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Garry Wills is a bonafide intellectual, with a lot of prestigious book awards as proof --- but don't let that scare you off. There are no long passages here in other languages without translation, and no footnotes to stumble over - though, if you're interested in reading further and knowing sources, there are endnotes, plus an index for ease of later reference. But mainly there's a lot of the same clear writing and passionate belief in his subject that won Mr. Wills those awards, like a Pulitzer and a couple from National Book Critics, and the National Medal for the Humanities (1998).
I first became aware of Garry Wills when I read BARE RUINED CHOIRS back in the early 1970s. I read (and write) mostly fiction, and I admit I was drawn to that title because I'm a certifiable Gothic nut. But no matter what attracted me, I stayed with the book and have always been glad I did. A couple of years ago I read PAPAL SIN, which, as Wills says in his introduction, directly inspired the writing of WHY I AM A CATHOLIC. The present book stands very well on its own, and you don't have to be a practicing Catholic to appreciate it. The book gives to its reader on a lot of different levels, depending on what experience you bring to your reading, and what you want to get back.
In a first and perhaps too brief section, Mr. Wills gives a barefaced, affecting account of growing up Catholic in a working-class family, going to Catholic schools and being taught by nuns and priests, of what happens and doesn't happen when you're a really smart kid who thinks maybe too much. His memories are sharp, poignant, and evocative of a time not long ago, yet now gone forever. (Confession: I'm about a decade behind him in age, and my eyes were moist more than once with remembering things like how we girls in the choir used to play canasta behind the organ during certain long sections of the solemn high masses of Holy Week.)
Given that he skipped a grade of elementary school, Garry Wills couldn't have been much more than 17 when, in the early 1950s, he graduated high school and went immediately into the novitiate at a Jesuit Seminary. There he had difficulties, which he tells with courage and candor. He lets us see how the problems of his early years gave rise to the man he became. Certain themes, and the admiration of certain men and their minds (Chesterton, Augustine, Aquinas), began then and have been worked, reworked, refined into the vision he presents later in this book --- and in fact, in all his books.
The middle section of WHY I AM A CATHOLIC is the book's longest and most scholarly. The material is essentially the same as in PAPAL SIN, yet it is presented differently. As fascinating as it is to have read the earlier book too, I think the presentation here is more meaningful in some ways. Wills spells out the history of the errors of the papacy --- including the whole "I say to thee thou art Peter and upon this rock" thing. Wills wants us to understand that the papacy is not the Church. Popes do make mistakes (gross understatement). You can be a good Catholic and disagree with what's coming out of Rome; in fact, you might be a better Catholic for having reasoned out for yourself, and for having expressed your disagreement, in whatever way you chose. You could even write a couple of books about how you disagree, yet still go to Mass every week and say the rosary every day --- as Wills himself does.
The concluding section, an analysis and defense of The Credo, AKA the Creed, AKA the Apostles' Creed, I thought was something of a letdown. I believe my reaction was a personal one --- even though when I'm reviewing a book, I try to read more objectively than I otherwise might. But WHY I AM A CATHOLIC had become personal to me by that point, I can't deny it. I cared, I was examining myself and my own vacillations and permutations of faith, I was taking it all to heart. Other readers may find this third section to be, as Wills appears to have intended, a natural, moving, affirming outgrowth of the previous two.
Originally scheduled for publication about now, WHY I AM A CATHOLIC was moved up to mid-July 2002 because of the conference of Catholic bishops called in the United States for that same time --- the conference that developed groundbreaking policy for dealing with priests accused of sex abuse of minors. In October, the Vatican (i.e., the papacy) refused to accept the recommendations of the United States bishops. That news was pretty much obscured by The Sniper and Bush vs. Saddam, but I'm sure Garry Wills noticed.
I'm equally sure he was not surprised that the Vatican refused to accept the decision of the US bishops. He's disappointed, maybe, but he will still be a Catholic. His passion for his faith is a bright light, one that illuminates and does not blind.
--- Reviewed by Ava Dianne Day
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