Customer Reviews

Rome Has Spoken . . .: A Guide to Forgotten Papal Statements, and How They Have Changed Through the Centuries

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(9)

 

 

Many of the excerpts from Church documents that this book used exclude material from the same paragraph that puts a much different light on the topic. The book doesn't come across as being very honest.

This book uses two techniques, with differing effects, to illustrate its point. First, it uses actual quotes from past papal and magisterial pronouncements in order to paint a picture of the Church's opinion on any given topic at various times through history. This first technique is admirable and effective. The stars I give are merited because of this, and so the book is a useful reference tool, if nothing else.

The actual text of the book comes in the form of commentaries, which follow the aforementioned quotations. This text, as well as the introduction, tell more about the biases of the authors than of the church. Biased though, it may be, the opinions expressed are not invalid. They are, however, unbalanced. In the introduction of the book, the authors identify themselves as largely feminist activists who support new translations of Scripture that attempt to use gender-neutral language in every verse (leaving out he and she, and substituting "spouse" for husband or wife). I fail to see how such relanguaging does anything to help the feminist cause, as it only disguises real sexism that clearly existed in the first century and other times. I also find it curious that, when it suits their needs, Church documents are *not* rewritten in gender neutral terms, presumably so that early church "sexim" can be exposed. While I am sympathetic to the authors' aim at revealing such things, I would much rather they do in an intellectually honest fashion.

On the whole, if you are looking for a compendium of actual church documents (no amount of bias has altered the utility of the quotations that make up the lion's share of the book's merit) then this book is worth having. Better yet, once you have the book, look up their quotations for yourself to get a better historical perspective on what they selected.

While the articles in this book are well-written, the documentation given in the book on papal, council, and scriptural statements is dangerously misleading and inaccurate in some circumstances. The attempts to put the comments in their historical context does not always reflect the complete events or context. It is a good starting point for some thorough research, however, and I would strongly urge anyone who reads this to check out the authors' sources on their own. In general, it appears that the authors of the individual articles only cited examples that, if construed in a certain way, would support their argument. Dangerous and full of half- truths.

Let's be honest. The clear purpose of this book is to assault the teaching of the Catholic Church on controverted moral issues, specifically its teaching on contraception, conjugal relations, divorce. To push their case, the usual suspects insist that, gosh, the church changed on issue x in the past, so maybe she'll just change on the pelvic issues in the future.

It's not convincing. The treatment of slavery and religious freedom (where the authors claim the church reversed herself) are illustrative.

The author of the chapter on slavery claims that the church once supported slavery, but now condemns it. But the selection of texts is truncated and some passages are taken out of context. The fact that the Popes firmly condemned the slave trade when it began (in the sixteenth century) and that Gregory XVI was an early leader in the 19th-century fight to abolish the slave trade is passed over in silence.

The same maneuveur is used on religious freedom. Of course, Pius IX and co. condemned "relgious liberty" in the 19th century. But the religious freedom they condemned was the variety promoted by the French Revolution and the anticlerical governments floating from it. This "religious freedom" meant that the individual can believe what she wanted, but there was no freedom to conduct religious schools, enter a religious order, or for a religious group to take a public stand on the issues of this day. As many Vatican II supporters of religious freedom argued (see Cardinal Konig), the religious freedom defended by the Council is completely different than that imposed by the "liberal" republics of the 19th century. There is certainly development of doctrine here, but no contradiction.

The book is full of truncated citations, misquotes, and hostle interpretations ripping old phrases out of their social context. The scholarly apparatus is so poor that the curious student would never be able to track down the entire text of many of these controverted documents. Is this suppression of information deliberate?

Don't waste your money on this disinformation by Dissent, inc. You'd be wiser to curl up with a fresh copy of Cardinal Newman's Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine.

While reading this book I was reminded of an old anecdote about Harry Truman and the election of 1948. While speaking at a rally someone from the crowd yelled out "Give 'em hell, Harry" and Truman immediately came back with, "I'm not giving them hell I 'm giving them the truth. It's just that to them the truth is hell!" That's what the authors of this book do, give them hell in the form of the truth. In "Rome Has Spoken" the authors set out to show that, despite what the Vatican claims, many official teachings of the Roman Catholic Church have changed over the centuries. That means that all the controverial issues now facing the church, such as women's ordination, mandatory celibacy and contraception, cannot be swept away with the claim that church teaching is "unchangeable." The author's let contradictory statements from the official church documents, and members of the Roman Catholic hierarchy make their case for them. In each chapter an expert on the particular issue explains in a clear and understandable manner the historical and theological context of the given church teaching and how it has changed over the past 2,000 years. A very enjoyable and very interesting book. A must read for any thinking Catholic!

This book is uninspired. Writing is not the author's forte. Considerable number of tortured sentences, even one with an internal inconsistancy. Proof reading the manuscript would have helped. This book is a cure for insomnia.

Footnotes not complete, sometimes completing missing. I have had difficulty doing additional research for my thesis using this book.

Contrary to those who have criticized this work (probably without even reading it), 'Catholic bashing' is anything but the point to be pressed. This work was written by two Catholic women who strongly believe in their faith.

The two authors attempt to point out how the Catholic Church has evolved it's teachings over the years from often times corrupt to a much more compassionate and liberating theology. In many ways this work gives hope to liberal Catholics who are troubled by what seems to be stagnant doctrine and seek change in their faith.

The contents include papal words and laws on: infallibility, scriptural interpretation, religious freedom, slavery, women in the clergy, science and much more. Each chapter goes through early church teacings to modern. After reading this work (as a non-Catholic), I have a new found respect for Pope John Paul II and his courage.

To those who find 'change' as a threat, I suggest reading the early church teachings and conduct and ask yourself 'Would I honestly wish to live in this realm of thought?'

I think we both know the answer.

Wonderful source material presenting both sides of the story! I do get more than a little offended by the insecure, weak: my church right or wrong, and the intellectual morons who can't distinguish criticism from rejection. As a lifelong, practicing Catholic, I find it appalling that Gorbachev and communism can confront and embrace the reality of their past while the "best" my church could do was admit they and Gallileo were both in the wrong. How insipid. ONLY the truth makes you free... and stronger. Nicely researched book. Would love to have see a more in-depth discussion of each topic, but there is a place for a high-level view and NOW the opportunity to intelligently search for answers.

This book would likely dismay any person even casually versed in the history of Catholicism. To put matters bluntly, the majority of what the authors try to "establish" via their out-of-context and poorly translated gathering of allegedly authoritative "Church pronouncements" (and gravely question-begging commentaries) is just false on its face. What isn't false is seldom helpful or to the point, not least because of the authors' systematic misunderstanding of the Church's own teachings regarding its own infallibility! If one were to set out to write a revisionist history of x, one ought to know the received history of x. Sadly, however, this truism of scholarship seems lost on these editors (and far too many of their contributors). Astute readers would know to be somewhat suspicious at the outset about a work so prone to quote secondary sources on secondary sources, but this sort of "research" comes as no surprise the further one ventures into the world of this book. There's too much to detail any particular topic, but if you're interested in bad history the weirdest of all the weird commentary set forth in this work probably concerns slavery: a bright undergraduate would find refuting the book on these matters a rewarding exercise in criticism, and all without moving beyond papal documents readily available (these days) at a mere keystroke. In short, this book is amusing to read, but lousy at being what it wants to be, namely a history of so-called "moral evolution" in the Catholic Church's defined teachings. Rome Has Spoken begs for solid editorial dismissal, after which we should speak no more about it.