"Every Child a Light: The Pope's Message to Young People" combines excellent full-color photographs with excerpts from the discourses of Pope John Paul II. The book is edited by Jerome M. Vereb. This book is full of visual appeal. The photographs, which show John Paul interacting with children of various ages, are crisp and full of life. The Pope is effectively depicted as a caring and joyful man.

The book is beautifully designed. The Pope's word's are arranged as poetry on the pages; this nicely complements the photos. The text is drawn from the Pope's global ministry.

The content of the words themselves is often rather bland and vague. Controversial topics are generally avoided. Sometimes the messages are a bit mixed. In one excerpt, for example, the Pope seems to be taking a multifaith tone, praising children for offering each other "a hand / with no regard for color, / social condition, or religion." Elsewhere he seems more theologically exclusive. For example, he claims that "a generous 'yes' to Christian faith / is the purest sense of the fullness of life"--a statement which I'm sure those of other faiths would dispute!

Still, many of the statements are relevant and inspirational to young people of any faith or culture. He tells young people, "The future belongs to you; / for you are the leaders of tomorrow" and challenges them to be "men and women of high principles / and hopes." But the book as a whole is, in my judgment, mainly relevant for Catholic children and adults.

Not only did the photographs in this magnificent production touch the heart, but the words of the Holy Father are emblazoned in our minds for all to see for years to come. His holiness shows his tenderness and love of children in the words and pictures, revealing his compassion, humor, and child-like love.

This book is beautiful from several perspectives. As a Catholic, I delighted in the glimpses of the Holy Father's journey through time and around the world. While certainly not a photography connoisseur in any sense, I thought the photos themselves were works of art and their large glossy reproduction enhanced their effect. I really enjoy the weight and texture of large 'coffee table' books printed on such good paper. The text accompanying the photos was a great, if (necessarily) short, history of the Pope and the Vatican up to 1996, which does not stray too far into debate over politics / theology / Church policy, without making the mistake of avoiding mention of controversy all together. I find myself going back to look at particular images, as they convey a great sense of the Church alive, even in countries where she is persecuted. The book as a whole left me with a much more visual sense of the Pope's mission and a greater respect for him as a man and a pontiff. I loved this book and while I don't, unfortunately, own it yet, I will buy it if I get the chance.

This photojournalistic presentation of the pontiff is the best tribute to this spiritual giant of our day. An award-winning news photographer and an accomplished journalist together have brought out the best of Pope John Paul II through this documentation in words and images. There are, as many as 135 previously unpublished photographs in color, of the Pontiff from 1978 to 1995. Each of these photos by Gianni Giansanti, is a work of art in itself and all of them together take one deep into the personality of the Pope. The text written by Marco Tosatti who has accompanied the Pope on his pastoral visits for 14 years, is filled with information unavailable elsewhere. The book is organized into three sections: the Vatican, Private Life and Papal Travels. There is also an introduction that gives some biographical details of the Pope. This book paints a complete and true-to-life portrait of a Pope who has made a remarkable impact upon our times.

This book provides an invaluable resource for readers of any 18th century naval series. It clearly explains Naval life from the aspects of all involved. The book is well illustrated with consice, and really usefull diagrams, and is filled with sketches of artefacts from the period it describes. A detailed Bibliography and index make this book a rival to Patrick O'Brian's similar book. Although I have not read any of the Ramage series, and have read the entire Aubrey/Maturin saga I prefer this to the other author's work. For an account of what life was like in Nelson's Navy I would advise you that your money is better spent on this book than any other availiable on the market currently.

Mr. Pope (greatly missed) does a superb job of detailing the activities, traditions, command structure, punishments, battles and nautical slang. This book is filled with informative information for anyone with an interest in the Age of Sail, the battles, the famous ships and commanders. If anybody reads the Kent, O'Brien, Pope or Forrester novels, this book will assist in rounding out the overall picture, a couple of sterling examples are the promotion system and how the ships were rated. Excellent and often humorous account.

