Scan barcode
A review by guojing
Constantine's Sword: The Church and the Jews--A History by James Carroll
4.0
The other day I found myself browsing through the reviews for this book and I was struck by something which, at the time, I found somewhat funny: the common complaint that this is a long book. Surely, at only 600 pages (plus index, notes), this book is nowhere near as bad as The Age of Faith which I had just finished reading a few weeks before, coming in at almost 1100 pages. However, the more I strutted along, the more it became apparent to me that the complaint about the length of Constantine's Sword was not a complaint that the book is a total of 616 pages, but rather than the substance of the book could just as easily have filled 308 pages. This is what makes this book a long, long read.
However, the 616 pages work together in a way that 308 could not: they form an eclectic and idiosyncratic syncretism of theology, memoir, and history which at times is very pleasurable to read, though at other times is deadly boring. For instance, I rather enjoyed the first 100 pages, which read essentially like a memoir; he details his childhood, learning about his neighbor being a Jew, moving to Germany with his General father, meeting the Pope. These are the various events which led him not just to become a priest and then abandon that vocation, but to write this book from the perspective which he maintains. He is strongly disturbed by the way the Church has treated the Jews, enabling Hitler to carry out his genocide (with the exception of Jews who have been converted, for whom the Church made a habit of speaking up), enabling France to scapegoat Dreyfus back in the 1890s, and going back much further, enabling even Luther in his perhaps even more vitriolic hatred of the Jews than anything ever voiced by an orthodox Catholic.
The one part of the book which I disliked and would just as gladly see excised is Section 8, wherein he makes his impassioned plea for a liberalizing of the Church. Now, I have no interest whatsoever in how the Church hierarchy deals with itself and its various tentacles; religion is, to me, an outdated concept. However, I found most of that section - not all, for there were still pages as enjoyable as any of the first 500 - to be, in my mind at least, both irrelevant and impractical. I cannot imagine the Church actually acceding its absolutist supremacy one iota, much less to the nth degree to which he urges. His values are so clearly at odds with the Church that the Church would have to become unrecognizable for him to be happy, but that would destroy everything that the Church is. Of course, by not making such reforms, the Church may very well also be destroyed as fewer and fewer people are, like him, able to look at it without feeling ashamed of such an archaic organism, a dinosaur in a world of mammals.
Ultimately, minus Section 8, which would probably received a 2-star rating from me were it to be rated independently, I give the book as a whole a 4-star rating because, despite the relative ease with which he manages to incorporate three disparate elements into one singular entity, the experience of reading the book was challenging and at times painfully drawn out. I am glad that it is over, but I am also glad that I have read it.
However, before I can finish this review, I must make note of one omission which upset me: the use of [b:The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara|998747|The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara|David I. Kertzer|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1388638660s/998747.jpg|1724393] in the bibliography and faint references to the event, but the very notable lack of a chapter (or several) dedicated to the event. I was looking forward to it until I reached near the end of the book and, wondering how it had not been mentioned beyond a reference to Pius IX kidnapping children, checked the index and found myself unable to find an entry for "Mortara, Edgardo". At least a page would have done, but considering the extreme relevance which it has to the subject as a whole, I cannot but feel that this omission was improper.
Edgardo Mortara was a Jewish boy who had allegedly been secretly baptized by the family's Catholic maid as a baby during a bout of sickness during which the girl feared for his life and unbaptized soul. As per Catholic practice, a Catholic child cannot be raised in the home of a non-Catholic family, and thus Pope Pius IX had him removed around 1859 and raised in the Vatican. After many appeals to have their child returned, the news became international and apparently caused quite a stir in America and Germany. Not, of course, because a Jew had been kidnapped, but because the Pope was responsible: it was not an outcry for the Jews, but an outcry against the evils of Catholicism by antisemitic Protestants. The boy was never returned to his family and ultimately entered the ranks of the clergy. I intend on reading the book linked above sometime soon, if only to make up for the hole in my knowledge of the events thanks to James Carroll's having ignored it.
