It is nothing short of astonishing that the man who wrote the excellent "What Went Wrong with Vatican II" has also written "The Defamation of Pius XII" -- one of the worst books I've ever had the misfortune to read. Amateurishly written -- e.g., "Pius's intervention at this crucial juncture was crucial." (page 129) -- edited, and presented, Ralph McInerny has rendered a disservice to Pope Pius. McInerny is correct: The former Holy Father was NOT Hitler's handmaiden -- quite the contrary. But saying so in a book that appears to have taken less than a week to complete doesn't exactly help the cause.

When Ralph McInerny takes off the gloves and pounds away at Garry Wills and other apostates and dissidents; calumniators of Pius XII; haters and enemies of the Papacy and of the Church and of the absolute moral law and immutable truths she represents...when he does this, he's unbeatable. Unfortunately, only a few pages are devoted to this bulldog attack. The rest of the book reads like the first draft of a college freshman's essay -- very badly written and the editing is pretty much non-existent. McInerny is right, of course -- Pope Pius XII has been outrageously defamed by Wills and others of his ilk. The mystery is why such an intelligent, informed and able writer (do read his work on Vatican II) has written such a terribly clumsy book -- and on such an important topic. Ah, well.

Dr. McInerny starts out slow, but builds to a nice rollicking finish. As an ex-Catholic I have little sympathy for his support of dogma, but I don't appreciate seeing th Church get bashed for things it didn't do either.

This is the first UFO/alien genre book that I have ever read. Thus, it may be unfair for me to criticize on the materials in this book. However, I have to agree with other reviewers that this book is poorly written. Throughout the book, the author fails to address his points both objectively and subjectively. What upset me the most is the way this book was written. Taken any chapter from the book and submit it to a college English course, it may not even get a "B". From the sentence structure to the choice of words, nothing just seems to be right.

I think this book was the best alien/ufo book. It was very interesting because it told of first hand accounts of alien abduction. I liked how the author explained the accounts of the abductees. The author had a lot of good theories, and I liked the way the author explained each chapter.

I personally thought that this book was quite interesting. The author seemed to be very scientific and impartial, and gave everything an open mind. Further, the analysation of childhood fairies, etc. as possible aliens was very intriguing. His book was gripping, and I couldn't put it down, and I thought the detailed description of some of the abductions was chilling.

In a supposed thriller no thrill did I discouver.

Nor was there anything new about the main theme - A man changes the way he looks at life after being close to death - or, worse, surprising in the way it was presented. .

What could have been interesting in the book (and this forgetting it should have been a thriller), for instance the relation between the Pope and the jewisch doctor, the possible considerations of a Pope towards death and other topics related to religion in general and catholisism in particular, was never treated in a reader-binding nor deep manner.

And, besides, the end was completely predictable.

Again, the Vatican: The ageing pontiff faces death unless the famous, Jewish doctor performs surgery immediately. The risk? Nothing much - it's like getting into a car or a plane. You accept the risk, then forget it. Turning down surgery carries swift - and certain - death, so the heir of the fisherman accepts.

Being under the knife brings the iron-fisted hard-liner to a personal crisis, and he emerges another man after having seen death in the eye - thus the title. But the statistical risk of not making it through surgery is infinitesimal - compared to becoming the target of professional assassins as they gather around their prey.

As often is with West, he combines quick action with personal trauma. And once again, he does it well. The thrill and the thoughts are both essential, and the book is worth reading. And, not surprisingly, a twist at the end.

Pennington has fanned an arid wind over a dry topic. Heads were banging on desks when we discussed this in my senior history seminar. Nevertheless, the second chapter is comendable for its brevity.

I disagree with the former review. Pennington's description of the papal government and law is thorough and simple enough for students to comprehend. The first chapter "Innocent and the Divine Autority of the Pope" is an important source. Innocent III was the first pope to regard himself as vicar of Christ. He established an important tradition of political thought in which the pope's authority was catagorized into 2 types: those powers that were human and those that were divine. The author discusses Inoccent's view of the law and government along with the other popes of the era, and important canonists like Huguccio.
Compared to Walter Ullman's study - "The Growth of Papal Government in the Middle Ages" - Pennington's is a fresh breath of air. Want people to bang their heads and jump out the window? Let them read Ullman...

