Critics' choices for Christmas
Macchiarola, Frank J
Frank J. Nacchiarola Frank J. Macchiarola is the president of St. Francis College in Brooklyn, New York. A number of fine books about the present state of the American Catholic Church have been...
...all of which deal principally with the church as organization and are worth close reading...
...lives up to its subject while offering a vastly different image of the papacy than that exercised in the last quarter century by Pope John Paul II...
...The first is J. F. Powers's 1962 novel Morte D'Urban ($12.95,336 pp...
...His intellectual and social roots were unfamiliar to much of the church's leadership, to say nothing of its rank and file, and conflict was almost inherent in these differences...
...Morte D'Urban was a favorite of mine when I first read it in college...
...Powers published just two novels, and this one gained him the National Book Award in 1963...
...His long experience in the Vatican diplomatic service helped shape his love for others, specifically his tolerance for difference and his willingness to learn from those around him...
...Rereading it, I did not lose a bit of appreciation for this well-told and poignant story...
...He was at home with both classic Greek philosophy and medieval philosophy, and this volume is not always an easy read...
...and John McGreevy's foundational Catholicism and American Freedom (W...
...Eugene's life, Roncalli once noted: "He was a benevolent man, meek and approachable, and, what matters most, renowned for holiness of life...
...Powers tells this story in elegant prose, softened by his trademark wit and humor...
...Although the council's reforms are still in process, this good pope's openness, humility, warmth, and simplicity continue to encourage others to go and do likewise...
...Clement, a dying group awash in institutional mediocrity...
...The American Republic, a classic in political theory, remains prescient for our day...
...John XXIII: The Official Biography by Mario Benigni and Goffredo Zanchy (Pauline Books & Media, $24.95,450 pp...
...Here I concentrate on three books that have received less comment...
...It has been reissued this year, with a new introduction by Peter Augustine Lawler (ISI Books, $ 29.95, 395 pp...
...The events of Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli's life are presented with a sense of how the man himself thought and what he tried to accomplish...
...Urban struggles against the small-mindedness and lack of vision of the congregation and its members, but he is unable to overcome the despair that finally consumes him...
...David Gibson's insightful The Coming Catholic Church (HarperSanFrancisco, $23.95, 350 pp...
...The routines Urban and the Clementines followed could no longer sustain the spiritual challenges they faced...
...John XXIII will be remembered primarily for convoking Vatican II, which set in motion the seismic changes that have reshaped the modern church...
...and Paul Din-ter's personal The Other Side of the Altar (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $23,240 pp...
...A number of fine books about the present state of the American Catholic Church have been published this year...
...Wouldn't it be wonderful to get at least that far...
...Eventually, defeat and resignation set in, followed by malaise and demise...
...It is the tale of Father Urban, a pre-Vatican II priest of uncommon ability and perspective who is trapped in the fictional Order of St...
...Roncalli's openness to other religions and traditions, especially the Eastern Churches...
...Orestes A. Brownson's The American Republic was originally published in 1866...
...Yet there are whole sections that are well worth contemplating and absorbing...
...His writings, particularly his remarkable Journal of a Soul, which the authors cite repeatedly, demonstrate what a deeply spiritual man he was...
...It is a tale of Roncalli's trust in God and his faith in the good will of others...
...Commenting on Pope St...
...John XXm did...
...his understanding of Vatican politics and his desire to have church leaders talk to one another...
...Each has been reviewed extensively in Commonweal and elsewhere...
...It offers a perspective on the unhappiness and lack of purpose that characterized many members of religious communities at the time...
...In many ways, Brownson remains quite current even prophetic...
...Brownson saw it as the duty of the laity to enter the political life of the community, and to infuse it with religious principles a course of action later endorsed by Vatican II...
...and his faith in the Holy Spirit help explain the assurance he felt in calling the Second Vatican Council...
...Paul Elie's more literary The Life You Save May Be Your Own (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $27,544 pp...
...with a new introduction by Elizabeth Hard-wick, and reissued as part of a three-volume set of Powers's work by New York Review Books Classics in 2000...
...He moved through several Protestant denominations before becoming a Catholic in 1844, and then struggled with his coreligionists for the rest of his life...
...Brownson (1803-76) achieved great fame in his lifetime as a writer of political tracts, and as an intellectual steeped in controversy...
...offer important perspectives on the force Catholicism plays in the lives of individual believers...
...For example, Brownson insists that Catholic leaders should understand and appreciate the American experience, and that the American church should not be overly directed from abroad read Rome...
...These five are on my best-of-2003 list...
...In one assignment and then another, his frustration builds as he succumbs to the life of mediocrity that he had once scorned...
...They include Peter Steinfels's magisterial A People Adrift (Simon and Schuster, $26, 376 pp...
...He was Catholic at a time when the great waves of immigrants shaped the American church's political agenda...
...W. Norton, $26.95, 407 pp...
Vol. 130 • December 2003 • No. 21