This small volume (fewer than 60 pages of text) is well worth tracking down through the 'out-of- print' mechanisms. Originally a lecture, the book introduces Piero della Francesca as a "reclusive, silent, rather taciturn friend", but a friend nonetheless. Mr Henessey's rounded analysis and warm descriptions of both the painter and his paintings certainly allow the reader to establish a relationship with Piero. Depsite the author's slightly disparaging remark about "tourists in their rented Fiats" following the Piero della Francesca trail, I urge travellers (Fiat driven, armchair or others) to increase their knowledge, appreciation and sheer enjoyment of Piero by slipping this volume into their luggage or onto the bookshelf. The book is usefully illustrated.

One of the pleasures of a small book is the ability to savour the author's writing. This volume combines Huxley's essay (which makes the startling claim that Piero's Resurrection is the best painting in the world) with Pope-Hennessy's lucid descriptions of Piero's works. The plates are wonderful and well arranged. PH's swipes at Kenneth Clark and John Mortimer would seem churlish in a larger, more ponderous volume, but are merely charmingly opinionated here. A lovely way to spend an hour or two.

This was first published in 1959 after the election of John XXIII, and updated in 1964 and 1979 to include subsequent pontiffs. While Father Brusher's work is of somewhat limited use to the historian (being a Jesuit, he tends to over-emphasize the majesty of the office while being eager to explain away some of the truly awful men who served), it is perhaps the only volume ever published to attempt an illustration (mosaic, painting, sculpture or photograph)of EVERY pope from St. Peter to John Paul II. That is where its true value lies: to tie human faces with the stories of the 263 men who governed the Church. And the collection of illustrations is without parallel, from many different sources. If only for these reasons (Brusher's historical sketches are adequate, but others have done it better), this book needs to be back in print!

The first time I was exposed to this book was in 1965. My 8th Grade teacher used to book a simple way to teach the Lives of the Popes. The book has its flaws as an in depth examination of each pontificate. If one is seeking for more in depth studies; many of the popes from Pius IX to John Paul II have separate books devoted to their lives. The Oxford Dictionary of the Popes has longer biographies but no pictures. Many of the pictures used by Fr. Brusher are the mosaics of the popes in the Basilica of Saint Paul Outside-the-Walls in Rome, Italy. I highly suggest the book for teaching children and non-catholics in learning about the 264 men who have served as Holy Father.

Fr. Champlin has taken an innovation by Pope John Paul II and made it accessible to the devotion of those who walk the Way of The Cross in Lent. Basing each Station of The Cross on the passage from Scripture that covers the entire Passion and not just beginning at the condemnation and ending at the entombment this work takes on the character of "Lectio Divina". We are called to enter into the Scriptural passage and meditate on its implications for us.

The Stations of the Cross with Pope John Paul II is a version that uses the modern Biblical stations with a 15th station, the resurrection. My personal bias is that the 15th station in inappropriate during Lent, that the resurrection should not be celebrated until the Triduum Easter vigil.

This version in terms of gesture and music is one of the more traditional versions. It assumes a communal celebration with Leader, Reader and "All". Each station begins with a short responsory and genuflection, the reader proclaims a scriptural passage related to the station, all kneel and the leader reads a short meditation applying the suffering of Christ at the station to our lives, the people respond with a short psalm excerpt, all stand and sing a verse of the Stabat Mater. Each station is accompanied by a line drawing.