Reading G's book about Catholicism is a saddening experience to anybody who lived through the dark and traumatic period of the final days of the Weimar Republic and Hitler's "Reich," ending with the devastating second world war. G. lacks this experience, but he also totally ignores the significant works of Jewish authors who personally experienced the teachings and actions of Catholicism during this critical period. I am thinking of Max Scheler, Edith Stein, and Simone Weil. Nor do the books of Sr. Marchione which deal with Pius XII seem to have left any traces in G's "indictment" of priests, popes, and the general Catholic population. There are, of course, terrible "non-Christian" flaws and shortcomings within the Church at all times and in all layers of the faithful. But they were few during the reign of Pope Pius XI and his successor. So why this attempt to make all Christianity now and at all times appear to be a hateful disgrace to mankind?
Rainulf A. Stelzmann (read about me)

A Moral Reckoning: The Role of the Catholic Church in the Holocaust and Its Unfulfilled Duty of Repair by Daniel Jonah Goldhagen is a difficult book to read not because of the strong message, but because of the way that it is delivered. Goldhagen central thesis is one that has historical and moral resonance - that the Catholic Church, as a moral force, is culpable as a collaborator, if not an instigator, in the Final Solution. The Church as the self professed embodiment of Christ, participated in creating the climate that lead to the Final Solution through the dissemination of virulent anti-Semitism, and then turned its back on any responsibility in mitigating the effects of its policy or acting as a break on the Final Solution.

This is not a book on the history of the Church's involvement in the Nazi movement, but a moral inquiry into that involvement. Goldhagen message centers around the proposition that the Church is supposed to be more than organization whose purpose is its own perpetuation, regardless of the costs to others. Rather, the Church as the representative of Christ on Earth has a higher moral obligation which includes the responsibility not to encourage hatred of others, nor participate in the genocide of non-believers, as the Church directly did in Fascist Croatia and elsewhere.

The Church has taken the position that it is innocent of all wrong doing, and has attempted to explain away, or at best minimize, any involvement that it did have. Goldhagen writes that until the Church takes full responsibility for its acts there can never be any true reconciliation nor can Church rid itself of its guilt. This is especially necessary given the Church's emphasis on the need to ask forgiveness of ones sins.

There is nothing wrong with Goldhagen's message, although it is unquestionably controversial. However, the way that it is delivered makes it difficult to hear. What Goldhagen takes almost 400 pages to say could more easily be said in less than half the apace. The book is highly repetitive, so much so that the message loses its effect and is difficult to read. It reminds one of the statement by Mark Twain, where he apologized for writing a long letter because he didn't have time to write a short one. The bottom line is that Goldhagen should have turned the book into a long essay.

Goldhagen's book makes no apology for being a polemic, nor should it. The several people who codemn the book here are ignoring the greater truth of Goldhagen's work.

The explicit and implicit anti-semitism of the Christian religion (not merely the Catholic Church) is the great moral failure of Western history. No amount of quibbling about mislabeled photo captions can erase that fact.

The Jewish people as a whole have been exploited, defamed and demonized for centuries under the moral guidance of the "Christian" nation-states of Europe. The "Catholic King" of Spain (that was his title - el Rey Catolico) expelled all Jews from Spain in 1492. The kings of England ("Defender of the Faith') expelled Jews several times over the centuries. The Orthodox czar of Russia banished Jews to the Pale of Settlement. The Pope himself ruled over one of the most squalid and cruel ghettoes in Europe for more than 300 years - which was not liberated until the late 19th century. No other people in the history of Europe were subjected to this degree of harrassment and persecution - which, while stopping short of extinction, often ended in the mass murder of whole populations.

And it is a sad fact that even today defamatory comments about "the Jews" spring easily to many people's lips. While one may have a negative opinion of the actions of individuals who happen to be Jewish, at this point in history is disgusting to hear the same canards being repeated again and again against an entire people.

This is not an easy book for any Catholic to read, but it is absolutely necessary in order to frame the scope of the injustice done to the Jewish people.

