Books like this are rare. The Pope Who Would Be King is one of the few publications that has made me commit a mortal sin—that of envy. I wish I could tell a story in such a colorful and lively way. Unlike David Kertzer’s tendentious works on Pius XI and Mussolini, I found myself . . . . Continue Reading »
Vatican I: The Council and the Making of the Ultramontane Church by john w. o’malley belknap, 320 pages, $24.95 In 1860 Pope Pius IX lost the papal states, which had been held by his predecessors for a thousand years. Four years later he issued the Syllabus of Errors. The eightieth and . . . . Continue Reading »
Jews and Christians alike pledge a higher loyalty that they honor in ways that seem incomprehensible to the world.” So writes Fr. Romanus Cessario in “Non Possumus” (February). As an example of such incomprehensible devotion, he cites the kidnapping of the child Edgardo Mortara in 1858. The . . . . Continue Reading »
Kidnapped by the Vatican? The Unpublished Memoirs of Edgardo Mortaraby vittorio messoriignatius, 190 pages, $17.95 At nightfall on Wednesday, June 23, 1858, a knock came on the door of Salomone and Marianna Mortara, Jewish residents of Bologna. Only the wife was at home with the children. It . . . . Continue Reading »
From its very beginning, First Things has been a venture in which Jews and Christians have worked together. Continue Reading »
The Pope and the Professor: Pius IX, Ignaz von Döllinger, and the Quandary of the Modern Age by thomas howardoxford, 312 pages, $45 John Henry Newman aside, Ignaz von Döllinger (1799–1890) was the greatest Catholic theologian of the nineteenth century. He came of age amid a golden . . . . Continue Reading »
The Syllabus of Errors, issued in 1864 under the auspices of Pope Pius IX, famously ends by condemning the proposition that “The Roman Pontiff can, and ought to, reconcile himself, and come to terms with progress, liberalism, and modern civilization.”Is Pope Francis a latter day Pio Nono? Such . . . . Continue Reading »
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