The Vatican calls it 'fanciful and absurd,' but Yallop's indefatigable journalist style of writing pushes this book along. Fascinating stuff, and quite probable. Two interesting areas: 1)the papal plans of John Paul I, and 2)the apparent submission of Wojtyla to the status quo. Of the first-- no less a thinker than Abbe Georges de Nantes considers Albino Luciani a martyr-saint, a pope whose plans to effect the Fatima-requested Consecration of Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, to re-instate the Roman liturgy, and his plans to clean up the Vatican Bank cost him his life. David Yallop believes Luciani was murdered because of his plans to allow Catholics the right to use artificual birth control and his plans to clean up the Vatican Bank. Murder figures into both these men's calculations of this extraordinary event. Of the second, who would deny that Wojtyla has left the Vatican Bank unchanged and uncleansed? He also has not, according to seer Sister Lucia, effected the Consecration of Russia, nor has he changed the Church's law on artificial contraception. He has, interestingly, restored the Roman liturgy to usage. The true face of Villot showed itself during the reign of Paul VI, and is captured unflinchingly in Yallop's book. Even Paul VI knew of Villot's clear submission to Freemasonry, but he cowered in the face of it for years before acting. This is the kind of book that makes Malachi Martin believable. I think an even more intriguing question than whether and by whom Pope John Paul I was murdered, is whether important decisions in the life of Catholics which would prescind from the pope alone, subsequent to Luciani's death either did or did not happen; to look at it from this angle brings Yallop's arguments, as far as they go, into an even sharper focus. It's hard to be disappointed with ideas this interesting, and serious.

David Yallop exposes the chief suspects in the mysterious death of Albino Luciani, the shortest reigning pope in nearly 400 years. Luciani, known as Pope John Paul I, proposed doctrinal and hierarchical changes that may have motivated six men to murder him in late September 1978. After reading this book, it is clear there is more to the story than the official account, and it is also interesting to wonder how Catholicism would be different today if Luciani had served as pope for the last 23 years.

John Paul I, Albino Luciani, died after being easily elected as Pope only 33 days after his election. Though, unlike what Yallop would want to believe, we do not know what polcies he would have pursued had he lived. The general trend ever since this book was published - and even beforehand - was/is for anyone remotely interested in the Catholic Church to assume Luciani would have followed policies they would like. Yes, John Paul II has put the church on a definite course for centuries to come with documents like Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, but nobody knows for sure if Luciani would have been altogether different.

David Yallop apparently did a lot of good reaseach for this book, and he gives a good outline of Luciani's life and family history, from his youth in Forno Di Canale to his seminary studies and thesis to his days as bishop of Vittorio Veneto and Patriach of Venice. He is extremely impressive in his outlining of the problems faced by a wealthy Church - especially in the way it contradicts Jesus' teachings in the Gospels - and its history from the days when Mussolini singed the Lateran Treaty. The Lateran treaty gave enormous amounts of money to the Vatican, which it invested through Bernadino Nogara in many large corporations. We see how Nogara bought shares in companies that manufactured goods inconsistent with Catholic teaching - his investments were free of doctrinal considerations.

After Nogara's death in 1958, the Vatican began to have financial troubles due to the cost of Vatican II. Though Yallop revealed little about the following period, he is most effective in showing how clearly the Vatican, in an effort to evade taxes, forged links with such notorious con men as Roberto Calvi and Michele Sindona, who, after Paul Marcinkus became head of the "Vatican Bank", took control of Vatican finances.

This was, as Yallop points out, a disaster because huge sums of money was lost by the Vatican due to a series of scandals aimed at taking money to offshore tax havens. Pope Paul VI might have had dreams of becoming "the first poor Pope in modern times", but such dreams were clearly fabled in the circumstances. There were many links between these criminals and the corrput P2 masonic lodge led by Licio Gelli, who is supposed to have decided to murder the Pope after he wished to reveal the list of Masons in important positions in the Vatican. The whole chain revealed brilliantly by Yallop confirms the Vaticans involvement in organised crime through the "Vatican Bank".

Albino Luciani was shown excellently to be a honest and incorruptible man who believed that the Church could not be rich if it wished to conform with the teachings of Jesus. This is why Luciani wanted to clean up the Vatican Bank and remove Calvi, Sindona and Marcinkus from it. This seemed a simple and logical decision given that the Vatican was suffering from financial problems by that point.

