Garry Wills is a historian and the author of the New York Times bestsellers What Jesus Meant, Papal Sin, Why I Am a Catholic, and Why Priests?, among others. A frequent contributor to the New York Review of Books and other publications, Wills is a Pulitzer Prize winner and a professor emeritus at Northwestern University. He lives in Evanston, Illinois.
Praise for Garry Wills's Saint Augustine
"This brilliant biography, this excellent small book, presents with
brio the life of a person who still stirs us, throws us off, speaks
to us, heart to heart. Garry Wills's agile mind matches
the agility of St. Augustine.
--New York Times Book Review
"Not often, but every now and then, a truly gifted film director
takes up well-known material... and turns a subject with
which we thought we were thoroughly familiar into something once
again strange and challenging... Garry Wills's Saint
Augustine has done this. Seldom has a long-familiar figure, whose
works fill thirteen double-columned volumes in the standard
edition, and whose life and thought have been debated for sixteen
hundred years, emerged so fresh and challenging, from so masterful
a 'director's' hand... A deft and ingenious expositor
set to work upon a great thinker."
--The New York Review of Books
Fans of Wills, one of America's foremost writers on religion, were mildly disappointed with his 1999 biography of Saint AugustineDnot because it was anything less than brilliant, but because it was so short. They needn't have worried. In his new book, Wills puts Augustine to work against the "structures of deceit" he sees built into today's Roman Catholic papacy. Wills postulates that the papacy in every era has its own besetting sin. In the medieval period, it was political power; in the Renaissance, money; today, he argues, it is intellectual dishonesty. Because the papacy is incapable of admitting error on doctrinal matters, Wills believes, it forces apologists into mental gymnastics to defend doctrines such as an absolute ban on birth control. Throughout, Wills weaves in observations from Augustine and other Church fathers, showing that the "unbroken tradition" on these issues invoked by Church authorities is an ideological, rather than historical, construct. Wills contrasts Augustine's love of parrhesia, or bold honesty, with what he sees as the papacy's habitual mendacity on issues such as the Holocaust, priestly celibacy, homosexuality and the political function of Marian devotions. He also suggests that the crisis of conscience engendered by a Church that asks its leaders to defend dishonest positions is an unacknowledged contributor to the priest shortage. Though his rhetoric is at times a bit sharp, and his historical formulae a bit too sweeping, Wills's passion is excusable since this is a philippic directed at the Church by one its ownDa sincere, faithful Roman Catholic. (June) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.
Praise for Garry Wills's Saint Augustine
"This brilliant biography, this excellent small book, presents with
brio the life of a person who still stirs us, throws us off, speaks
to us, heart to heart. Garry Wills's agile mind matches the agility
of St. Augustine.
--New York Times Book Review
"Not often, but every now and then, a truly gifted film director
takes up well-known material... and turns a subject with which we
thought we were thoroughly familiar into something once again
strange and challenging... Garry Wills's Saint Augustine has
done this. Seldom has a long-familiar figure, whose works fill
thirteen double-columned volumes in the standard edition, and whose
life and thought have been debated for sixteen hundred years,
emerged so fresh and challenging, from so masterful a 'director's'
hand... A deft and ingenious expositor set to work upon a great
thinker."
--The New York Review of Books
|
Ask a Question About this Product More... |
|