Thus, while Constantine's Sword is a truly fascinating amalgamation of theology, memoir, and history, it definitely could have expanded a lot on the latter count and excised most of the former; I am content with the quantity of memoir in the book. Thus the 4-star rather than a 5-star rating.
However, the 616 pages work together in a way that 308 could not: they form an eclectic and idiosyncratic syncretism of theology, memoir, and history which at times is very pleasurable to read, though at other times is deadly boring. For instance, I rather enjoyed the first 100 pages, which read essentially like a memoir; he details his childhood, learning about his neighbor being a Jew, moving to Germany with his General father, meeting the Pope. These are the various events which led him not just to become a priest and then abandon that vocation, but to write this book from the perspective which he maintains. He is strongly disturbed by the way the Church has treated the Jews, enabling Hitler to carry out his genocide (with the exception of Jews who have been converted, for whom the Church made a habit of speaking up), enabling France to scapegoat Dreyfus back in the 1890s, and going back much further, enabling even Luther in his perhaps even more vitriolic hatred of the Jews than anything ever voiced by an orthodox Catholic.
The one part of the book which I disliked and would just as gladly see excised is Section 8, wherein he makes his impassioned plea for a liberalizing of the Church. Now, I have no interest whatsoever in how the Church hierarchy deals with itself and its various tentacles; religion is, to me, an outdated concept. However, I found most of that section - not all, for there were still pages as enjoyable as any of the first 500 - to be, in my mind at least, both irrelevant and impractical. I cannot imagine the Church actually acceding its absolutist supremacy one iota, much less to the nth degree to which he urges. His values are so clearly at odds with the Church that the Church would have to become unrecognizable for him to be happy, but that would destroy everything that the Church is. Of course, by not making such reforms, the Church may very well also be destroyed as fewer and fewer people are, like him, able to look at it without feeling ashamed of such an archaic organism, a dinosaur in a world of mammals.
Ultimately, minus Section 8, which would probably received a 2-star rating from me were it to be rated independently, I give the book as a whole a 4-star rating because, despite the relative ease with which he manages to incorporate three disparate elements into one singular entity, the experience of reading the book was challenging and at times painfully drawn out. I am glad that it is over, but I am also glad that I have read it.
However, before I can finish this review, I must make note of one omission which upset me: the use of [b:The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara|998747|The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara|David I. Kertzer|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1388638660s/998747.jpg|1724393] in the bibliography and faint references to the event, but the very notable lack of a chapter (or several) dedicated to the event. I was looking forward to it until I reached near the end of the book and, wondering how it had not been mentioned beyond a reference to Pius IX kidnapping children, checked the index and found myself unable to find an entry for "Mortara, Edgardo". At least a page would have done, but considering the extreme relevance which it has to the subject as a whole, I cannot but feel that this omission was improper.
Edgardo Mortara was a Jewish boy who had allegedly been secretly baptized by the family's Catholic maid as a baby during a bout of sickness during which the girl feared for his life and unbaptized soul. As per Catholic practice, a Catholic child cannot be raised in the home of a non-Catholic family, and thus Pope Pius IX had him removed around 1859 and raised in the Vatican. After many appeals to have their child returned, the news became international and apparently caused quite a stir in America and Germany. Not, of course, because a Jew had been kidnapped, but because the Pope was responsible: it was not an outcry for the Jews, but an outcry against the evils of Catholicism by antisemitic Protestants. The boy was never returned to his family and ultimately entered the ranks of the clergy. I intend on reading the book linked above sometime soon, if only to make up for the hole in my knowledge of the events thanks to James Carroll's having ignored it.
Thus, while Constantine's Sword is a truly fascinating amalgamation of theology, memoir, and history, it definitely could have expanded a lot on the latter count and excised most of the former; I am content with the quantity of memoir in the book. Thus the 4-star rather than a 5-star rating.