Goldhagen has focused a spotlight on the moral void at the heart of Catholicism. That moral void becomes more apparent with each day, as the Church teeters under the blow of sexual abuse scandals. Based on its performance, Catholics of conscience should thoroughly question whether this institution can be entrusted their spiritual well-being.

Take one of the most fascinating topics in Renaissance history and give it to the most inexperienced History Channel screenwriter -- you know: the ones who don't have too much to say, and consequently repeat every thin fact endlessly -- and you have this book. After having read it, I know no more than if I had read the Encyclopedia Britannica entry for Giordano Bruno. I was not only uninformed but bored as well. The only reason I finished the book at all is that I couldn't believe that the author went so far with so little data.

Firstly, I would like to know more about Giordano Bruno's contribution to Renaissance thought. Although some Italian sources were referenced in the notes and bibliography, I am not convinced that White actually tackled them himself. Secondly, I would not have minded some more apropos quotes from Bruno himself -- even if it meant padding the book a bit -- anything but the endless repetition of a few basic biographical facts.

It appears that Michael White has written other books on the general subject of scientific history, books that garnered some decent reviews. I sincerely hope that this was just an odd lapsus menti and not the sign of a fourth-rate biographer.

This is the story of the under-appreciated philosopher and scientist Giordano Bruno, who was executed by the Roman Inquisition for exercising free anti-church thought. A very specific historical episode like this requires hard history and scholarship, but Michael White writes as if this is a general interest story for a general audience. Therefore this treatment is nonsensical from the outset. White fails to deliver the goods on any of the important areas influenced by Bruno's story, and the book flies over a great many interesting areas of subject matter but lands in none of them.

The key flaw in the book is White's attempt to place Bruno's work in a historical context, which merely results in disjointed coverage of his actual philosophy and extremely unconvincing attempts to show Bruno's supposedly vast influence on figures like Galileo, Shakespeare, and Spinoza. White takes the opportunity to cover, in two short chapters, the evolution and history of scientific and religious thought in Europe (chapters II and III), but these treatments are far too basic too be of much use, and show the writing style of a quick high school research paper. White even assumes that he's qualified to call the works of Aristotle "amateurish." Another possibility that is squandered is deeper insight into the causes and effects of the Inquisition, but White only provides a basic reporter's coverage of Bruno's trial.

Worst yet is the biographical aspect of the book, as the story of Bruno's life is out of order and fragmented. His actual philosophical and scientific works, which should be the centerpiece of the book, are given short shrift, especially his important attempts at unified knowledge rather than specialization. White fails as a biographer as he includes the supposed private thoughts and opinions of Bruno and the other players in the story, men who have been dead for centuries and didn't write autobiographies. This is unprofessional and quite impossible to take seriously. In the end, we are left with little knowledge of Bruno the man and his potentially important story, so one must wonder about the very point of the book. Not recommended.

Understanding this book as a cheap detective novel is playing to the down side of things. If you really want to like this book, try thinking of the song, "True Colors" by Tom Kelly and Billy Steinberg, most famously done by Cyndi Lauper and available with a lot of popular hits on the CD "Twelve Deadly Cyns." The first line of that song, "You with the sad eyes," also reminds me of the poem "Woman, Why Do You Weep?" at the end of HUNDRED WHITE DAFFODILS by Jane Kenyon, which was not published during Jane's lifetime and will never be as famous as a pop hit like "True Colors" (I remember some Paris concert where the crowd could sing the words to "True Colors," and you could see it on videotape, but you can only get the regular video on DVD). Typically emotional in that song is the line, "If this world makes you crazy and you've taken all you can bear, you call me up because you know I'll be there." (Copyright 1986, and this isn't really fair use of those lyrics, because this is not a paid, professional commercial for the contents of that song.)

