The Church of Wills

Papal Sin: Structures of Deceit, by Garry Wills (Doubleday, 328 pp., $25)

Ezra Pound once said of the Catholic Church that an institution that could survive the picturesqueness of the Borgias possessed a certain native resilience. Garry Wills is not in the same league as the Borgias, though not for want of trying. In Papal Sin he seeks to discredit virtually every distinctive feature of Catholicism, while claiming merely to be setting the record straight on the errors and “structures of deceit” that have grown up around the Vatican in recent decades. But there is reason to doubt this. Wills’s properly purified Catholicism—theological dogma aside —perfectly coincides with modern American liberalism. It is hard not to think that this unlikely harmony reflects a certain dogmatism of its own.

RR

About the Author

Robert Royal

Robert Royal is editor in chief of The Catholic Thing and president of the Faith & Reason Institute in Washington, D.C. His most recent book is A Deeper Vision: The Catholic Intellectual Tradition in the Twentieth Century.

Featured Tags

Papal Sin: Structures of Deceit, by Garry Wills (Doubleday, 328 pp., $25)

Ezra Pound once said of the Catholic Church that an institution that could survive the picturesqueness of the Borgias possessed a certain native resilience. Garry Wills is not in the same league as the Borgias, though not for want of trying. In Papal Sin he seeks to discredit virtually every distinctive feature of Catholicism, while claiming merely to be setting the record straight on the errors and “structures of deceit” that have grown up around the Vatican in recent decades. But there is reason to doubt this. Wills’s properly purified Catholicism—theological dogma aside —perfectly coincides with modern American liberalism. It is hard not to think that this unlikely harmony reflects a certain dogmatism of its own.

RR

About the Author

Robert Royal

Robert Royal is editor in chief of The Catholic Thing and president of the Faith & Reason Institute in Washington, D.C. His most recent book is A Deeper Vision: The Catholic Intellectual Tradition in the Twentieth Century.