His Holiness [Hardcover]

Carl Bernstein (Author)

Book Description

Release date: September 1, 1996

With the same meticulous reporting skills and narrative excitement that went into All the President's Men and The Final Days, journalists Carl Bernstein and Marco Politi provide an astonishing look at Pope John Paul II--the foremost political figure of our time. In their research, Bernstein and Politi have had unprecedented access to rare sources of information in Rome, Washington, and Moscow, including formerly top-secret Soviet files. Through these fascinating documents, His Holiness allows the reader a previously impossible glimpse inside the inner workings of the Soviet hierarchy, and shows how the Soviets recognized the serious threat John Paul II posed to their survival--even a the start of his papacy. Startling Politburo minutes show Brezhnev, Andropov, and other key figures heatedly discussing at length how to handle the pope--even within days of the nearly successful assassination attempt. Yet, John Paul II would come to dominate his era much as Churchill dominated his, ultimately fashioning an alliance with Reagan to reverse Yalta and hasten the demise of Communism.

Surprisingly, it was not for his political instincts that he rose through church ranks; rather he is the first prelate in history to rise to the papacy based on his work in the field of sexual morality--as writer, researcher, and counselor to young couples.

His Holiness succeeds where other studies have failed at capturing the humanness of John Paul II, and it explains the inner mysteries of the man who has set the Catholic Church on an unmistakable course that has both divided and uplifted the billion members of his church. What also emerges is the unknown story of a boy who turned to God after losing all his closest family members and whose unbelievable destiny was shaped by a youth in the midst of Nazi (and later Communist) Europe. However controversial, Pope John Paul II's iron will and strong convictions have made him the great moral leader of our time.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Two veteran reporters, American Carl Bernstein (co-author of All the President's Men) and Italian Marco Politi have teamed up to present the case that Pope John Paul II worked closely with American political figures to cause the collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe. Their conclusions are controversial, but His Holiness provides an insightful look at the connections between governments, the Catholic Church and the Solidarity movement in the Pope's native Poland.

From Library Journal

An in-depth study of the papacy?what a leap of faith for a guy who helped break the Watergate story. Bernstein is joined by Italian journalist Politi, who has covered the papacy for 15 years.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 582 pages
• Publisher: Doubleday; 1st edition (September 1, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385472374
• ISBN-13: 978-0385472371
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.4 x 2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,019,959 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #92 in Books > Christian Books & Bibles > Catholicism > Popes

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 15 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars The Political Part was OK April 30, 2005

By Bruce J. Kratofil

Format:Paperback

Among the many books written about Pope John Paul II, the book by Carl Bernstein and Marco Politi, His Holiness, stands out. That's because it's focus is on the role played by the Pope, working along with the Reagan Administration, in causing the fall of communism.

This was a delicate balancing act for John Paul. As Stalin so famously pointed out about a previous pope, he had no military power, only moral and spiritual power. As they recount his first trip as Pope back to Poland

"What was talking place now in Warsaw's Victory Square was a breakthrough to unknown horizons. John Paul II never uttered a word that might lead directly to a confrontation between Church and state, between the party and Christian believers, but everything he said marked the beginning of a grand turnabout for the Church -- in Poland, in Eastern Europe, in the Soviet Union, in world affairs. Through him the Church was laying claim to a new role, no longer simply asking space for itself. Through him it was demanding respect for human rights as well as for Christian values, respect for every man and woman and for the autonomy of the individual. These demands represented a direct assault on the universal pretensions of Marxist ideology, which by now had become an empty shell in the countries under Soviet influence."

A campaign just by Solidarity, even aided by the Pope, may have gotten no farther than the Hungarians in 1956 or the Czechs in 1968. What was different now was that the West, especially the Reagan Administration in the US, and Margaret Thatcher's government in Great Britain, had moved away from detente and began to actively push back. John Paul II had similarly moved away from the Ostpolitik of Pope Paul VI. The book details the co-operation in intelligence between the US and the Vatican. It also provides, through Politburo minutes obtained by the authors, the futile attempts by the old men of the Kremlin, and later the unsuccessful attempts of the younger Gorbachev, to get the toothpaste back in the tube.

