The Truth About Muhammad

By Robert Spencer

Catholic-ometer: 4.5 of 5

Enjoyability: 4.5 of 5

I've had this book since Christmas, and only recently gotten around to reading it.  I found it, on the whole, to be a very thorough and informative book about what information about Muhammad has been in circulation in Muslim circles, and how the Muslim world generally views their central figure.

It's clear that Spencer comes at this from an American perspective; not a religious one, but this may be for the best, as it might make the book sound simply biased if written in any other way.

It's also not as enjoyable to read as certain other books are, though for me, that's just because it chronicles so much death and deception.  I'd have felt worse if the book had left these things out.

My last complaint is solely to do with the title (which I understand is largely out of the control of the author.)  The book's title is "the Truth About Muhammad."  However, inside the book, Spencer says that he's not so concerned with what Muhammad was -really,- like, as with the way that modern Muslims view him.  That's fine, and it's a viable subject for discussion, but in that case, it's more like "the Truth About How Modern Muslims -View- Muhammad."

I understand the difficulties, of course, with attempting any sort of actual biography of Muhammad.  Unlike many other historical figures, such as Napoleon, Joan of Arc, or Jesus, we don't have multiple, early documents chronicling the events of his life, so there's never any guarantee that the information that we have is true -about Muhammad himself.-

As I said, though, this is solely a problem with the title, which gives the impression that the book's purpose is to address Muhammad, as a person, rather than its real purpose; to address what modern Islam believes about him.

The Muhammad depicted in this book, and the one in which modern Islam believes, begins as a sort of self-proclaimed prophet, repeatedly having "visions" whenever it's convenient or required to get him what he wants.  However, he must have been pretty charismatic, because he soon develops a following, and starts to become a powerful military leader in the middle east.

Through it all, Muhammad's central goal seems to be religious expediency, as Spencer outlines midway through the book; anything that advances Islam being placed first in priority.  He also seems to recognize that in order for a community of believers to be truly successful, they must have dominance, fervor and something around which to unit.  The protection of the property of his followers is another point of interest.

I have zero problems with the idea that one religion must be dominant in a society, or with the view that that religion must have fervor and something around which to unite, or even that property is a basic human right.  I believe all of those things.  Yet, I draw the line at assassinations, deceptions, breaking treaties unprovoked, and so on, all of which, according to the stories, Muhammad was guilty of.  I admit, I've been disheartened by the recent trends in the American church towards depictions of a more womanized Jesus, and I think this hesitation to depict or imply overt masculinity is a major reason for the vast loss of faith that's taken place in much of the Christian world.  However, Muhammad's many crimes against the peaceful people who surrounded him prove that it's possible to go too far in the other direction.  There's simply no excuse for breaking your word, regardless of what dangers you "suspect."

Now, all that having been said, I was very pleased with this book.  It goes over lots of the stories of Muhammad which are widely-believed in the Muslim world, and addresses just why this is a problem from every non-Muslim in the world, quoting -only- from Muslim source documents as it does so.  It's expertly done.

I also find it of interest that while, like every controversial book, it's gotten mixed reviews, many negative reviews seem to amount to "this book doesn't say what Muhammad was really like/relates stories that were later inventions."  I acknowledge this is not just possible, but likely.  However, as Spencer points out near the end of the book, that's simply not the point.

Whether or not Muhammad was -anything- like he's depicted in the stories; even if the stories had been invented less than a year ago, the point would still be that these are the things that modern-day Muslims believe about him, and when Muslims commit acts of violence, they're doing so in imitation of this believed-in figure (whether or not there's any real basis for believing any of this.)  It's the commitment to this violent version of Muhammad by modern Muslims which is the problem; not the historical origins of said version.

As I said, I was impressed by Spencer's frankness, professional way of writing, boldness and honesty.  I may have had slight scruples with minor elements of the book, but I think it's the kind of book that Americans (especially those in positions of power) need to read.

Heresy

By Michael Coren

Catholic-ometer: 4 of 5

Enjoyability: 4 of 5

I very much enjoyed Coren's last book; Why Catholics Are Right, and I highly recommend that book, as it delivered precisely what it claimed to; giving a strong defense of the Catholic Church, both in teachings and in history.

However, although I enjoyed this book too, it's very different from "Why Catholics Are Right" in two essential ways.

First, unlike "Why Catholics Are Right," the book's title doesn't describe what's actually in the book.  I don't just mean that the book doesn't contain heresy, of course.  I mean that it doesn't discuss heresy, and doesn't talk about what heresy is, nor does it provide any historical information about past heresies and how they're all resurfacing today, despite having been proved false long ago.

The second part of the title is more relevant to the contents of the actual book; "Ten lies they spread about Christianity."  However, even this is not quite right.  There are ten chapters, each with a broad topic, but the individual lies addressed here number far more than ten, all told.

The second thing that makes this book noticably different from "Why Catholics Are Right," is the shift of focus off the Catholic Church, and onto "all people who believed that Jesus is God."

I mind this somewhat more than I would from a non-Catholic author like C.S. Lewis.  As obligated as we are to reach out to those who've become separated from the church, I've always had a problem with this tendency to lump all Christians together, as if we were all one group.  It doesn't make Coren's statements any less true, but there's something bittersweet about this style of writing.

Again, I can't find any claim in this book that I really disagree with, nor anything which a normal Joe with an internet connection can't verify for himself with maybe fifteen seconds worth of work, but then, I'm sure that won't stop certain people from decrying it as trash, because they're emotionally-invested in God not existing.

The main subjects of the book are the historical evidence for Jesus being a real person, the traditional atheist arguments, like the argument from evil and so on, the historical blunders of the Da Vinci Code (rather an old chestnut by now, but appreciated nonetheless,) the notion that Christians are in some way less intelligent than Atheists, the proposition that Hitler was Christian, the bunk about Christianity supporting slavery, opposing science or progress, the real Christian stance on the life issues, and a few others issues put together in the last chapter.  This is the collection of lies that Michael Coren has decided to refute, and done pretty well at, although my favorite chapters are the last two, just as reference material.

Coren does make one remark at the start of the book about how we can't really prove our faith for certain, which I very much disagree with, and another few remarks about the place of Christians in society later on, which, while technically correct, are worded somewhat weakly.  Still, it's a decent book, and if you're under any illusions about Christianity not being an essential component for civilized society, you might want to give it a look.

Hooray! I'm Catholic!

By Hana Cole & Joanna Steege

Catholic-ometer: 5 of 5

Enjoyability: 5 of 5

I recently gave the movie "the greatest miracle" one face down from a perfect score in enjoyability because of its tendency to feminize the heavenly hosts and treat Jesus and Mary like people without distinct personalities.  The same, in a sense, is done by this book, yet I feel no reservations about giving it a perfect score.  However, I have two reasons why.

First, this is not a book written for adults.  It's a children's book; meant to help kids see Jesus as a parental figure who cares about them.  While I'll be the first to say that the mere message of "Jesus loves you" is insufficient to replace the -actual- gospels, I'm not offended by it in something that was intended for children, since you have to start somewhere.

Secondly, the book is not stilted, and is, in fact, very entertaining.  The clever rhymes and beautiful pictures will keep the attention of young kids, and make the rather simple reading level more tolerable for adults as well.  Perhaps even enjoyable.