However, Yallop brutally points out that it was not difficult for those involved with P2 to enter the Vatican and poison the Pope without giving a visible residue - thus the conclusion that he had died of heart failure. Yallop, however, clearly and simply points out that with Luciani's lifestyle he was not likely to suffer from heart failure - he ate a healthy diet and he suffered from low blood pressure.

Thus, it is not unreasonable to conclude that Luciani was in fact murdered, though there are so many sources apparently concerning this question that it is difficult to tell, and other sources make dubious claims Luciani would have "disowned" Humanae Vitae.

This book should be read by anybody wishing to understand the darker side of the history of the Catholic Church, and is interesting for anyone who wished to read about organised crime in general.

This magnificent piece of scholarship has already raised the hackles of many Catholics. It should not.

David Kerzter's work extends the ongoing study of how much the Catholic Church contributed to anti-Semitism in the 19th and 20th centuries--a study that must continue if Catholic-Jewish relations are ever to be fully normalized, as both the Jewish people and the current Holy Father would like.

Kertzer takes the work of James Carroll and John Cornwell (reviled by many) a step further: Neither Carroll nor Cornwell had access to the same recently-opened secret Vatican archives as Kertzer. He can thus refute, with full confidence, the 1998 Vatican claim in a report called "We Remember: A Reflection on the Shoah," that the Catholic Church bore no responsibility for the Nazi Holocaust.

"The Vatican Commission, which came out with a report after 11 years, totally misrepresented what that history was," Kertzer told Eric J. Greenberg of Jewish Week in mid-September, 2001. "Unfortunately, the official Church is unwilling and unable to come to terms with its own history."

In fact, Kertzer found considerable evidence of Vatican-sponsored anti-Jewish incitement. He rightly believes that there is no difference between the Church's anti-Judaism and anti-Semitism. The Church contends that it never sponsored the latter, which it defines as a racial, socioeconomic movement opposing Church doctrine.

But Kertzer shows pages of memos, confidential letters and other documents which clearly demonstrate a continuous line of anti-Jewish policy from Popes from the 19th century forward, despite the fact that by then Jews had begun to earn freedoms so long denied them in Europe. Popes, for example, confined Jews in the Papal States to live in cramped ghettos without hospitals, denying them the right to work in most occupations--policies which remained in force into the 20th century, despite protests by Jewish leaders and even some Cardinals.

Mussolini's anti-Jewish racial laws in 1938 elicited no response from the Pope. These laws banned Jewish teachers and children from public schools and Jewish adults from civil service jobs, among other things.

The Vatican has also censored all anti-Semitic comments of Pope Pius XI contained in the official public record of his letters. Therefore, Kertzer legitimately asks about the veracity of other material released by the Holy See.

This casts doubt upon the current discussion of the Vatican's proposed beatification of Pope Pius XII. According to Kertzer, it should focus not only on what Pius XII failed to do to save Europe's Jews from 1933 through 1945. It should also center on the role of the Church in the decades-long demonization of the Jewish people.

Only after full disclosure of the Church's sins can an honest discussion between the Jewish people and the Catholic Church begin to repair the tattered bonds of these two major faiths. That is exactly why this book is critical.

Judaism teaches that, to be forgiven for sins against others, a person must ask forgiveness from those wronged. Clearly, the Church cannot seek forgiveness from millions murdered as a result of anti-Semitism it helped to spawn.

But Judaism also teaches the importance of Tikkun Olam--healing the world. This book can help humankind in that critical work--provided that the Church and Catholics respond openly, rather than defensively, to the institutional sins exposed by this dedicated historian. Alyssa A. Lappen

David Kerzer makes a noteworthy addition to the growing field of study, namely the relationship between the Catholic Church and anti-Semitism in the 19th and 20th century. Kertzer, a historian who was granted considerable access to the Vatican, examines how the church failed to condemn the rise of anti-Semitism in Europe and actually added to it.

