Customer Reviews

Triumph: The Power and the Glory of the Catholic Church

5 star:		(32)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

I bought the hardback of this book after seeing the author on C-Span Book TV. I disagree completely with the negative reviews of this book for the following reasons. First, the authors of those reviews seem to be well-versed in the history of the last 2000 years and object to how Mr. Crocker presents his version. All I can say is they have been lucky not to have had to sit through what passes as history as I have. I have never heard Mr. Crocker's side, even in so-called Catholic books. "A church that never went right would be quite as miraculous as a church that never went wrong," Chesterton quipped in Orthodoxy. In all the other versions of history I've been exposed to, the church never goes right. Obviously their fairy tales were as flawed as Mr. Crocker's critics feel his presentation to be. Yet even now these inventive revisions top the best seller list. How I pity the innocent readers who, unaware of the marketing ploy foisted on them, may attempt to create a coherent philosophy from the hacked together bits of historical shrapnel that pass for, and are taught as, history. Second, if you wonder why so many people are today reconsidering the Catholic Church, it's because its detractors have overstated their case. It's as if, to quote Chesterton again, "any stick was good enough to beat Christianity with." All that happens is one loses respect for the beaters and gains respect for the beaten. Chesterton wrote his comments 100 years ago, summarily dismantling the idiotic pre-modern world (back now as the idiotic post-modern world). As a convert, Crocker is naturally excited to tell the other side of the story, and as a hungry soul starved by the meaninglessness of the non-philosophies of today I was excited to read it. One caveat: the time of the Reformation and the Thirty Year war is an account of unbelievable violence and carnage. But as Mel Gibson's movie shows, a great many in our day are hungry for the truth to set us free.

If you expect this to be an academic, critical history of the Catholic Church, then you need to read the title again. Crocker is not a professional historian, and he doesn't pretend to be. However, as a man's honest interpretation and commentary of true historical events, the book is excellent. This is history through the eyes of a faithful, orthodox Roman Catholic, in the historico-apologetic tradition of Hilaire Belloc, Christopher Dawson, and G.K. Chesterton. Crocker is clearly indebted to them for his understanding of the Church and its development as it struggles against numerous foes, secular and religious. Of particular interest to Western Christian readers is the second half beginning with the Reformation. Like Belloc, Crocker wants to locate the rampant secularism of today within the principles of the Reformation -- such as in this memorable quote:

"The result [of sola scriptura], over time, was that in Protestant countries, theology was no longer 'the queen of sciences' but only one source of knowledge, subject to individual interpretation, and was separated from secular inquiry. Because secular inquiry was seen as objective it eventually gained overweening predominance and prestige over doctrinally subjective Protestant religious thought -- an intellectual development that has been the major factor in secularizing the Western world" (240).

Whether one agrees or not, such issues are worth pondering, and this book is a worthwhile chance to do so with a dedicated Catholic.

As a faithful, orthodox, Catholic this book was a fun read for me. It presents an entirely factual and pro-Catholic view of the history of the Church. It is unapologetically triumphalist (just see the title!) and well footnoted.

It is, however, not a serious work of academic history. It is more of a "'History of Christendom' for Dummies." (more on the History of Christendom later) In its defense, it doesn't pretend to be anything else. However, I wish the book had more academic heft. Writing a book like this will engage people. When they are engaged, it is nice to prevent them from having ready and easy criticisms.

Several reviews here (all protestant and/or secularist and stinging with righteous indignation) point out the books flaws. Crocker uses secondary sources too much. He engages in too much polemic. He doesn't tell both sides of the story. These criticisms, while they contain some validity, are overblown.

Writing an unbiased history was not Crocker's purpose. Pick up the dust jacket, look at the design, and read the flaps and the book itself tells you that. Unlike several anti-Catholic "history" books regarding the reformation I have picked up, this book does not pretend to be unbiased. Peruse the reviews of Crocker's book and one sees that many Protestants still have the gall to claim that only fellow Protestants can write unbiased histories of the reformation.

Writing a pro-Catholic history of the Catholic Church was Crocker's purpose. If one can't deduce that from looking at the jacket, then one has poor deductive reasoning skills! Interestingly enough, despite the books flaws, his case is relatively strong. Even critics of Crocker point out that he doesn't share any false information in this book.

The use of secondary sources is not as inappropriate as one reviewer claims. MANY, MANY modern histories of ancient times rely on secondary sources. There just isn't that much primary source material out there for some events. Historiography would not exist as a discipline if everyone just went to the primary documents and told the limited tale they could find there.

