His Holiness (Hardcover)

by Carl Bernstein (Author) "Karol Jozef Wojtyla was conceived in a time of war between newly independent Poland and Lenin's Soviet Republic..." (more)
Key Phrases: antisocialist elements, interview with authors, papal entourage, John Paul, Karol Wojtyla, United States (more...)

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: 3.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,332,392 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

29 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

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

By A Customer

This review is from: His Holiness (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.

31 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars for the man, not the authors, August 18, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: His Holiness (Paperback)

While I enjoyed this book, I do feel that there is a vague sense of Catholic bashing going on. John Paul II is a remarkable man - a gift to the world in our lifetime, and although you may not agree with everything the man says, deep in your heart you know the man is right - we can be better than we are. The thing to remember is that the Pope is CATHOLIC. He is going to take the highest Catholic stance on matters of faith and morals. If the non-Catholics of the world don't like what he has to say, too bad. The Catholic Church can take it, and it will still be around long after the bashers and hate mongers are gone. Any change in the Church will take place over time, with much thought and prayer. Bernstein and Polito did a relatively well-balanced job in the beginning of the book, but then got into the politics and moral stances of the Church, and it is evident that they have their own opinions on these. I don't care what they think, and I don't think they have any business criticizing a church that (at least one of them) they don't belong to. John Paul II is a wonderful man, perhaps one of the most influential of this last half -century, and the most-gifted Pope the Church has ever had.

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Uneven coverage of a great man, February 2, 2004

By	Big Mike "Superior Text" (Ypsilanti, MI USA) - See all my reviews

I started off really liking this book. The coverage of the Pope's early life up until his ascencion to the throne was very interesting and pretty well-done. Once he got to the papacy, there were two significant problems. First of all, there were whole sections that dealt with the CIA and other government agencies and didn't talk about the Pope very much. More troubling was what the authors did to the story after the fall of communism. It was like a totally different book. The immediately began using words like "angry" and "snapped" and "reactionary" and "militant" to describe the Pope's stand on moral issues. After championing him as a her in the fight against communism, they made him seem like a grumpy old man who can't keep up with the times when he dared to take a firm stance against abortion or the ordination of women priests. I threw the book away when I was done. Be smarter than me and don't buy it in the beginning!