Among other things he cites the leading roles a number of priests played in propagandizing for anti-Semitic groups, including spreading the infamous Protocols of the Elders of Zion far and wide. Moreover, he shows that the church actively supported a number of virulently anti Semitic political parties in the late 19th and early 20th century. The ideology of these parties was, in many ways, a breeding ground for the philosophy of national socialism.Kertzer cites several examples of church officials seeing Jews as evil and enemies of the faith.

No doubt many reviewers of this book will condemn it, I suspect most without ever reading it. That is unfortunate. This does nothing to help break with the past, nor does it contribute to honest scholarship. People should read this fine work by a talented historian before they tried to condemn it. If they find fault in his arguments they should cite them before they resort to polemics

Pope John Paul II recently unveiled the study, "We Remember: reflections on the Shoah," which in effect exonerated the Catholic Church from any culpability for the Holocaust or the hatred that caused it. Kertzer, in this thoughtful and evocative examination of the Church's relationship with Jews, persuasively demonstrates that no reasonable reading of the history could conclude that the Church was so blameless. Indeed, Kertzer's main evidence comes from the Church's own archives, carefully examining several hundred years of the Church's ongoing persecution of the Jews.

The work focuses on two distinct periods, the first when the Church ruled the Papal States, an area of Italy where the Pope exercised temporal as well as ecclesiastical control. This region was almost certainly the most backward and oppressive towards Jews outside of Czarist Russia. While the other European powers embraced modernity, the Church insisted on denying Jews basic civil rights and protections, forcing them to live in Ghettos, wear distinctive yellow stars, banned them from the professions and universities, and bared them from universities. The Nazi Reich adopted all of these rules when it came to power in the 20th century. Kertzer also examines how the Church hierarchy saw liberation and equality for Jews as one of modernity's great evils that should be thwarted all costs, even as it turned out, if it cost the Pope his temporal kingdom.

Kertzer then goes on to examine how after Italian unification denied the Pope his state, the church turned with a vengeance on Jewry, laying out in Catholic papers much of what would become the standard charges of modern anti-Semitism. Jews are portrayed as bent on the murder of Christians to use their blood in satanic rituals. These Catholic papers further claim Jews are in a conspiracy bent on world domination and that Jews, an oppressed minority in Europe for over 1000 years, are actually the rulers of the continent. Again, as with the rules limiting Jewish Freedoms, many of these famous canards became incorporated into modern Anti-Semitic propaganda in the 20th century.

Kertzer's work on the relationship between the rise of Catholic political parties in France and Austria and the rise of modern anti-Semitism is nothing short of seminal. These parties often led and represented in parliaments by priests relied on the worst sort of anti-Jewish vitriol. Portraying Jews as controllers of finance and the media bent on world domination, they fanned much of what became modern anti-Semitism. Kertzer even finds several examples of the parties leaders, clergy, and catholic newspapers exposing the racisialist form of anti-Semitism, that Jews even if converted to Christianity are by nature evil and not to be trusted. Beginning with these sorts of arguments could the Nazi?s eliminationist anti-Semitism be far behind?

The weakness of Kertzer's work is in his dealing with the concept of papal infallibility that took firm root in the 19th Century. Popes Against the Jews is, implicitly, a challenge to the Church's claim of institutional innocence in modern anti-Semitism, laying the blame instead on evil laymen. While a puzzling position to non-Catholics, the position is in fact internally consistent with Catholic theology. The rational goes as follows. Popes and the Church are by definition blameless and innocent, therefore any evil must have been the act of outside forces. The argument may not be satisfying to many, or even just, but Kertzer would have done well to explain it to his reader so they better understood the Church's position.