So why just 3 stars? Despite the fact that I will defend Crocker's right to make a case regarding the history of the Church to anyone, I simply don't like the book's approach. It is fun and funny; yet it is supposed to be history. Crocker can write, but he is no historian. He writing style is flip, irreverent, and arrogant. I often feel that books written in this manner are insulting my intelligence. For instance, I don't care much for Ann Coulter either. She and Crocker have a similar writing style, and a similar taste for polemics.

Furthermore, Crocker has his culturally protestant leanings which are left over from before his conversion. Too often I have seen him in interviews criticizing the Magesterium he proclaims to defend. The grounds of his seemingly constant criticism of the last two popes? They failed to support the US invasion of Iraq. Just read his sections on the Crusades in this book to see Crocker's pro-war bias. Crocker is so pro-war that it makes my eyes hurt to read his stuff.

Because of these flaws, I am forced to give Crocker's book 3 stars out of five; I would recommend alternate readings to get one started on Catholic history that do not suffer from Crocker's weaknesses.

Warren H. Carroll for instance is a scholar of serious weight. He holds a Ph.D. in history from Columbia University and is the founder and past president of Christendom College.

His EXCELLENT multi volume series on the History of Christendom (each volume roughly 500 pages or so) is the real deal. It tells much the same history Crocker tells, but he tells it with SERIOUS scholarly ammunition: the best sources, the best argumentation, and the best writing. He has counterarguments against other scholars at the ready and engages his colleagues in his copious footnotes. Even though Carroll's books are LONG, they are engaging and read easily. He stays away from using too much academic jargon; any reasonably educated person could read them.

I found the Cleaving Of Christendom: History Of Christendom Vol 4, which is the volume that deals with the reformation, most engaging and informative. If one finds Crocker too simplistic, too flippant, too over the top, I would check out Dr. Carroll's work.

"Triumph" is a tonic to the default position of both the media and intellectual establishment in the anglophone world, namely their unconsious, ingrained and mildly anti-catholic position. The bastard child of protestant ascendancy and 18th/19th century liberal secularism.

For example, we are constantly told how barbaric the crusaders were, yet a mere generation ago, in the name of democracy Hiroshima was nuked. Ike called his WW2 memoirs, "The Crusade For Europe". Most european political and military leaders from the 10th and 11th century would have been appalled by the inhuman and civilian butchering tactics and strategies routinely applied in our recent crusades. The real butchery of seige warfare was to medieval generals as much a tactical necessity as firebombing was to the RAF and USAAF. We have no reason to drape our generation in airs of enlightened superiority.

"Triumph" is a corrective to that sort of bias ...which impacts both conservatives and liberals, protestants, agnostics and even catholics. However like any tonic it is not to be used without care. The book is more of a polemic than an academic history, take it once then do more of your own research.

I like to note that the reviewer below who signed "Orthodox Theologian (MTh) student of the late Dr. J.S. Romanides, Harvard and U. of Athens professor" is particularly biased. The author of Hitler's Pope wrote in 1993 in THE HIDING PLACES OF GOD (Less than Five years before publishing Hitler's Pope) "human beings are morally, psychologically, materially better off without a belief in God" He writes as an ex-catholic who quit the seminary and remarks in 1993 "I took delight in attempting to undermine the beliefs of my fellow seminarians..." The publication of HITLER"S POPE shows a picture the man who became Pius XII with a few soldiers. This is only the tip of the iceberg, but this hardly one who can write objective history. Therefore, trashing Crocker's TRIUMPH: THE POWER AND THE GLORY OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH based on a comparison to Hitler's Pope is hardly credible. Its been several years since I read TRIUMPH but the one point that stayed with me Mr. Crocker's dictum that most of the heresies began in the east. A quick consultation of any encycopedia can confirm this fact. One must also keep Crocker wrote this in response the NYT bestseller CONSTANTINE'S SWORD hailed by liberal (and liberal Catholic's) as greatest thing sliced bread which is bitter attack ob the church by one of the so-called "PRACTICING ROMAN CATHOLICS...". I have just one thing to ask: those self-riteous pundits who pile on in attacking Mr. Crocker's rejoinder, Where we they when CONSTANTINE's SWORD was published?

Heart-felt, loyal Catholics have long lacked a historical apologia that would make them proud and help them understand there is a reason history developed the way it did for the Church.

*Triumph* does just that. Of course, a study this epic in scope will garner more than its fair share of detractors and quibblers.

Even as a Protestant fellow with philosophical training, I believe this book is an inspiration to every reader to pursue religious truth and personal faith with verve, elan, and sincerity.

