Conclave Primer
This book has been written and published in the expectation that there will soon be a conclave in Rome to elect a successor to Pope John Paul II. Several such books have been written over the past decade. In one notable case, that of the 1995 book The Next Pope by the late Vaticanologist Peter Hebblethwaite, the Pope instead outlived the author! In the normal course of nature, though, that prospect becomes less and less likely as time goes on.
So Selecting the Pope is probably a timely book. It is certainly a useful one for anyone wishing to understand what the author calls the “mysteries” of papal elections. It contains a concise but generally competent and accurate history of papal elections up to the present.
More importantly, it contains a complete and readable section on “the rules of the papal election” that will be taking place before too long in accordance with what John Paul II laid out in his 1996 apostolic constitution Universi Dominici Gregis, the current document governing papal elections. It also contains the full text of the document itself. Such matters as the traditional secrecy of the papal conclave, the power of the cardinals during the vacancy of the Holy See, how the voting takes place, and the black or white smoke that goes up after each vote are all described carefully.
Pope John Paul II’s elimination of an election by acclamation, “inspiration” (ascribed to the Holy Spirit), or “compromise” (delegation of the power of choice by the conclave to a smaller group of cardinals) is covered and explained, as is this Pope’s continuing adherence to the long-standing rule of election by a two-thirds vote of all the cardinals present—except that after a prescribed period of time and number of ballots, a pope could now be elected by a simple majority. (This is an innovation by John Paul II.)
A useful list of all the cardinals is included, along with the author’s own list of the eleven he thinks are the most likely contenders at the present time. While this is necessarily speculation, his list is as good as any of the others I have seen.
In short, the book is complete, informative, and readable on a topic that probably fairly soon will be a vital one for Catholics. One therefore would like to be able to recommend it unreservedly. Unfortunately, a couple of cautions are necessary.
The author, Greg Tobin, seems to be a knowledgeable and sincere Catholic who currently is associated with the Immaculate Conception Seminary of Theology at Seton Hall University in New Jersey. At one point he actually notes that “despite human sin and error the apostolic succession was preserved by the Holy Spirit and by men and women of faith.” It is therefore somewhat disconcerting to note that books that he quotes with apparent approval in the text (e.g., Garry Wills’s Papal Sins) and some of those he includes in his “Sources and Recommended Reading” (e.g., Fr. Richard McBrien’s Lives of the Popes) are written by longtime and, indeed, notorious dissenters from Catholic teaching.
Unfortunately, even some of the books he relies on by non-dissenters do not always get it right. This is true of J. N. D. Kelly’s The Oxford Dictionary of the Popes as well as of Eamon Duffy’s generally fine Saints and Sinners: A History of the Popes. Both of these books subscribe to the theory that the bishop of Rome did not “emerge” as a single authoritative leader until the mid-second century; before that the Church of Rome supposedly was governed by a “council of elders”—contrary to the testimony of the Roman Canon of the Mass, which, to this day, speaks of the line of Linus, Cletus, and Clement following Peter.
The evidence that the Church of Rome sometimes (temporarily) was governed by a council of the Roman clergy dates from a later period of active persecutions. Nor did priests and bishops in the early Church “emerge and develop,” as the author claims, relying on his sources, but were fully present in the New Testament (cf. Acts 14:23ff), just as bishops, priests (presbyters or elders), and deacons already were well established as the officers in the Church, according to the testimony of Ignatius of Antioch at the beginning of the second century. It is unfortunate that Tobin uncritically follows sources such as the Anglican J. N. D. Kelly, who perhaps does not want there to have been an unbroken succession of bishops in the See of Rome.
—Kenneth D. Whitehead
Selecting the Pope: Uncovering the Mysteries of Papal Elections
By Greg Tobin
Barnes & Noble Books
200 pages
$9.95
ISBN: 0-760-740-321
Between Modernism and Rome
In 1932, C. S. Lewis described his conversion to the Christian faith in the form of an allegory: The Pilgrim’s Regress.