I, for example, enjoyed the fact that the book differentiates between "little" good things (like candles, palm branches, vestments, etc...,) and "big" good things (our Lord's real presence in the Eucharist.)  Learning to prioritize between different kinds of goods is an important skill for anyone, and learning to recognize and appreciate the greatest gifts given to us by God is also important.  In short, it squeezes in some key training in the faith, which is more than I expect from a book on this age level.

It's faithful, it's enjoyable, and it's a stepping stone to bigger things.  I have nothing to complain about here.

Absolute Relativism

by Chris Stefanick

Catholic-ometer: 4.5 of 5

Enjoyability: 4.5 of 5

Relativism is the bain of rational thought.  Every time; in the modern western world, that rational thought is suppressed, you can be sure some form of relativism was behind it, and this sixty-page, very short book explains why from several angles.  Here is the reason why Christianity is a better environment for clear thinking that relativism.  Here is why relativism crushes more freedoms and belief systems than any other method of thinking.  Chris Stefanick's explanations of these difficult truths are well-researched, and for the most part, right on target.  He doesn't mince words or mess around, nor ask readers to bear with him until he's already said enough on topic to earn their trust, which is a plus.  Mastery of the topic at hand is key when writing a nonfiction book like this one.

However, I can't give it a perfect grade, because at about the book's midpoint, Mr. Stefanick begins using questionable phrases to describe certain things.  For example, on page 31, he says that in addition to challenging people, Jesus also "accepted people as they were."

This alone would earn a half-star down in my book.  "Accept you as you are" is an -exceedingly- loaded phrase in the modern world.  It means essentially "being perfectly satisfied with person X, to the point of believing they're perfect, or at least, wanting nothing further out of them, and certainly never asking them to change anything about themselves or their actions."  None of this applies to Jesus in the least.  He was very clear and direct about all human beings being sinners and needing repentance and humility to get back into any kind of decent relationship with God.  He also says that Jesus welcomed all sorts of people back, regardless of their sin, but the thing is; the sin wasn't the point.  Jesus welcomed people back, not on the basis of their sin, but on the basis of their penitence.  In other words, in order to be "accepted" by Jesus, we need to be sincerely sorry for our sins.

There are a few other historical and theological missteps, but the only other serious one is this; making light of the importance of being Catholic, and implying that other religions, in their way, can "lead others to God."

Sure, people sincerely trying to follow the tenets of a religion turn their thoughts to God, and maybe, if they knew that the Catholic Church was right, they'd join in a heartbeat, but that doesn't mean that the religion itself (the Baptist religion, for example) lead them to God.  It encouraged them to go a certain distance, perhaps, but...

I don't know.  I'd have been a bit clearer about what it means to "lead" or at least mentioned once in this book that only Catholicism is completely right and can lead you all the way, but maybe I'm just nitpicking.

There were bumps in this particular road sign, but on the whole, I enjoyed it, and I thought it covered the subject very well.  If you don't have much time or cash, and want to understand the subject a little better, you might do well to pick up a copy.  I was pleased with it, and I'll readily admit to being a very tough audience.

The Father's Tale Awfulganza; Part 5

The Father's Tale

By Michael O'Brien

Catholic-ometer: 3 of 5

Enjoyability: 0.5 of 5

It's finally time for this review to come to a close, but before I close it, there's a couple more things I want to address.  The reactions to the book by other authors and by fans, and the problems that I had with the basic premise itself.


Issue 1; Accolades

Firstly, this book has gotten high praise from a number of well-known writers, and frankly, I'm still not sure why.  I guess I can chock some of it up to the way the author of this book mentions Catholicism a bunch.  That tends to win over some people who like to hear Catholicism mentioned.  Me, I like to hear it mentioned too, but only when it's being faithfully-represented.

The recommendation by Peter Kreeft is one that I feel needs no explanation, for reasons of my own, but the others truly annoy and shock me.  I admit, I may not completely understand the modern mind.  In my experience, modern man feels more than he stops to think, and no one can understand you if you're not going to be rational.  Still, I usually expect better than this from published authors.

If you think I'm being unfairly harsh to all the people who recommended this book, I have a proposition to make.  I'll list a few things about the book that are good near the end.  Aside from these, tell me one thing about this book which -objectively- speaks in its favor, and I'll lighten up.  For now, I feel I should debunk some of the lies spread on behalf of this book by some of these famous authors.


Issue 2; The "Prodigal Son" myth

Lie number 1 on the agenda; that this book is a retelling of the Prodigal Son in modern times.  It's not.  At all.  In the Prodigal Son, the boy leaves his comfortable home, and his rich father and hardworking brother to go waste money in some far-off land.  He then eventually repents and returns home.  In this book, the father's not rich and neither is the brother.  Furthermore, it's the father, not the son, who spends the most time in a far-off land.  This is -not- the way the story goes, and it loses its intended meaning in the process.  There's simply no way to defend the claim that this book has anything to do with the Prodigal Son.


Issue 3; Tolkien, Chesterton, Lewis, Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy and so forth

It's also been said that O'brien's writing style is like Tolkien, Chesterton, Lewis, Dostoyevsky or Tolstoy.  As one who knows something of these people, let me explain why this comparison has little real merit.

Tolkien had a fascination with fabricating fictional worlds; languages and lineages of strange peoples.  He also loved to write his books as though they were real history books; a tendency which most often comes through in his battle scenes.  His greatest accomplishments, however, were in creating scenes of magical wonder and putting them on display to be enjoyed by eager readers.  The Father's Tale seems, by contrast, to have almost no imagination behind it at all.

Chesterton wrote few novels, but in the ones he wrote, he seemed to delight in creating characters to embody aspects of human existence, and having them face off against each other.  The Father's Tale does nothing of the sort.  Chesterton was also an upbeat, good-humored and amusing writer at times; especially in his nonfiction works.  In this respect, he couldn't be more different from O'brien.

Lewis is like Tolkien to the next level in many areas, while shifting the focus from minutae to more wonder and miracles.  His worlds are filled with supernatural power and strange creatures of all kinds.  Even some of his more adult works (the Screwtape Letters springs immediately to mind) contain a strong, supernatural element.  There's nothing of this to be found in The Father's Tale.

Dostoyevsky, in my view, was most remarkable in his intensely-dramatic character portrayals, and in his predictions of the future of society, and he was indeed remarkable in all those things.  However, The Father's Tale contains no amateur predictions about the future, nor any strong drama of any sort.  When its characters tell their life stories, they never do so for a dramatic reason, and when they reveal the nature of their problems to one another, it always makes them, and their problems look smaller and less significant, while the firm, dignified atmospheres designed by Dostoyevsky rarely allowed for weakness of that sort in a character.

Tolstoy I haven't read much of, because I simply couldn't stomach him.  As I see it, he's closest to O'brien in most ways, and the two share much in common, but most especially a hatred of intense drama and a passion for trying to use God's word to legitimize pacifism.  Still, one out of five is pretty bad.

I think this is the most I need to say on the subject.  O'brien should certainly not be compared with most of the people he's being compared with, and that's that.


Issue 4; Consistent failures, and their impact on a story

A huge problem with the book as a whole is simply this; the main characters are consistent failures.  Sure, it reveals their determination, but when that determination doesn't lead to victory, what precisely is the point of even having it?

As depressing as repeat failures may be in real life, they have an even worse effect on a story.  Ideally, the main character should be the person with the strongest chance for victory; the hero who eventually pulls through, despite the odds.  In some cases, heroes can be even more impressive when they have very little chance of winning, and still win.  However a hero who doesn't win is no kind of hero at all.