I, too, disagreed with some things--such as Crocker's take on Ockham. I believe that much of the evils of modern academia and relativism can be traced to Nicholas of Autrecourt (not the razor-efficient thinking of Ockham). Nevertheless, Crocker can be forgiven because Nicholas is notoriously difficult to write about because most of his works were burned. I also disagreed with the more hyperbolic descriptors such as Rousseau being "insane." (He was a pernicious fellow, that is beyond debate.) Still, it is exactly this energy with the pen that makes the book a delight to read. And to single out these two slips fails to communicate all that is incisive and impressive in *Triumph.* If you want history written with the grandeur and glory it deserves, here is the book and here is the author.

Even when Crocker lets Protestants have it, I smiled at
his energy, knowing that a thesis, like any defendant, requires an ardent and eloquent advocate. For too long, the Church and faith itself have been in a rigged trial, warped by the pretensions and prejudices of smug elites.

If you believe in dusty, boring, obscure scholarship, this book is not for you. If you believe in strong, decisive, evocative prose, then *Triumph* is for you. Perhaps you will read a bit more after this, but for those who lack a positive and affirmative founding in the titans and ideas that shaped Church history, this book is a worthy companion and a mighty first step.

European history has a problem. During the Reformation, many historical records were purged in Germany (Luther), Switzerland (Calvin), and England (King Henry VIII). In France, whole libraries were purged of all religious content during the French Revolution. Many historical writings have been lost. Who made of the gap for English Speaking people? Historians living in England where being a Catholic was a death-penalty offense. Thus an anti-Catholic bias was inevitable.

Is the history we know accurate? Have the "evils" of the Catholic church been exaggerated? Quite possibly.

Mr. Crocker has managed to create a work that is both readable and credible. This is not a scholarly work, it is meant to be read. You will have fun reading it! Just reading some of his commentaries such as the section about Martin Luther is both entertaining and informative. It is great fun.

One aspect of Crocker's writing which I appreciate is that I can easily tell when he is editorializing and when he is not. This is certainly NOT true with many other writers of popular or scholarly history!

Some may call this propaganda. I would contend that all history is propaganda to some degree or another. I believe it would be a mortal sin to knowingly lie or misrepresent history in a book such as this, and Crocker does seem to believe in mortal sin. I find him more credible many of the other authors I have read because of this.

And you can read some of their reviews here! Particularly when it comes to reading history there are some who take their stands and defy anyone to dare present a fresh perspective other than the one they've deemed 'the right'. And there are always those who see the name of a 'celebrity reviewer' and sniff their superior distain. While I may not think of Sean Hannity as a historian, I'll take William F. Buckley's recommendation as quite erudite enough for me, thanks. Not being an air-sniffer myself but being a reader who doesn't wish to get bogged down in the pedantic (and who appreciates the antic) there is no better concise history of the Catholic Church than THIS book (not even the great Concise History of the Catholic Church by Bokenkotter!). Crocker's prose is accessible and lucid; he reads almost like a novel as he gallops along occasionally inserting an insightful and snarky throwaway line here or there. I get the sense he'd be a skillful and devastating debater with a few of our reviewers here, and I'd love to go a few rounds with him myself over a cup of tea. The book is a delight.

If you buy only one historical overview of the Roman Catholic Church, buy Triumph. The book has an easy style for such a weighty survey.
Crocker, a convert to the Catholic Church might have titled his book Unlikely Triumph. Whether intended or not, the book shows how the Roman Catholic Church has a miraculously solid record on faith and morals and a spectacularly flaky record in politics and statecraft. The Catholic Church is the living proof that Christ's kingdom is not of this world.

Crocker's book is timely inasmuch as the present-day catholic hierarchy makes some of the same colossal errors when departing from the topic of faith and morals. For example, if you follow the editorials in the Vatican Newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, and the pronouncements of Vatican diplomats like Cardinals Martino and Etchegaray, you quickly see that the Vatican has chosen sides in the War on Terrorism and they've chosen the wrong side. They've chosen the terrorists, leaving even middle-of-the-road lay people scratching their heads.
Crocker's book helps put this awkward episode in context: the Princes of the Church have a habit of bungling statecraft. The Catholic Church manages to survive all its self-inflicted wounds and even thrives-an Unlikely Triumph.

Every Catholic should read this. This book is inspirational and factual. No apologies for the triumph of the Church over past heresies, nor of the crusades, which protected all of Europe from being overrun. Invaders would have set back justice, science and many other aspects of learning. For proof of these things, also read "How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization" by Thomas E. Woods Jr.