an address he gave to New Ways Ministry, a group that ministers to and advocates for LGBT Catholics, Building a Bridge provides a roadmap for repairing and strengthening the bonds that unite all of us as God's children. Martin uses the image of a two-way bridge to enable LGBT Catholics and the Church to come together in a call to end the "us" versus "them" mentality. Turning to the Catechism, he draws on the three criteria at the heart of the Christian ministry--"respect, compassion, and sensitivity"--as a model for how the Catholic Church should relate to the LGBT community.” Every Catholic should read this book.  I feel like the audience is fairly narrow for this book but it should be required reading for every member of every Catholic church, at least in the United States.

Origin

Origin by Dan Brown, 461 pages 

This is the fifth book that stars Robert Langdon. This time it is set in Spain. The formula is much the same involving Robert solving a mystery along with a female companion while being chased. The Catholic Church is involved along with the royal family of Spain. Religion in general is also a theme. This one does not involve as much interpretation of symbols.

Edmond Kirsch is a former student of Robert's who has become rich through technology. He has a major discovery to reveal to the world that has implications for all religions. Before revealing his discovery to the world he reveals it to three prominent religious leaders but vows them to secrecy.

Kirsch is going to present this discovery to the world at the Guggenheim museum in Spain and has invited Robert along with about three hundred other people. During his presentation, he is assassinated. Now it is up to Robert to reveal his discovery before whoever killed Kirsch can stop him. One of the religious leaders  is a Catholic bishop. Signs point to him being behind it or possibly someone in the royal family. Of course, there are some twists.

It is formulaic but I still found it a quick and enjoyable read. It got me interested in exploring the work of William Blake and Antoni Gaudi.

Spies in the Vatican

Spies in the Vatican: The Soviet Union's Cold War Against the Catholic Church by John Koehler, 273 pages

Virtually from the moment of its birth, the Soviet Union sought the end of religion amongst its people and throughout the world.  When mass murder failed, the Soviets began a campaign of infiltration and subversion.  Although the Catholic Church was targeted from the outset, when the Second World War left the USSR in control of puppet states throughout Eastern Europe the neutralization of the Church became an even higher priority.  The record of this shadow war waged by the Soviets and their proxies against the Church is the subject of John Koehler's Spies in the Vatican.

Although the book briefly summarizes earlier periods, the bulk concerns the pontificate of St John Paul II and his connection with the Solidarity movement, including, most explosively, possible Soviet involvement in the assassination attempt against the Pope in 1981.  Unfortunately, Spies in the Vatican lacks any kind of cohesion.  The book reads like "random moments in the history of Warsaw Pact espionage" rather than a thorough history of communist subversion of the Catholic Church.  This slipshod approach is aggravated by numerous textual errors - "seize fire", "assassimate", "Let sleeping dogs die".  At the same time, Koehler demonstrates considerable expertise concerning the history, organization, and records of various intelligence agencies, especially the East German Stasi, and he writes with unwavering moral clarity.

Fifth Gospel

The Fifth Gospel by Ian Caldwell
431 Pages

"In 2004, as Pope John Paul II's reign enters its twilight, a mysterious exhibit is under construction at the Vatican Museums. A week before it is scheduled to open, its curator is murdered at a clandestine meeting on the outskirts of Rome. That same night, a violent break-in rocks the home of the curator's research partner, Father Alex Andreou, a Greek Catholic priest who lives inside the Vatican with his five-year-old son. When the papal police fail to identify a suspect in either crime, Father Alex, desperate to keep his family safe, undertakes his own investigation. To find the killer he must reconstruct the dead curator's secret: what the four Christian gospels-and a little-known, true-to-life fifth gospel known as the Diatessaron-reveal about the Church's most controversial holy relic. But just as he begins to understand the truth about his friend's death and its consequences for the future of the world's two largest Christian Churches, Father Alex finds himself hunted down by someone with a vested stake in the exhibit-someone he must outwit to survive."

I found parts of this book to be interesting but they had nothing to do with the murder or the main characters who I found to be annoying.