The effect that this has on a story is, in better cases, to make the tale essentially unremarkable, since nothing particularly special happens in it.  In worse cases, the book may come across as a total waste of time, as this book does.  The problem, you see, is that sometimes, a story fails to properly-depict the relationship between good and evil; with evil being a self-destructive path that leads, ultimately, to failure and weakness, and good being a strong, healthy path which leads to power, wisdom and a good heart.  To imply that this is not the case is to deny the existence of God and embrace naturalism.  This whole idea of "grounding" a story that's founded in Christian values simply does not serve to promote or support Christianity in any sense; because a "grounded" Christianity is no kind of Christianity at all, which leads me to my next point.


Issue 5; "Grounded Stories," and why the very idea is flawed

I truly believe that no story should be "grounded."

The idea behind being "grounded" is that the story involves nothing particularly incredible, impossible or supernatural, and conforms almost precisely to how things could happen in our own world.  This, I believe, is almost an abuse of the story format.

Stories provide us pitiful humans with the opportunity to express our dreams, fears, hopes, wishes, needs and imaginations.  It does no one any good for a story to refuse to do any of this, and that's what a grounded story is.  Stories, you see, are essential for encouraging us to think about certain aspects of ourselves that we often ignore.  When we go to work, or when we eat dinner with our family, our dreams, fears and wishes don't matter much, because we have to deal with what's right in front of us.

However, when we read stories, we train our minds to remember our futures, and what we want from them.  We remind ourselves that we are deathly afraid of certain things happening to us, and want desperately to prevent them from happening.  We also remind ourselves that there are things we want; things that this world is not capable of providing us with.

Perhaps most importantly, we remind ourselves that this world is not all there is; there is a world beyond this one; a world where dreams can come true, and where fears exist only as a sort of thrill in wondering what wonderful thing is going to happen next.  Then, too, there's the dark world; where all hope is banished, and fear and agony reign supreme.  In short, Heaven and Hell; the most basic understanding of Christian dogma.

I'll level with you.  It's been a long time since I've heard a priest talk about Heaven or Hell.  Too long, in fact, and we certainly don't talk about it at work.  Even if we happen to have the rare kind of family who likes to talk about this sort of thing over dinner, we really spend very little time dwelling on these eternal truths; much too little.  If we banish discussion of eternal, transcendant things from our fiction lives, we banish it from our lives entirely.  Our imagination dies a slow death, and then our faith does likewise.

The rest of the world can be "grounded," but if stories are "grounded," they lose the very thing that gives stories their appeal; the power to elevate the mind to higher things than those of this life.  This is the reason why I say that "grounded stories" are simply conceptually flawed.


Final Issue; The Damage Report

Ultimately, what's the damage that this book did to me?  Well, it wasted over a month of my time, for one.  I admit, I probably could have put it down at any time, but by the time I realized what kind of book it was (it dawned on me that the whole book was going to be a real snoozer by about page 300 or so,) I was already far enough in, and had invested so much time, that I figured it would be a waste not to review it, and I never review books that I haven't finished, no matter how bad they are.

In addition, there were seriously times when I wanted to throw this book against a wall.  Every time someone starts telling their life story, or every time the author tries to justify pacifism qualifies, I suppose, but I'm thinking particularly of the Yevgeny journal entries and Alex's "cryptic" story to a bunch of Russian children.  These forays had even less to do with the plot than most, and went on for literally pages and pages each.  I also thought that Alex's time being interrogated and tortured by Russians, then agonizing over the death of a kind soldier immediately after that was definitely the low point of the story.  Nothing drives home the point that your story has the wrong main character, quite like showing him repeatedly being jerked around by irrelivent side-characters, and absolutely helpless to do anything about it.

However, I feel that I should take a few moments at the end here to say what this book did right, because there were one or two things that it did properly.  It took the side of Catholic Church teaching, for example, against the evils of abortion, homosexual unions and even contraception; a rare and precious stand to take.  Still, that's no reason why you should torture yourself by reading the other 1071 pages of the book.

Some people might attack this book for being pushy with its message, or might even call it propaganda, but I won't do that, because I've read enough books, that I pretty much understand that every author has some kind of message to deliver; either by being direct about morals and ethics, or by not being direct about them.  This is also another problem that the book doesn't have.

Other than this, absolutely everything about the book speaks against it, and I suppose that's all there is to say.  I hope you enjoyed this five part awfulaganza, so until next time, God love you and stay safe.

The Father's Tale Awfulganza; Part 4

The Father's Tale

By Michael O'Brien

Catholic-ometer: 3 of 5

Enjoyability: 0.5 of 5

Now, I began by saying that this book was a vapid, boring, meandering trainwreck, and I intend to prove that to the best of my ability; one word at a time.


Word 1; Vapid

Something which is vapid is something which offers nothing original or challenging; a normal and uninteresting fare, and this book falls neatly into that category.  Alex Graham spends most of the book meeting irrelivent people and hearing their life stories.  This book goes into -tremendous- detail about every last life story it chronicles, and the worst part is that some of these could have been really cool life stories, but they never focus on the stuff that would actually be impressive and challenging to read about, like for example, there was the dead father character; Yevgeny, who's basically a radiation doctor who gets shanghaied by the Russian government because they suspect him of something, and leaves his family behind.  Sounds like a cool story, right?  Well, yeah, in theory.  The problem is, you only find out the story decades after the kidnapping/execution/whatever is already over and done with, and it's too late to do anything about it, so... what the heck?

Aglaya is another good example of what I'm talking about; spends a -huge- amount of time telling the story of her life. and what did she do with that life, exactly?  Watched her mother do a few cool things when she was a little girl, then spent the rest of her life taking care of a cow.

The problem here is that while there is sort of a spectre of things having gone wrong in the lives of many of these people, there's either no really direct contact with the source of that evil, or else, no serious hope of routing it, and either way, the outcome is the same.  If you never ran into a really serious evildoer, then how exactly is that challenging?  Because you suffered?  Everyone suffers.

On the other hand, if you did run into a serious evildoer, and just never had any real hope of stopping him/her, well... join the club.  Every single person who makes the mistake of watching the news or picking up a newspaper knows what that's like.  There's nothing seriously challenging here.

The only messages that are challenging are the extreme messages; hope and despair.  You either have hope for the ultimate destruction of evil, and the total exhaltation of man to divine purity and glory, or you absolutely despair that this will ever happen.  If you're midway between those two, you can hardly claim that your message is even interesting, much less challenging, and not one person in this book talks about Jesus finally squashing all evil and taking good people home again.  Oh, they talk about Catholicism, in a way, but not the one way that would have made one of their messages challenging or compelling.  This is why I say that this book is vapid.


Word 2; Boring

This is mainly outlined in the section on the plot, but for the moment, all I really need to say is that this book contains no serious conflicts.  Alex Graham supposes, at first, that his son has fallen in with the wrong people, and that he might even have been kidnapped, but he's never sure what's happened, and the other characters do everything they can to comfort him and convince him that nothing bad has happened to him or to his boy.  In short, to disarm any sense of tension that might otherwise have saved this story from the mess of boredom it sunk into.

Furthermore, at every stage of the story, the irrelevant subplots distract the mood further from where it ought to be, which leads me to my next complaint.