At the end of this work, the pilgrim, John, finds himself at the feet of “Mother Kirk,” ready to dive into the waters of baptism. Mother Kirk’s language, she says, is Latin. She is described in ways that evoke High (rather than Low) Church sensibilities, and at the end of the work the very Word of God reveals to the pilgrim the importance of the sacrament of the Eucharist.
It is not surprising that upon its publication, many readers assumed that his experience had led Lewis into the Roman Catholic Church, an assumption that, surprisingly, surprised Lewis himself.
Lewis’s complicated relationship with the Catholic Church is ably and completely examined by noted biographer Joseph Pearce (author of Literary Converts, Tolkien: Man and Myth, and Old Thunder: Hilaire Belloc). Although a convert to Catholicism himself, Pearce is objective in his treatment of the evidence, refusing to read too much into questionable anecdotes or, on the other hand, ignoring clear signs of Lewis’s own conflicts on the matter.
The question had lingered and intrigued since Lewis’s death in 1963. Some wonder why Lewis never became a Catholic, and others wonder how he could reconcile his clear affirmation of certain Catholic doctrines (purgatory being the best example) with his “mere Christianity,” as well as even occasional expressions of what we might call simple anti-Catholicism scattered in his works and letters.
The story of Lewis’s relationship with Catholicism begins in the same place as his life on earth did: in Ulster, Ireland. Lewis grew up in a Irish Protestant family marked by both a kind of puritanical outlook on life as well as the anti-Catholicism of the Orangemen.
(It is interesting that one anecdote reports that Warnie, Lewis’s brother, was seriously tempted to cross to Rome at one point in his life and that Lewis strenuously argued against it. Pearce questions this story, pointing out that later in life, Warnie’s sympathies with the Orangemen became only more pronounced.)
At Cambridge, Lewis escaped Puritania, of course, at first turning to atheism, and then, under the influence of various believers, including the words of G. K. Chesterton and the personal friendship and witness of J. R. R. Tolkien, turning around again to belief in God, and then Christianity.
Lewis’s Christianity was, of course, on the Anglo-Catholic end of the spectrum. Lewis went to confession regularly and believed in purgatory. He was close friends with many Catholics besides Tolkien, including the great Benedictine Bede Griffiths, as well as Anglo-Catholics like Sister Penelope, an Anglican sister. Lewis’s classic work Mere Christianity, while seeking to establish the commonalities between all who called themselves Christian, did so assuming a decidedly sacramental view of Church.
But Pearce points out Lewis’s many ecclesiological blind spots, both small and large. He wasn’t terribly happy that the second edition of The Pilgrim’s Regress was published by Sheed & Ward, a Catholic publisher. His evaluation of some acquaintances—most notably the poet Roy Campbell, who had converted to Catholicism in Spain right before the Spanish civil war and had strong sympathies with the Loyalists—was tinged with anti-Catholicism.
Most intriguing, though, is Pearce’s discussion of Lewis’s treatment of the Blessed Virgin Mary, not in his religious works but in his criticism. Lewis, a medievalist by trade, paid scant attention to Mary, a rather strange reticence that, Pearce and others remark, casts a shadow on the value of his criticism, as well as on the value of a “mere Christianity” that can reject a devotion that most Christians throughout history have embraced.
In the end, Pearce lets the evidence speaks for itself, but he does point, as the evidence does, to the possibility that Lewis’s Ulster roots had a profound impact on his thought:
“Lewis’s enslavement to ‘mere Christianity’ was a product of his enslavement to the ‘mere myth’ of Orange Ulster. Since the ‘papist’ option was unthinkable for a Protestant Ulsterman, ‘mere Christianity’ was Lewis’s effort to escape the mire of modernism without submitting to the ‘Church of Rome.’”
The irony, of course, is that a man who had been brought to faith in Christ through the work of Catholics—and whose own work has brought many to the Catholic Church—himself had such a conflicted stance toward Mother Kirk. Old prejudices, it seems, can run deep.
—Amy Welborn
C. S. Lewis and the Catholic Church
By Joseph Pearce
Ignatius Press
175 pages
$14.95
ISBN: 0-898-709-792
Hello, Good Men
For faithful Catholics disheartened by the recent clergy scandals, this book is a wonderful antidote to bring healing and hope to the heart. Michael’s Rose’s Priest delivers exactly what its subtitle promises: Portraits of Ten Good Men Serving the Church Today. In ten engaging and highly readable chapters, Rose chronicles the stories of ten priests who are outstanding in their zeal and successful in their ministries.