Fortunately for our sanity, the church of our times is no longer imposing punishments in a manner which might now be more expected from secret military tribunals or the war on drugs as waged outside the jurisdiction of the world's greatest superpower. In THE POPE & THE HERETIC by Michael White, the church at Rome seems to have learned from the Bible how to excuse itself in the manner of Pontius Pilate, and its official condemnation of Giordano Bruno on February 8, 1600 required another hearing on the same day. "This hearing was called because the Holy See never sentenced heretics to the stake directly; with characteristic hypocrisy it always passed that duty on to a civil authority. The official statement from the Holy Office to the governor of Rome was invariable: `Take him [the heretic] under your jurisdiction, subject to your decision, so as to be punished with the due chastisement; beseeching you, however, as we do earnestly beseech you, so to mitigate the severity of your sentence with respect to his body that there may be no danger of death or of the shedding of blood. So we Cardinals, Inquisitor and General, whose names are written beneath decree.' This statement was effectively an order to the secular court. They were to take Bruno and burn him alive." (pp. 4-5). Only after sentence had been passed did the bishop of Sidonia take away his priest's insignia "and condemned his soul to suffer the perpetual flames of Hell, symbolically degrading his spirit just as the flames would degrade his physical body. The cardinals and the secular judges wanted to erase the very essence of this heretic, just as of all heretics." (p. 5). The rest of the book attempts to describe the true colors of Bruno in terms that a popular audience, certainly not as committed to the laws of science or jurisprudence as professionals in those fields would be, can easily understand.

The society of the late 16th century was exciting in a lot of ways, and this book attempts to capture that excitement more than any philosophical doctrine or memory techniques that Bruno had developed. Even modern science is only mentioned as an average person might be able to picture it. "To a degree, scientists began to conceptualize as Bruno had done, rather than only as Galileo had taught them. . . . The best example of this comes from the work of one of the greatest thinkers of the twentieth century, Richard Feynman, who created what have become known as Feynmann diagrams, pictorial representations of complex subnuclear transactions. And Bruno's vision of picture logic is actually used by almost everyone in the industrialized world each day, for we live in a world dominated by computers, and computers are machines that generate images." (p. 197).

My favorite part of this book is about Giovanni Mocenigo, who invited Bruno to Venice in 1591. (p. 35). There were "three popes between the death of Sixtus V in August 1590 and the accession of Clement VIII in February 1592," (p. 36, n. 1) providing the kind of confusion in which "we can only assume magnified self-confidence and an exaggerated sense of self-worth provided him with the strength he needed. He was blind to the genuine dangers and believed he would find acceptance and leniency." (p. 37). As a superpower, America seemed to feel the same way after WWII, just before Americans stopped talking about the real situation. To get his work printed, Bruno had to go to Frankfurt. He was packing on May 22, 1592, when Mocenigo "began to complain that I had not taught him what I promised. Then he used threats saying he would find means, if I did not remain of my own free will, to compel me." (p. 44). America has been about that unlucky, trying to teach the rest of the world what democracy is supposed to be like, when Americans themselves are prevented from interfering with operations of the CIA or whatever else passes for American foreign policy in the dark corners of the night. You might find some other lesson in this book if you are reading it in a prison while serving time for possession of some illegal substance, but it ought to be showing you the true color of something.

I have no doubt that John Hogue (as well as some of the reviewers of his book) would love to interpret the prophecies attributed to St. Malachy as presaging the end of the universal or Catholic Church while having no implications for the rest of physical existence. However, a more careful analysis would seem to indicate that he is predicting, ultimately, the end of not only the Church Temporal but temporality itself, i.e., the end of time. For example, in the last prediction concerning Petrus Romanus, Malachy points out (translating from the Latin into English) that at the end of Peter's pontificate, the dreadful judge will judge his people. Although dreadful has come to mean something bad, unpleasant or even awful in contemporary English (particularly American English), its more traditional definition is closer to inspiring dread or fear (indeed the term awful originally meant something more like awe-inspiring).

A reasonable inference is that the judge who inspires dread is God. Traditional, classical, pre-Protestant, pre-American, pre-Hogueian Christianity (i.e the faith of the fathers) teaches that ALL shall be judged by God (specifically in His Second Person)at the end of the world, not just the membership of the Catholic Church. There is no basis in scripture or Tradition for a belief in an antecedent, limited judgement applicable to Catholics exclusively.

To summarize, if John Hogue and his fellow anti-Catholics look forward to the day when St. Malachy's prophecy is fulfilled and those pesky Catholics are finally out of the way, on that day they shall find themselves out of the way as well. But even then, they shall be confronted with the Church Triumphant.