Word 3; Meandering

Midway through the story, the father takes flight after flight around Europe and Russia, trying to track down his son, but he always seems to arrive just a moment too late, and have to pick up the trail again after a lot of research and more than one botch.  In each place he visits, he also runs into an irrelevant side character, who he usually helps out in some manner.  Because he accomplishes absolutely nothing at most of his stops on his trip, the whole section feels like one long lump of filler, meandering aimlessly towards its objective -eventually.-

However, this only lasts until he gets stranded in Siberia, and the whole plot becomes one long meander; grinding to a screeching halt.  It gets jump-started again later, but goes a little too fast, rushing off in a completely irrelevant direction again, so its track record of meandering goes quite strong until Alex's son pretty much falls into his lap upon his return home.  I don't think calling this book "meandering" is anything close to a stretch.


Word 4; Train-Wreck

Lastly, this book is a train-wreck, because it fails to deliver an enjoyable reading experience.  As I said, there's no substantial conflict, no focus on the main plot, no tension to speak of, and lastly, the book offends the sensibilities of any decent person by allowing the bad guys (such as they were) to get away scott free, while the good guys (such as they were) continue reflecting on all the meaningless suffering, persecution and torture they've undergone over their lives.  Lovely.  There's no scenes of great heroism, no magnificent accomplishments depicted; by God or men, and ultimately, the story fizzles in a very unsatisfying way.  I can't imagine anything about this story that could possible inspire enjoyment or satisfaction, and that's reason enough for me to call it a train-wreck.


Of course, this only scratches the surface of the pain this book brought.  There's still one last section to get to; the premise and the reaction to this tome.  See you then.

The Father's Tale Awfulganza; Part 3

The Father's Tale

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.

The Father's Tale Awfulganza; Part 2

The Father's Tale

By Michael O'Brien

Catholic-ometer: 3 of 5

Enjoyability: 0.5 of 5

I got the distinct impression that the author wanted me to like some of these characters that he'd created.  I didn't.  I didn't like any of his characters, although for different reasons.  There are two major reasons for this, and a minor one.  First the major reasons.


Major Reason 1; Certain characters were simply uninteresting.

This falls into two categories, really.  Some characters, like the bum, the prostitute, the church caretaker, Kiril, and really, Alex himself are simply uninteresting people from the start, and nothing could really be done to fix that, short of giving them development sufficient to make them interesting.  This wasn't done.

However, there's also the rare case where a character seems like they're sort of on the verge of becoming interesting, like Ilya, and Alex's emergency intervention prevents this from happening.  Joy.


Major Reason 2; Certain characters were simply depressing.

Many characters failed to accomplish anything of any value, and thus wound up being depressing.  I'm not thinking of Aglaya, exactly.  In her little world, taking care of that cow seemed pretty important, I'll bet, but of Yevgeny, the bum again, most of the intelligence agents, Alex again, and every chinese character in the story.  Ilya and Kiril probably fit into this as well, if not the entire population of their town.  Nothing really gets accomplished by anyone in this story.  Doesn't that get old?


Minor Reason; Certain characters were simply annoying.

Well, I didn't mention Aglaya in either of the first two headings, but that's because she belongs right here.  Aglaya is -the most- annoying character that I have read about in a long time, and certainly the most annoying one in this book.  She's like a cross between a jewish matchmaker, a broken record and the excitable little dog that always barks at you when you walk down the street.  Pretty much every single line she gets (with the exception of the part where she recites her life story,) is aimed squarely at hooking up Alex with Irina with as little subtlety as possible.  She even tries to claim it's God's plan.  They call her "the crow" in this story, but she goes over the same ground so darn much that I would have called her "the parrot."


Oh, yes.  The characters bothered me, alright, but that's not all.  Stay tuned for part 3; where we'll unveil the problems that this book has in its understanding of church teaching.  Until then, stay strong, and don't let the world get you down.

The Father's Tale Awfulganza; Part 1

The Father's Tale

By Michael O'Brien

Catholic-ometer: 3 of 5

Enjoyability: 0.5 of 5

You may have noticed I haven't put up that many reviews recently, and there are a couple reasons for that, but the biggest one is that I've been slowly plodding through one of the most vapid, boring, meandering trainwrecks of a book that I've ever read in my life.  So much so, in fact, that at first, I wanted to label this review "What is -wrong- with you people?"  However, rather than throw a fit over this vast tome, I thought I'd address the problems I had with it, and they are many; too many to fit into a normal-sized review.  Still, I feel that each one deserves to be addressed, because they recurr so often throughout the book, and last for so long, that I've suffered for quite some time under each, so I need to get them off my chest.  This is why I decided to do this review in a five-part awfulganza.  Without further ado; "The Father's Tale."

Now, I have a lot of criticisms to level against this book's characters and plot, but until you understand some of what they're about, the criticisms just won't stick, so that's what step number 1 is; to understand what's wrong with the plot and the pacing.


Stage 1; Slow Start

I believe some books have a right to start out slow, but this book is slow, even by their standards.  Alex Graham lives in his hometown of Halcyon, has some friends, who he trades life stories with, and for a couple hundred pages, there's absolutely no word of his son or any clue that there might actually be a main plot to this book.  I'm sorry, but that's simply unacceptable.  At worst, a story should launch into the main plot by the end of the first fifty or so pages, and be well underway by page 60.  This book seems to assume that you have literally nothing to do with your time except watch a reclusive bookseller dither around his hometown in the backwoods of Canada, talking to uninteresting characters and engaging in spontaneous, stuffy, overly-worded retrospectives.

There's a subplot about a mentally-handicapped woman who's also apparently a mystic of sorts, a subplot about two kids who almost drown in a river, and how Alex saves them and meets their mother and grandfather, and a subplot about how his friend, Father Toby, and his enemy Charles are both trying to get him to do what they want him to, but none of these subplots have anything to do with the main plot, and none of them contribute anything to it.  Furthermore, none of them really go anywhere, or lead to anything interesting happening, which is an even worse shame.  You'll find this to be a common thread throughout the book.

Finally, Alex hears cryptic words from his son that make him think his son Andrew may have become a cultist or something, but his next message from his son is cut short.  He's a very poor man, so he decides to put his house up as collateral in exchange for a bank loan and goes to where his son was last reported to be, which leads him on a chase across Europe and Russia, and leads us into the next section of the story.


Stage 2; Where in the World is Andrew Graham?

I suppose you might think that a chase by plane across Europe and Russia would be exciting.  It's not, for several reasons.  First, because Alex always seems to arrive just a little too late to really catch up to the cultists who seem to have kidnapped his son.  Second, we have no idea whether these cultists really have kidnapped his son, so any possibility of a tense atmosphere is very effectively killed.  Third, even in the rare cases where he does seem to be close to his alleged enemies, it's never completely clear just what he's supposed to do about it.

He tries to talk to them.  They blow him off.  He tries to talk to them again.  They blow him off a second time.  He tries to send them a message.  They confiscate the message and blow him off a third time.  He tries to send a veiled telephone message.  They catch on immediately and laugh in his face.  In short, he very expertly fails at everything he tries (an element I'll expand on when I discuss the characters,) and the worst part is that any reasonably-clever character would have noticed that these people didn't want to talk to him from the start, and devised a sort of trap for them.