This book, which was released in 1996, was a five year collaboration between Carl Bernstein (best-known for his work with Bob Woodward in All the President's Men and The Final Days) and Marco Politi, who is both the dean of Vatican journalists working for La Repubblica and then Il Messaggero, and a former Moscow correspondent. Countering a criticism, over how do we know what was really said at private meetings recounted in these exposé books, this book is quite detailed in its sourcing. The authors conducted, and documented, a long series of interviews with the people involved, up to and including President Reagan. The participants are quoted directly, and a Sources section at the back of the book shows who said what.

The book probably would have done better focusing strictly on the East-West struggles, but it was extended to include both a short biography of John Paul II's early life, plus a critique in the latter part of the book of the theological controversies during John Paul's long reign (and there were still nine years to go after the book came out.) While I'm interested in having Carl Bernstein as a guide through some of the great political struggles of the late 20th century, I really don't need him as a theology teacher.

While this isn't a new book, it is an interesting retrospective on one part of John Paul II's papacy.

34 of 48 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars Grinding the same old axes July 22, 1999

By A Customer

Format:Paperback

Bernstein and Politi's biography of the Holy Father, John Paul II, is informative and intriguing, but these secular journalists just can't resist the temptation to harp on the same issues the world has with the Catholic Church.

Bernstein and Politi explode the myth that John Paul I was murdered in a "Vatican conspiracy," but they cannot see past the conspiracy to spread calumny against the Pope of WWII, Pius XII. When speaking of John Paul II's life during the war and later of his work as Pope to improve relations between Catholics and Jews, Bernstein and Politi cannot resist slamming Pius XII for his alleged "silence" and "inactivity" in saving Jews, when the fact is that the Orthodox Jewish scholar Pinchas Lapide has estimated that Pius XII and the Catholic Church were responsible for saving over 800,000 Jews from the Nazis.

Then there are the attempts by Bernstein and Politi to flog the dead horses of artificial contraception, abortion, and women's ordination. Instead of acknowledging that John Paul II is merely witnessing to the two thousand year tradition of the Catholic Church in denouncing artificial contraception, abortion, and women's ordination as incompatible with Christianity, these supposedly objective journalists attempt to psychoanalyze the Holy Father. According to these two, instead of upholding Catholic doctrine, the only reason the Holy Father condemns these things and at the same time reaffirms the sanctity of life and the holy vocation of motherhood is because he misses his mommy. Please! Of course the Holy Father's mother, Emilia Wojtyla, was an important influence on her son's life but this kind of amateur psychoanalysis on the parts of Bernstein and Politi is insulting not only to John Paul II but to those who already consider him John Paul the Great.

The authors' obviously liberal bias makes one question the rest of this biography's credibility and objectivity.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Political Biography July 30, 2007

By M. A. Ramos VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

Carl Bernstein and Marco Politi, investigative journalist, argue that Pope John Paul II and President Ronald Reagan conspired to hasten the collapse of Soviet Communism. Some of the evidence they cite includes the CIA's support of the Polish Solidarity Movement and the sharing of American military intelligence with the Pope.

There is a brief history of Pope John Paul II's life and his ascendancy to the Seat of Peter. The coverage of the Pope's early life up until his ascension to the throne was very interesting and pretty well done. And we get a brief look inside of the Vatican's political apparatus. Even though I felt that there appears to be an anti-Catholic agenda in the later half of the book, it is worth reading. John Paul II was a gift to the world in our lifetime whose main message was that we could be better than we are. The author seems to forget that the Pope is Catholic first and last. He always did take the highest Catholic stance on matters of faith and morals as would be expected of a pontiff. I found this an interesting and fast read.