Why I Am a Catholic

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Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2003 - Biography & Autobiography - 390 pages

In this provocative work, which could not be timelier, Garry Wills, one of our country's most noted writers and historians, offers a powerful statement of his Catholic faith. Beginning with a reflection on his early experience of that faith as a child and later as a Jesuit seminarian, Wills reveals the importance of Catholicism in his own life. He goes on to challenge, in clear and forceful terms, the claim that criticism or reform of the papacy is an assault on the faith itself. For Wills, a Catholic can be both loyal and critical, a loving child who stays with his father even if the parent is wrong.
Wills turns outward from his personal experiences to present a sweeping narrative covering two thousand years of church history, revealing that the papacy, far from being an unchanging institution, has been transformed dramatically over the millennia -- and can be reimagined in the future. At a time when the church faces one of its most difficult crises, Garry Wills offers an important and compelling entrée into the discussion of the church's past -- and its future.
Intellectually brisk and spiritually moving, Why I Am a Catholic poses urgent questions for Catholic and non-Catholic readers alike.

 

Selected pages

Contents

Saint Marys and Campion
13
Jesuit Days
21
Chesterton
31
Encyclicals
43
CHURCH WITHOUT PAPAL PRIMACY
53
Peter
57
Paul
70
Rome Mediating
78
Reign of Terror
208
THE VATICAN II CHURCH
223
The Great Rebirth
226
Born to Set Times Right
239
Fighting Vatican II
255
Living Vatican II
271
The Popes Loyal Opposition
282
THE CREED
293

Rome Meddling
85
Rome and the East
93
Rome Turns West
109
FORMS OF PAPAL PRIMACY
123
Forgeries and Populism
127
Rise of the Secular State and the Church Council
142
Renaissance and Reformation
154
Trent and England
165
Ancien Regime and Revolution
178
War on Democracy
190
I believe in God
299
the Father almighty creator of heaven and earth
308
and in Jesus Christ our Lord the only son of God
316
conceived by the Holy Spirit born of the Virgin Mary
324
shall come to judge the living and the dead
331
Epilogue
341
Notes
345
Acknowledgments
368
Index
369
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About the author (2003)

GARRY WILLS, a distinguished historian and critic, is the author of numerous books, including the Pulitzer Prize-winning Lincoln at Gettysburg, Saint Augustine, and the best-selling Why I Am a Catholic. A regular contributor to the New York Review of Books, he has won many awards, among them two National Book Critics Circle Awards and the 1998 National Medal for the Humanities. He is a history professor emeritus at Northwestern University.

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