As things are, this whole section of the book is just (1.) the cultists fly to a new city, (2.) Alex follows them, (3.) Alex makes a buffoon of himself, learning nothing from the experience, (4.) the cultists get away, (5.) repeat steps 1-4 several times.  In short, it's like a really boring game of "Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego," because at least in that game, you know you're chasing a criminal, and have the authority you need to apprehend and imprison said criminal; so there's always the hope that something might actually result from the trip.  Alex lacks either of these assurances, so his trip is nowhere near as exciting, because for all we know, there's nothing at stake.

That's not enough, though.  Oh, no.  We have to slow this section down even more by including a dozen irrelivent sub-plots abou people we've never met before, and who will have no impact on this story from this point on.  Alex talks to a caretaker of an old church for pages and pages.  He's never seen again.  Alex spends several pages saving a prostitute.  She makes no further appearances in his life.  Alex spends several pages bringing an insane bum to a hospital.  Good for Alex, but not good for us, because he's never seen again, making the whole sub-plot completely pointless.  Alex spends several pages talking to a beautiful woman on the train before accidentally setting himself on fire (I'm not kidding; that's how incompetent he is.)  Well, I hope he got a lot out of that, because pretty soon, she exits the train, and the book might as well have just said "See?  Don't you love it when irrelivent characters like her deliberately waste your time?"

As slowly as this story has been moving up to now, however, it has at least been somewhat relevant to the whole "find the son" thing.  Soon, Alex's train gets stopped by terrorists (a fitting metaphor,) and he finds himself stranded in Siberia, with no idea what happened to his son, which brings us to section number 3 of the story.


Stage 3; The Story Grinds to a Halt

Here we come to one of the worst parts of the story.  You know those totally-irrelivent side-stories that we hated from part two?  Never wanted to see that kind of thing again, right?  Well, boy are you out of luck, my friend, because that's all this next section consists of.  Now that Alex is lost in Siberia with absolutely no hope of finding his son (read; getting back to the plot,) he's free to shamble into one irrelivent side-character after another.  First, he runs into some priests living in a tiny little house in the middle of nowhere.  Each gobbles up over ten pages with irrelivent backstory we don't need.  Then after getting mugged, robbed and bludgeoned with a pipe, he ends up lodging with a Russian doctor in a tiny village in the middle of nowhere.

In this new village, we have (guess what?) more irrelivent characters, with more long, unrelated backstories to trudge through.  Joy.  The doctor herself, of course, is one.  Then there's her two boys and their missing father Yevgeny, who despite being dead, manages to gobble up pages and pages of this book with his life story.  Then there's Aglaya, who only fits into this story because she's pushy and annoying, and demands her story be heard.  A long story that Alex tells to the Russian kids in that little town is even included, just in case you needed more of a reason to pull your hair out.

Oh, and did I mention that Alex stays here for months?  No joke.  He's so busy recuperating from his pipe-bludgeoning, that he has time to not only teach the kids some english and tell them stories, but build an igloo with them.  That igloo gets smashed by horsemen, though, so he builds them another, and they stand guard over it.  He also has the chance to convince the doctor's son that no matter what, he should never, ever fight over anything, but I'll cover this in part 3.  He even tries to fall in love with the doctor.  Sure, why not?  It's not like you've got a missing son to worry about.

Soon, he wanders off into the hills and stumbles across some fences with associated lights and video cameras.  Some guards with guns grab him, stuff a bag over his head and kidnap him, which leads us into stage 4.


Stage 4; The Hyperactive Jump-Start that Failed

After being abducted by security guards, Alex is taken to a Russian prison and interrogated in an irritating way.  The guards repeatedly refer to him as an intelligence agent named "Bell," and don't listen to a word he says.  This interrogation process is covered in excruciating detail.  Then, he's thrown in a cell, interrogated some more, tortured in -enormous- detail again, and put on a train, where he watches one of his guards get shot in front of him.  This bugs him a lot, even though he's totally insane by now.  He's kidnapped again and taken to China, where we repeat the same interrogation subplot as with the Russians, except thankfully in summary form, and with no torture.  It ends in him being handed over to some Americans who ship him out to Hawaii, and then guess what?  More interrogations!  Hooray!

I get the feeling that the author realized just how boring his book was getting, so he tried to jump start it.  I can't fault him for trying, but the reason this jump-start fails is that the boredom isn't the only problem this book has.  Each stage of the story is repetitive and full of expounding characters telling their own (and sometimes someone else's) life stories.  None of this changes during this stage.  Even if it did, however, it wouldn't matter, because all of this is totally irrelivent to the main son-finding storyline, and Alex becomes progressively less coherent as this section of the story proceeds, making his musings even more painful to read than usual.

Eventually, he's returned to Canada, though, where we -finally- come to the last part of the story.


Stage 5; The Ending, and Why it Was Fail

At last, Alex is home.  It turns out his home didn't get taken by the bank after all, so... good?  I guess?  Andrew is back too...  So the book lost track of the main plot for so long, it sort of... resolved itself while we weren't watching.  Major copout, but whatever.  It's almost over.  Oh, and the bad guys got away.  Yay?

There's some nonsense about how we can't solve all these problems on our own given as an "explanation" for why the author decided to let the cultists get off scott free, but... the fact is, Alex wasn't on his own.  In fact, at one point in the story, while he's being tortured, he has a vision of Jesus suffering with him, and he's very religious throughout the entire book.  What else is he missing that he still can't get the bad guys?  Never explained.

Sorry, this book has me rambling a little.  Alex's influence must be rubbing off on me, so I'd better take a break before I get into part 2; problems with the characters.

The Mass of the Early Christians

By Mike Aquilina

Catholic-ometer: 5 of 5

Enjoyability: 5 of 5

I'm really learning to enjoy Mike Aquilina's writings, and I've yet to read anything of his that I don't like.  He's very faithful, very thorough, and very consistent.  His strong suit seems to be research and the faithful study of Catholic History, and that's just what this book is as well.

This time, the topic of study is the mass.  What did the mass look like to christians of the first few centuries after Christ, and what was its structure like?  What did those Christians believe about the mass?  How was it perceived by the rest of the world?

These are all topics of this book, and it covers them quite fairly, including exerpts from some of the best historical sources on this topic.  What surprised me, though, was that the book contains exerpts, not only from Catholic sources, revealing what the mass was really like, but also from pagan, heretical and secular sources, each attempting to paint the mass as what they wanted it to be.  Heretics wanted the mass to be something they had thought up and designed, and the secular authorities wanted it to be an atrocity, so they'd have an excuse to arrest its adherents, who refused to pay worship to caesar.  It's easy to see why these writings were condemned as incorrect by the church when they were written.  Their motives are like glass.

At first, in fact, I was a bit taken aback by Mike's choice to include quotes from those sources; not really sure what he was planning or why, but he puts the quotes in their appropriate context, and that's enough for me.  Far from being unfaithful to the church, the re-presenting of these quotes helps us to get into the minds of those roman empire folks and see just how they saw Christianity from the start.

Though I scratched my head once or twice, I really liked this book, and I would definitely read Mike's work again.  He's a fine, faithful and competent author in his field, and I feel he's really helped my understanding of liturgical history.

The Fathers of the Church

By Mike Aquilina

Catholic-ometer: 5 of 5

Enjoyability: 5 of 5

Of course, over the centuries, many people have made fine contributions to the church, but some of the finest were those of the early church fathers; Augustine, Ambrose, Leo, Gregory, Origen, Tertulian, Polycarp, and so forth.  That's what this book is about.