The tension between the Church and Europe?s Jews is based on 1000 years of the former?s consistent and often violent oppression of the latter. Obfuscation will not heal these deep rifts. Honest appraisals, such as this one, however give a strong basis from which one can begin to understand the history and seek ways to address these past wrongs.

At least in the West we don't tell people how to think, unlike Catholicism and Communism. Besides what has religion ever done for anyone on this planet anyhow? NOTHING! Fear of going to hell is the only thing which compels people to "believe" in Him. Also what kind of omnipotent God would create Satan? Wouldn't a perfect God know that Lucifer would turn evil before he created him, and shouldn't God be able to destroy him then? It doesn't seem like God is very omnipotent. Why did God have to instruct Noah to build an ark to save everyone, couldn't God have just snapped his fingers and made it happen? And how could Noah fit two of every insect, bird, clam, sperm whale, grizzly bear, polar bear, arctic fox, penguin, and whatnot on this planet into his boat? And how did all these animals find their way to Noah's Ark? And where did all these different races of people come from? Did Noah take a black man, white man, yellow man, red man, or whatever on his boat too? Lastly, what kind of fool would believe the Bible is actually God's word? The bible was written by people, and it's been hacked-up, edited, re-printed, and re-translated countless number of times throughout the ages. Bibles are printed in dirty factories and then later sold for profit at KMart, they didn't come from God.

To quote a certain philospher: "There was a time when religion ruled the world, it was called The Dark Ages."

As a lapsed fundementalist, I read this book with some detatchment yet not without interest. I 100% agree with martin's analyis of Marxism/Leninism which is not dead but has for some time now been operating on a cultural front. Martin's take on the reforms of Vatican II, likewise was enlightening --I had only heard about them through the media. I find nothing controversial about this book. If the Christian faith is true, it is to be expected that duplicity and falsehood and worse come with the territory; was not Judas one of the twelve? If on the other hand there is no God then the Roman Catholic church (heirarchy) is the prize, for as Martin suggests it is the sole organization capable of uniting the world. Consider the example of Auguste Comte, one of the founders of sociology and professed atheist, he promoted 'science' and hated the christian religion yet at the same time, he venerated catholicism. (Dostoyevsky's Grand Inquisitor (the Brother's Karamazov)also comes to mind regarding the Roman Catholicism's unique position in the world. Reading this book has not only, increased my admiration for Pope John Paul II, but I also am thankful for the author.

Malachi Martin's work is a veritable "tour de force." With authority (he was one of the world's foremost Vatican Scholars), skill and erudtion he meticulously traces the geopolitical ambitions of Rome from beginning, i.e. Christ's alleged comments to Peter that upon him the church would be built, to end where the Vatican winds up in charge of the One World Government. Martin posits that anyone who was under the age of 70 at the time this book was written would be alive to see the day when the nation-state, as we know it, would cease to exist.

What will be most surprising to most readers is how intimately involved the Papacy is in world politics, all for the purpose of establishing the Catholic Church as the One World Government. (See Revelation 13, 17).

Whether or not Pope John Paul II turns out to be the eventual ruler of the One World Order is irrelevant. Dr. Martin's book goes into exhaustive detail how this Pope, more than any of his predecessors in this century, has worked feverishly to keep the Vatican on the world stage as a major player. Karol Woytila has had a clear-eyed view of what the church's role should be in world affairs dating back to the time when he was a priest during the Second World War working undercover for the US Government. He learned well at the feet of the master in this regard; Stephen Cardinal Wysinzski took the young cleric under his wing during the formative years of his priesthood, and the account of his tutelage of Woytila is spellbinding.

Readers will be fascinated to learn just how much the Vatican was behind the fall of Communism in Eastern Europe, and just how closely the US and Vatican work on foreign policy issues.

This book could very well be subtitled "Prophecy Made Clear by Modern Events." John Paul II is the "Servant of the Grand Design;" papal hegemonist ambitions are in plain view. A blockbuster!!

....