This book would have been a lot better if the author had stuck to discussing the prophesies of St. Malachy (preferably in a scholarly rather than sarcastic tone). Instead he went off on a bizarre rant against the Catholic Church. It didn't seem to belong in this book. If he wanted to do a critique of the Catholic Church that should have gone in another book entitled "My Critique of the Catholic Church"...I'm not even Catholic and I found his critique offensive.

John Hogue's book is well written and easily read. If you're a church history buff, the book an interesting interpretation of the papal line of succession since the 12th century. In the end one must conclude that St. Malachy did not really prophesy about these popes, but another seer with pretty fair accuracy did.

Mr. Hogue evidently completed the book in early 1998, and in later chapters he expounds about the present pope, John Paul II, and his two future successors. In trying to interpret the future as forseen by "St. Malachy," Nostradamus, and others Mr. Hogue falls flat. Luckily for us, many of the things "predicted" for 1998, 1999, and 2000 have not come true!

Mr. Hogue does approach the reputation of almost every pope since 1143 with emphasis on the worst. If you want to hear lots of "dirt" on these men, this is the book to read. This book serves to shed some much needed light on the real history of the Roman Catholic Church, and its possibly very limited future.

Fans of Jack Ryan might be tempted as I was, to see how Ryan shares a history with the Foleys, reveal the backghround to his stint in UK, etc. But I was badly disappointed. The tiny morsels to Ryan's background in the other books were a far superior treatment to his history then this lame book Clancy squeezed out here.

There are many tired, repeated quips about plane travel, eye surgery being his wife's thing, his Jesuit/Catholic influence, his peerage and the many denigrations of Russian society which have lost their relevance and urgency with the passingg of the Cold War. Clancy's attempt to paint a grey picture of Rusian society under communism bores you to tears instead of frightening you.

I used to struggle to put down a Clancy novel but this time, I struggled to pick it up! I guess the other reviewers are right, Clancy is no longer a writer. Well all the best to Clancy, he entertained with his earlier books. But to the reader to whom this is due, save your hard-earned money for something interesting! There is new blood out there!

When Clancy first started he was well worth reading. He had the ability to create enjoyable techno thriller novels that blended technology with complex characters and interesting story lines. His books seemed to come alive for the reader. Unfortunately, a couple of novels back, that ability seemed to disappear as he insisted editors were meaningless in interview after interview and moved away from technology. His books also seemed to lose their thriller component at the same time and moved into long discourses on political theory and his views of the same. That same trend continues in the recent novel.

This novel follows Jack Ryan and a host of other folks around in the early 80's during the uprising in Poland while President Reagan began calling the USSR the Evil Empire. As Shakespeare once asked about another priest, the Russians are not happy with Pope John Paul. Their unhappiness is worsened by his thinly disguised threat that if the Russians do not leave Poland alone, he will resign the papacy and return to Poland to be with his people. The Russians have a solution-kill the Pope. But to do so, they have to use outside personnel and hence the Bulgarians are contacted. The plot is hatched, the good guys in the form of Jack Ryan and all move to stop it as well as launching a plan of their own. They have an idea to bring the USSR down. As they say, the rest is history.

And that is precisely one of the two major problems with the book. For many of us who are old enough to remember, we lived through those days and the attack on the Pope. Regardless of church affiliation or religion, the attack was a shock at the time and we know how it ended-or at least, the public version of events. By going back to that time, the burden was on Clancy to provide a new perspective on events as well as making the known history interesting. Unfortunately, he failed.

He also once again commits the sin of being fundamentally boring. When he wrote his techno thrillers, he could go on for several pages about how various components of various systems connected and there was some interest for the reader. A few novels ago, he decided to forgo the techno aspect of his novels and apply the same long-winded discourse to inner mental processes of his characters. It simply does not work. At one point, he has one of the many Russians characters mentally ruminate about the history of Marxist-Leninist theology in Russia for over ten mind-numbing pages. The only action by the character is to gaze into the fire and sip his alcoholic beverage of choice while he goes on and on about the subject in his head.