It's a fine and well-researched book, presented well with good exerpts from their writings, quotes and summaries of their lives, all of which makes it even easier to read.  It even goes somewhat into their personalities.  I found myself even more drawn to Ambrose and Jerome, and even to Augustine, even though he's already my favorite of the church fathers.

This book is all about the lives, works, and in some cases, about the deaths of many of these great men.  In fact, it's something of an overview of the subject, since it's a relatively short book, and huge volumes could have been written about most of these men.  It has information on the start of the benedictine monastic orders, the early development of theology, of scripture canons, of the persecutions suffered by the church, and so on.  It's all fascinating, and a little humbling, because it's a firm reminder of just how much our own culture has lost.

So many people think their generation is superior to all previous ones; that they're somehow more intelligent, or more "evolved," but a cursory glance at the writings of someone like Aristotle, Augustine or Thomas Aquinas proves that to be a ludicrous claim.  I found I got the same kind of impression from reading about the lives of these great Catholics from the early days of the church, and of course, I don't even need to say that it was faithful and orthodox to a T.

If you have any interest in the early development of the Catholic Church, but don't want to spend years studying, then this book will be a very good starting point.  It's a simple introduction to the fathers of the Church, and what they did, said and accomplished, and it's done well.  I suppose that's really all there is to say.

150 Bible Verses Every Catholic Should Know

By Patrick Madrid

Catholic-ometer: 5 of 5

Enjoyability: 5 of 5

I've really read very little of Patrick Madrid's work in the past.  I think the only thing of his that I'd read from cover to cover was "the Godless Delusion," which, if I recall correctly, was the work of two authors.  It wasn't perfect, but it was faithful enough, so I was eager to see what else he had to offer.  This book of spiritual reflections on a number of scripture passages (guess how many...) seemed like just the thing.

Boy, was it ever.  Covering a wide range of church teachings like the sacraments, divine revelation, the communion of saints, the sanctity of life, the escaton and so forth, the verses chosen in this book are spot on, and, I have to admit, some of the ones I've found most useful for reinforcement in my own faith journey.

In reflecting on these verses, Madrid shows a strong understanding of the culture of Jesus' time, of the doctrines of the church, sacred tradition, and especially theology.  I tend to latch on to any imperfections I find in a book (as readers of some of my other reviews can attest,) and the fact that I have little to say in that respect about this text says something by itself.

To give you some idea of just how I pleased I was with this book, however, I'm going to tell you my biggest problem with it.  On page 148, Patrick Madrid claims that Matthew 7:3-5 implies that we should mind our own business unless we're somebody's parent/teacher/coach, etc...  I don't agree.  Prohibitions against gossip, slander and condemnation are not alien to the bible, but I don't feel this particular verse is such.

As I said, this is the biggest issue I had with this book, and I hestitate to even call it an issue, because it fits so well into the "we can agree to disagree" category.

I think what impressed me most was his solid, scriptural support for all seven sacraments, as well as for the conclusion that faith and reason are entirely compatible, and in fact, totally connected, but it was all good.  Check it out.  As a scriptural reference text, and a modern one at that, I've seen very few books that can top it in terms of faithfulness -or- insight.

Word on Fire

By Robert Barron

Catholic-ometer: 4.5 of 5

Enjoyability: 5 of 5

I once again find myself forced to make a hard choice.  Whenever I see a problem with faithfulness to the church, or with inadequately explaining the church's teachings, I have a tendency to explain it to death; a practice that I intend to continue, because these things need to be clarified by someone.  The question really winds up being "is this serious enough to merit a whole star down?"

In this case, the answer is "probably not; no."  Father Barron has put together a most impressive series of homily transcripts, which actually amazed me by the depth of their understanding, and their clarity of teaching.  That, by itself, becomes slightly less surprising when you learn that, like myself, Father Barron is something of a Thomist, and treasures the writings of Thomas Aquinas.

I was very impressed by several points in this book.  In particular, he amazed me with the clear messages that he drew from Nehemiah, his defense of the real presence, and his descriptions of the theological dilemmas of the recent past and how they were solved; particularly the ones relating to glory; who gets it and why.  I can also say with absolute confidence that I have never in my life heard anyone sufficiently describe the notion of catholic "worship" in the normal work of a lawyer, a doctor, etc, until Father Barron did it.  In nearly every objective sense, this book is truly excellent.

I have only one issue to bring against it.  More than once, as an example of the good work done by holy men and women, Father Barron mentions Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin, and the organization which they founded; the Catholic Worker Movement.

I don't know nearly as much about Dorothy Day as I would like to, but Peter Maurin held a radical belief, which he implemented into the Worker Movement; he believed that evildoing or immorality on the part of a government official removed their God-given authority to govern their citizens, and that therefore, it was perfectly acceptable for people to ignore the rules of a corrupt government and form their own communes, making up their own rules for social collaboration as they went along.  Today, we call this by the popularized name of "liberation theology," but perhaps it would be easier to understand if I just sum it up by saying that it's basically Marxism with a cross on top.

The Worker Movement has a number of other problems as well, but I target its involvement in liberation theology because that's a belief that has been specifically condemned by at least the last two popes.

Father Barron's understanding of Catholic theology is truly amazing, and for the most part, I was astonished by the quality of his book; almost to the point of refusing to believe any ill of him.  For the moment, therefore, I will simply assume that this one aspect of the book was probably just imperfectly-researched, and I'll give it the best score I can.

Understanding the church's position on social teaching isn't really so difficult.  It's all about loving God first, then our neighbor second.  We love them by doing what's best for them; putting them first and ourselves afterwards.  However, let's not deny that many agencies claiming to be Catholic subsist only by lying about church teaching; claiming that the vatican never specifically condemned communism, socialism, marxism, liberation theology and so forth.  This is a technical tidbit of the faith that anyone could be forgiven for overlooking, since it's not out there in the culture like it once was, but that doesn't negate church teaching.  Until further evidence comes up, this is all I'll say for now.

Who Needs God?

By Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn and Barbara Stockl

Catholic-ometer: 2 of 5

Enjoyability: 2 of 5

This book makes me sad, because I don't like having to choose between supporting a Cardinal of the Church, and supporting the truths of Jesus Christ.  That said, I can and will make such a decision in the only way possible.

However, before I begin, I feel I should point out that this book is essentially a long interview in book form.  Because of this, the Cardinal probably didn't have the time he needed to think through his responses well enough, and this may have lead to some of the problems I'm about to mention.  I can't prove it, but it's a viable explanation, I think.

This book is full of mistakes; more than I have time to describe in detail, so instead, I feel I should mention its overarching problems.

Firstly, the interviewer is either very opposed to Catholic morality, or very sympathetic to those who are.  At every turn, she seems to take the tack of "the church should be questioning itself," "we should be able to oust the pope," "the church's stance on x needs to change," etc, etc, etc, and the Cardinal gives her altogether too much legroom with his responses, which in general, come across as weak, flimsy and pseudo-subjective.  Numerous times, he suggests that she be careful what she means when she says "church," but doesn't clarify the point, only making the Q&A even more confusing.

However, this over-permissiveness seems to be a two-way street, since Barbara also comes across as too forgiving whenever she asks the Cardinal a yes-or-no question, and his answer contains neither of those words, and generally lasts several paragraphs.  He uses terminology which is not nearly specific or direct enough, and often makes claims that are simply untrue.  A list of these claims is as follows.