One cannot help but see that this book is the “flip side” of the coin of Rose’s bestseller, Goodbye, Good Men: How Liberals Brought Corruption into the Catholic Church, in which he detailed how seminary tolerance of homosexual behavior, unorthodox theology, and lack of a solid prayer life has hurt the Catholic priesthood in this country.
Some of the same priests Rose interviewed for his previous book appear in this newest effort. William Hinds, whose road to ordination was blocked repeatedly in a liberal seminary, appears now as Fr. William Hinds, serving as a faithful pastor, helping Spanish-speaking migrant workers in Kentucky, and also directing an outreach in the slums of Cali, Colombia, to help build up the Church there. “In Fr. Hinds,” Rose writes, “the Church has a priest whose orthodoxy complements his aggressive social concern—a well-balanced priestly ministry.”
Fr. Eduard Perrone, a Detroit native and professional musician who survived numerous liturgical abuses as well as unsound theology in seminary, also reappears, saying, “I went through that period of tremendous change without losing my faith or abandoning my principles or my cultural heritage.” His subsequent efforts as a priest to clean up a religious education program, his re-introduction of traditional music in liturgy, his pro-life preaching, and his Third Order Carmelite spirituality are detailed, along with his thoughts about the priesthood today: “We need good men who are not afraid to preach the teachings of Jesus Christ,” Perrone says. “We need good men who are willing to oppose the secular world that is invading the Church. And that sometimes means that they will have to stand alone.”
Perrone gets his spiritual “gas” to keep going for the past twenty-five years from a solid prayer life, rising at three o’clock each morning for a rosary, holy hour before the Blessed Sacrament, exercise, breakfast, and lauds, all before his 7:30 daily Mass. “Without a solid prayer life, without commitment to personal prayer to Jesus Christ, I couldn’t function properly as a priest,” he says.
As one priest observed, “To be a faithful Catholic these days takes heroic efforts.” The same might well be said of a faithful priest.
Other priests profiled in Rose’s book are well-known personalities such as EWTN commentator Fr. James Gould, the highly successful director of vocations for fifteen years for the diocese of Arlington, Virginia. Gould minces no words in discussing the current problems of the American priesthood, and, more importantly, how to solve them.
Fr. C. John McCloskey III, an Opus Dei priest and former chaplain at Yale and Princeton, considers his ministry to be missionary work in a culture of death. Rose describes McCloskey, who was instrumental in the conversion of abortionist Dr. Bernard Nathanson, as “the conversion specialist.” His belief that Catholics in the U.S. will be revitalized by a return to traditional teachings of the Church is not dampened by challenges from the media or academia. “Priests are warriors for Jesus Christ,” McCloskey says. “They are the Navy SEALs, the Army Rangers, the Green Berets of the Catholic Church, and I’m proud to serve among her ranks.”
Another priest profiled actually serves in the military as a chaplain. Another details his healing ministry and the story of calmly holding Easter services in his inner-city parish as rioters surrounded his church. Another chapter tells the story of a Cornell University astronomy graduate who is now ordained and serving in a new order in the Russian Far East, re-establishing the Church after the collapse of communism.
Although this sampling of priests is diverse, the common thread—aside from their ordination during the ’70s and ’80s—is their faithfulness to Catholic teaching and their fortitude and courage in living the priesthood today.
Perhaps the best part of Rose’s book is that this is, indeed, only a small sample of the priests in the U.S. today. There are thousands of others who could be included as examples of orthodoxy and courage just as much as these ten. In times where the few who fall make the headlines, it’s good to remember that the vast majority of our priests are good men who faithfully and often quietly go about their daily ministry, all of them good men serving the Church today.
—Mary Bazzett Nadeau
Priest: Portraits of Ten Good Men Serving the Church Today
By Michael S. Rose
Sophia Press
187 pages
$14.95
ISBN: 1-928-832-717