As in his other books, because of Clancy's access to sources, one has to wonder how much of the book beyond the public facts is real. That might be precisely why Clancy is writing this kind of book instead of what worked before. In these days where a law enforcement officer can get a person's library records for no other reason than curiosity, Clancy may be concerned that his sources would receive extraordinary attention. After all, he has had some experience in this regard. Setting a book on events twenty years ago may solve that problem.

Or it could be, Clancy may simply think that he can write anything and it will sell. Clearly as he has often stated in his arrogance, there is no need for his books to be edited and at 618 pages it comes in smaller than most of his have lately. He may simply believe that the book buying public is a moth to the flame and as long as his name is on it, he will make millions. At the time of this writing, it appears to be true so far. At some point, one would expect the public to understand that the Clancy of old is not the Clancy of now and to stop buying his line or his books.

In the meantime, it is my humble opinion as a reader that this book is simply not worth the paper it is printed on. Unless you need a doorstop, I would urge you to adopt the Nancy Reagan philosophy-just say no!

Let's see. Not a shot fired until page 603 or somewhere thereabouts. Six hundred pages of exposition. Six hundred pages during which Clancy apparently forgets that he's already told the story of the KGB office thrown live into a crematorium oven, because different characters in the book tell that story four times. Six hundred pages during which he apparently forgets he's already used the phrase "that's above my pay grade" to mean more classified than the speaker is allowed, because a good half dozen characters use that phrase. The frequent comments by or to another half dozen characters regarding Mrs. Dr. Ryan cutting into eyeballs and the constant revisiting of Mr. Dr. Ryan's helicopter crash begin to wear on the reader as it comes to resemble, more and more, a padding of the word count.
Six hundred pages without a single conflict or a single moment of suspense. Six hundred pages that don't even come with the usual Clancy feeling of impending conflict or doom. Even the descriptions of spycraft that usually would grab the reader's attention fall flat here. No interesting technical details or gadgets. No compelling villains. For that matter, no compelling heroes. The men are all good church-going manly men who all belong to the same Manly Men club, except the drunken Russians, and the women are all capable, competent, professional women who still come home and cook and clean for their men because "that's what women do." The only moderately interesting characters in the book are the Foleys, and we don't see enough of them. Now that we've run out of socially acceptable villains to demonize..., Clancy's going to have his work cut out for him. Perhaps Mr. Chavez and Mr. Clark could pay a visit to Afghanistan or drop in on a few Al Quaeda training camps?

I bought this book from Amazon.com, looked at for about thirty minutes, and moments later was prepareing to return it. It's so short, sloppy and utterly worthless it's unbelievable. The pictures are too small and the authors don't really give detailed enough information on what day geckos need to live in captivity. Compared to Mckeown's book and some of the more recent European day gecko books (sold at Amazon.com), the Bartletts' book is a joke.

This book is not worth even a few dollars. Better coverage of day gecko care can be found on the internet and in herp magazines. Barrons has yielded quality pet books in the past, but this pooplication leaves much to be desired.

Reasons why this book is such poor quality are apparent even at a glance. The pictures are too small. Hardly any information is provided on the proper substrates to use in vivariums for day geckos. Virtually nothing regarding temperature requirements for various species is provided. Some of the information provided is actually semi-dangerous the animals themselves. Most of the advice given in regards to maintaining day geckos outdoors is absurd. As if all this were not enough: the text is written seemingly at the elementry school level. If you really want a useful book about day geckos, I highly recommend The General Care and Maintenance of Day Geckos, by Sean Mckeown. It is the best guide to day gecko husbandry in the English language and is sold at Amazon.com.

In short, this guide is too small and does not provide enough detail to be considered useful even to the begininng day gecko keeper.

That anyone could take this bit of literary garbage seriously is incredible. It consists wholy of speculation, lies, and propaganda promulgated by small-minded people. Don't waste your time on this rubbish.

It is amazing how some will prostitute the truth to sell a book. Books such as Born in Blood are more accurate speculations of the nature and roots of the Masonic fraternity, which is all that the organization is. What is truely sad is that these falsehoods take on a life of their own. The book was written from ingnorance and has only perpetuated ignorance.

The book should be boot, it is a sinister evilness that try's to hurt and offend a socieity of brotherhood thru the all seeing eye of God.

I wasted my time reading about lies.