1. Job's friends were like theologians.
2. We shouldn't judge other religions.
3. The Vatican is just a symbolic nation.
4. Religion isn't for intensifying conflict.
5. The Holy Trinity is not logically-verifiable.
6. The Church is part of this world.

This is by no means an exhaustive list, but it should do to start.  All of these are false.

1. Job's friends were not using logic to try to understand God, meaning they're not like theologians.
2. It's part of Catholic doctrine that all religions except the Catholic Church involve some element of falsehood.  This is a judgment that we're obligated to make about other religions.
3. The Vatican is definitely a real nation.  That's why the pope is considered a head of state.
4. Jesus himself said that he had come not to bring peace, but a sword, and that families would turn against one another on his account.  Doesn't sound like he wanted a worldly peace.
5. We can use logic to determine the oneness and the multipleness of God, thus proving the trinity,
6. and finally, the Church is Jesus Christ, existing both in this world, and in the two higher ones (Purgatory and Heaven.)  It's more like Earth is a part of the Church in that sense.  Oh, sure, you can say the church -militant- is a soujourner in this world, but that's not the claim he made.

He also says early on in the book that he thinks urbanization is largely responsible for the declining mass attendance, and later remarks that the loss of the church's holdings, and its role in global power are good things.  Admittedly, on these issues, we can simply agree to disagree.  As I see it, urbanization was around long before the 1970s, when the steep decline began, so it's unlikely that was the cause of the plummeting mass figures (other likely causes include; the first generation raised on television being old enough to make their own decisions, the rise of the hippie, widespread drug use and hedonism, or any of the other grave evils that washed over the world during the 70s.)  As for the rest, I just don't think it's quite as good for the church, or for Catholics, when the church becomes so weak and defenseless that she can't in any way influence the way the faithful are allowed to live.  As I said, though, these aren't mistakes; just disagreements.

Several times throughout this book, Barbara questions a teaching of the church, and the Cardinal sort of tiptoes around the issue, without really saying yes or no, or implying that the church has any sort of right to teach infallibly in these matters.  The weakness is so thick, at times, that I could cut it with a machete.

However, he also said something that hit much too close to home for me, in terms of reminding me just why I once lost the faith for so long as a teenager.  At the top of page 53, he said that Jesus' only answer to the question of why God allows evil is to suffer with us, and that if that image doesn't move us, there's not much he can do for us.

Well, that image does move me, but not in the way he hopes.  You see, as a teenager, I was convinced that anyone responsible for evil had to be punished somehow, and justice restored.  I saw God in this way; as being responsible for all evil, and for every second of suffering that I went through, I felt that the imbalance was growing worse.  Whenever others suffered with me, that only doubled or tripled the injustice of it all.  Using this line of reasoning, when God suffers with you, that makes the injustice infinite, and therefore, infinitely unacceptable.  This is the reasoning that I originally used to reject the faith.

What brought me back to the faith was just what the Cardinal so cavalierly dismisses; solid reasoning, used to properly explain the teachings of Catholicism; delivered by one of the greatest intellectuals of all time; Saint Thomas Aquinas.

He proved, using logic, that God does not create evil, because evil is merely an absense of good, and requires no creator.  He also established that God can have morally-sufficient reasons for allowing evil (namely, because he is capable of undoing the evil and bringing even greater good out of it in the end, without the evil needing to remain in order to support the good.)  This argument was thoroughly logical, and it convinced me to come back to the faith.

Let me end this review by saying the only thing that really matters, and appropriately, it's the one thing you won't read anywhere in this book.

Jesus Christ was the only Son of God.  God is eternal, which means that his nature is perfect and unchanging.  It is easier for Heaven and Earth to pass away than for one iota of the law of God to pass away.  Therefore, we cannot change God's law.  I can't, you can't, and certainly the Church and the Pope can't.  Even God won't do that.  I'm not even sure he could.

As for the Catholic Church, it is the one, true church of Jesus Christ, founded personally by the son of God upon blessed Peter, and protected forever from teaching error in matters of faith and morals by the Holy Spirit himself.  Because of its divine origins, it is inherently superior to all other religions, and therefore, all men are called to it.  Without it, there would be no salvation.

I would hope that the Cardinal still agrees with all of these basic teachings of the church, and I won't say a word more than that.

Arise From Darkness

By Benedict J. Groeschel, C.F.R.

Catholic-ometer: 4 of 5

Enjoyability: 3.5 of 5

This is the first book by Benedict Groeschel that I've ever read, and it probably won't be the last.  I started reading without a whole lot of knowledge about him.  All I knew was that, like Scott Hahn and Peter Kreeft, he was one of the "modern apologists" who've written and popularized the Catholic faith in the current age.  I mention Hahn and Kreeft for a specific reason.  One of them, in my mind, is magnificently knowledgable and faithful, and the other tries to be, but sometimes winds up making mistakes that don't get filtered out in the proofreading stage.  In short, I suspected that Father Groeschel would be similar to at least one of these two.  I just didn't know which one.

Regrettably, if this book is anything to go by, I'm afraid he'd closer to Kreeft than Hahn.  I get the impression that he's doing his best to be faithful, and yet, there are mistakes here or there; often merely as a result of not being clear enough in his wording on a particular subject, or tiptoeing around serious moral issues, as if trying to avoid hurting someone's feelings.  This approach will make you more popular, but it won't make you holier.

Case in point; the chapter on what to do when the church disappoints us.  He says (correctly,) that we need to understand what we mean by "church;" that "church" can mean a group of people, a group of bishops, a heirarchy, a specific diocese, or even a specific person who's a baptised Catholic.  He also says (again, correctly,) that it's our obligation to exercise loyalty to our church.  The problem is that while he advocates care in defining "church," he doesn't explain which definition is correct.

The correct definition of "church" to use is "the teachings and authority of the bishop of Rome and the magisterium, and the holy writings and decrees which they have approved."  It does not mean an independant conference of bishops set up in an individual nation, it does not mean your particular diocese, and it certainly doesn't mean a feminist nun who happens to run the religious education program at your local parish.  Even to these figures, we should prefer loyalty, but only on issues that don't go against the will of legitimate church teaching (Pope, Magisterium, traditions, scripture, etc...)  If there is a conflict between the pastor of your parish and the teachings or authority of the church of Rome (such as; he wants to support the CCHD, and you know for a fact that they defie church teaching,) then your obligation is to the Pope, and as such, to ignore the authority of your pastor in this matter.

That really doesn't take too long to explain, yet he doesn't explain it, leaving the doorway open to be misinterpreted.

He also says in at least one point that the Council of Trent forbade people from taking about Purgatory in terrifying terms.  This sounded false to me, so I looked it up.  I admit, I still haven't finished reading all of the council documents, but thusfar, the closest I've been able to find to this claim is the decree at the beginning of the 25th session of Trent, concerning Purgatory, which prohibits subtle, difficult discussions of Purgatory, which don't edify and don't increase piety, from being discussed with the less-educated public.  It also forbids silly superstitions about Purgatory, and uncertain guesses or theories about Purgatory also shouldn't be matters of general discussion, but there's nothing in there about not "making it seem terrifying."

Ultimately, though, what disturbed me most was Father Groeschel's claim, near the very beginning of the book, that "the human mind can't understand the reason for suffering," and "we just have to accept the existence of this mystery."

While I agree with him that there are mysteries which we have yet to unlock, and can't unlock by our own power, making the claim in these terms does nothing to help make him look educated, and even makes the church look clueless and helpless in the face of this "unsolvable puzzle."

