By Michael O'Brien
Catholic-ometer: 3 of 5
Enjoyability: 0.5 of 5
I've read a lot of things that were boring over the course of my life; even annoying at times, but I still didn't feel bad about recommending them, because they at least got church teaching right. However, I'm afraid that this book doesn't quite get it right in several areas, and that's putting it mildly.
Teaching Problem 1; Pacifism
This is the most pronounced problem with church teaching that I can see in this book. It attempts to reconcile the Catholic Church with total or near-total pacifism. Alex is the most avid pacifist that I've seen outside of secular television, and the problem is that you can't really reconcile this with church teaching.
You see, Jesus himself wasn't a pacifist. He drove the moneychangers out of the temple with a whip, he advised his disciples to arm themselves, and he even said "Do not think that I have come to bring peace. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword."
Alex consistently stands by the belief that all problems can be solved with pacifism. All I can say is; tell that to Constantine. Tell that to Charles Martel. Tell that to Saint Joan of Arc, and the hundreds of good and holy men who fought in the first crusade, and many of the subsequent ones, to keep Europe from being overrun by invading hordes from the middle east. If there were anything in this book showing when violence was acceptable, in addition to when it's not, I'd be satisfied with that, but there simply is no place for pacifism in the authentic Christian worldview.
Teaching Problem 2; Martyrdom
The book's messages are as strong as they are badly-disguised, and unfortunately, one of the clearest is this; you need to be a martyr to win Heaven. This is demonstrated repeatedly by the trials; the miseries and the sufferings, both physical and mental that Alex endures on his journey. All well and good.
The problem is, when you focus on this to the exclusion of other methods of holiness, it belittles the white martyrdom of ordinary people, who live a kind of quiet suffering, doing their jobs and trying to convert their fellow man, but repeatedly failing. This is the kind of life which, I truly believe, most of the faithful live. They're not lost in Siberia. They're not tossing themselves into freezing, cold water. They're not being tortured in enemy prisons for information they don't have. They're doing their jobs, and trying to live as best they can in conformity with God's will; staying in a state of grace and seeking forgiveness when they sin. This is the really important thing; not the depth of what you suffer, which leads me to the next teaching problem.
Teaching Problem 3; Lumping suffering, love and insanity together
Alex seems to have a problem with the word "love." He uses it a lot more than he should, in many situations that don't call for it. In particular, he uses it incessantly when he's locked in cells and being tortured out of his mind. That's not love. That's madness. Love is when you care enough about someone that you put their wellbeing before your own. When a mother stays up until 3 in the morning, trying to get her sick baby's fever to go down, this is love. When a soldier takes a bullet for one of his buddies on the battlefield, this is love. When a priest drives 3 miles out of his way, despite his already-busy schedule, so that he can give last rites to a man dying of cancer, this is love. Love is not some euphoria that you experience when you're insane, and it's wrong of this book to treat it as such.
Teaching Problem 4; "Blood dissolves all frontiers."
Oh, really? Oh, -really?- Does it? So if I get my skull cut open, then all of a sudden, it's okay for me to trespass on my neighbor's property? No? Then this silly phrase, developed in Alex's madness-ridden cranium, needs to be shown the door. Blood dissolves nothing. Blood is life, as the hebrews said, and frontiers exist for a reason; to give us rights of private ownership, and to give us something to explore. That's all I need to say on this subject.
However, that's still not the end of it, because in part 4, I'll be tackling the general problems with this book.
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