In reality, of course, the "mystery" is not "why is there evil?" but rather "what are -all- the reasons why there is evil?"  This last question is the one that has an infinite answer, which we can't fully comprehend, because God is infinite, and so are the number of reasons he has for what he does and allows.  Still, if you're only looking to find out one of those reasons, then the answer is simple.

God allows evil because he is a God of love.  Love requires a loving response.  A loving response can only be made freely by a being that possesses free will.  Free will can only be exercised by the freedom to make choices.  Choices involve something to choose between.  Therefore, in order for God to be loved by us, we must have the opportunity to refuse his love.  This is one key reason for the existence of evil, and it's certainly not beyond the ability of human intelligence to grasp.

The book itself is about the variety of situations that can make us feel most lost and abandoned, and how we can emerge from them; undefeated, holy and stronger from the experience.  When seen in this light, it's still far from the best book on the subject, nor does it reference other great books of the past.  The impression I got was of a modern book, written for the modern audience, which, for the most part, refuses to read anything more than a century old.

Is this book good?  Sure.  Is it neccesary?  Probably.  Is it particularly outstanding in any area?  Yes; the motive to be virtuous drove this book's creation, and that is certainly outstanding.

However, if you were to ask me for my favorite books on the subject of enduring suffering, this (and for that matter, most modern books) would fail to make it into my top ten.  It's not a weak book, but it could stand to be a little stronger, a little wiser, and a little clearer on some of its points.

The Emotions God Gave You

By Art & Laraine Bennett

Catholic-ometer: 3 of 5

Enjoyability: 2 of 5

I suppose I could say "here we go again," but while this book certainly doesn't come close to meeting my expectations, it would be unfair to say that it's quite as bad as the book "God Has Great Plans For You," which I also recently read and reviewed.  After all, that book dressed up "positive thinking" as though it and the Catholic faith were one and the same, and this one, at the very least, treats of emotions a bit more delicately.

However, that doesn't mean there aren't scads of mistakes and problem cases littered throughout.

The book claims to be a Catholic guide to dealing with and using emotions in our faith lives.  I'm afraid it doesn't quite measure up, however.

Firstly, it claims that intuition is a function of emotion, not intellect.  This is the sort of thing I'd expect to hear on Star Trek, but if this claim is being made by any real psychologists, I would expect it to be backed up with some examples, showing why intuition can't be considered a function of the intellect.  Regardless, I agree with the book that both emotions and intellect can be helpful in doing God's will.  I just don't think that using intuition as an example helps to build up that point.

On page 42, the authors cite a specialist, who claims that all humans are hardwired for compassion, meaning, I suppose, that they are naturally predisposed to compassionate behavior.  This is simply balogna, I'm afraid.  Human beings suffer from a fallen nature, which means that they are hardwired for Hell, not compassion, and it is only by the grace of God, as well as great effort, that we escape that hardwiring.

A couple of times in this book, the authors talk about a compulsive "need for perfection" being a bad thing that we need to overcome.  This, I think, may be just badly-phrased, because the need for perfection is what drives the pursuit of genuine holiness.  After all, that's basically what holiness is, right?  Being perfect, as your heavenly father is perfect?

On page 81, they take the tack of saying that people should be capable of unconditional gratitude.  Here, I'm afraid my own lack of experience may be to blame, but I've heard this claim from a number of Christian sources (both Catholic and protestant,) and not once has it ever been sufficiently explained, just how gratitude can have any value, if it can't be measured against its conditions.  Our gratitude towards God should be for clear reasons (like giving us life, Catholicism, a chance for salvation, etc,) not for no reason at all.

Page 83; a false conflict is set up here between the enjoyment of temporal goods and of virtues.  Certainly, there are times when giving up one's goods in order to be virtuous is important and helpful (like giving to the poor,) but the example cited (abstaining from cake) does nothing to prove the point.  It's just giving up one type of self-indulgence (food) for another (vanity,) so I don't see the purpose of this bit.

Page 85; he says that some psychologists think that a well-balanced emotional life may be a prerequisite for virtue.  In other words, he thinks that people with emotional difficulties can't be virtuous.  Needless to say, I simply disagree.

Page 87; the old, tired cliche about virtue being its own reward.  Virtue is a requirement, not a reward.  Also, on page 87, and into page 88, there's a sort of story about a nun named "Sister Lydia," who did good by commanding herself to, rather than feeling like she wanted to, because of some psychological trauma or something.  He seems to think this is a bad thing, but doesn't say why, nor cite any research to back up his claims.  This may be my biggest complaint against the book, because it feels like nothing more than an attack against those who don't have the grace to "feel" virtuous, and have to force themselves to be good.  If so, it's disgusting.  We should be showing these people our love and support in their difficult struggle, not condemning them as psychologically unhealthy.

Page 90; another broadside attack against those who have to struggle to be virtuous, because they don't have the psychological training or natural predisposition needed to deal with an emotional relationship.  The problem here is that when you use the phrase "relationship with Jesus," in this context, you make it sound like a lovey-dovey, let's-all-get-together-and-hold-hands-and-sing kind of relationship, which is a slap across the face of anyone of the masculine gender, whether they realize it or not.  There is no reason whatsoever why a man can't view his relationship with God as more like the "relationship" between a regional lord and the king he serves, or a soldier and his commanding officer.  It's still a relationship, but we need to do just a little, tiny bit more work in describing the breadth of that term these days.  By no means is it incompatable with the so-called "white-knuckling" of virtue.

I'm afraid the authors are a bit careless with their terminology as well, and one clear example of this is when they use phrases like "not to be completely in control of your emotions," or "not really in charge of them."  To the english-speaking ear, this makes it sound like the Catholic should not want the virtue of self-control.  Except, they then go back on that later in the book, saying that Catholics should be in greater control.  I can only guess that they meant these two types of statements to outline a specific distinction, rather than to contradict each other, but if so, that distinction just isn't outlined specifically enough.

Repeatedly, this book uses the phrase "professional help," when talking about unusual cases.  In the modern world, however, in eight cases out of ten, "professional help" means spending lots of money to sit and talk to a non-Catholic about how you feel, and this advice, firstly, is worth very little to the poor, secondly, isn't guaranteed to work anyway, since much "professional help" isn't really that professional, and lastly, admits or seems to admit to a lack of professional experience on the part of the book's authors.  So why read any further?

Numerous times, the book refers to situations like "Bob is upset because his dad wouldn't play ball with him when he was a boy, so he reacts badly, when his boss is just trying to help."  Yeah?  Well, what if Bob's boss is discriminating against him based on race?  Then, isn't his response a teensy bit more appropriate, or is it still inappropriate on the job?  If so, why?  You see, the advice we really need isn't how to deal with being unpleasant people in pleasant situations; at least not for the most part.  When we make a stupid mistake, many of us realize it almost immediately.  The problem is figuring out what kind of behavior is appropriate, and why when faced with mean-spirited people, cruel living/working conditions or shabby treatment by someone you thought you could trust.  To these difficult questions, this book offers no answer.

As some might realize who've read my past reviews, the mentions of Catholic "things," like sacraments, virtues, God, etc, really mean very little to me if the book's message isn't central to Catholicism, and frankly, I just don't think this book has enough to offer, that it could possibly be central to anything.  You might give it a look if you find it laying around in a library or something, but I wouldn't waste money on it.