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The Southern Cross, November 17 to November 23, 2010
BOOK REVIEWS
Two different books on Nazism’s rise CATHOLICISM & THE ROOTS OF NAZISM: Religious Identity & National Socialism, by Derek Hastings. Oxford University Press (New York, 2010). 290 pp. SIX MILLION CRUCIFIXIONS: How Christian Teaching about Jews Paved the Road to the Holocaust, by Gabriel Wilensky. QWERTY Publishers, San Diego. 2010. 390 pp. Reviewed by Eugene Fisher EREK Hastings’ book Catholicism & the Roots of Nazism should be read by anyone interested in the history of the Christian churches, Nazism and the Shoah. Hastings studies in depth the events, movements and personalities in Bavaria, and especially Munich, from 1919 to the Beer Hall Putsch of 1923, and the radical change in Nazi ideology that followed it. While most readers will be aware of the antagonistic relationship between the Catholic Church and Adolf Hitler’s Third Reich, the early Nazi movement was formed in a city and region that was largely Catholic, with
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both the supporters and opponents of National Socialism identifying themselves as Catholics. Hastings begins his study by evoking the “peculiarities” of Munich’s Catholic tradition. Unlike in the rest of Germany, the Catholic community in Munich was the large majority, giving it a relative openness to interconfessional cooperation and a certain distance from the way the Catholic Centre Party and its local branch, the Bavarian Volks Party, operated. Also, while Catholics in the rest of Germany, and indeed throughout Europe, had looked since the early 19th century increasingly to the pope, who lived ultra montes (over the mountains) in Italy, to resist efforts of secular state regimes to control religious affairs, there was a resistance to ultramontanism in Munich among Catholics who felt they did not need such “foreign” assistance or guidance. In Munich, the German Völkische chauvinism, with its anti-ultramontanism implica-
tions, extended itself to “foreign” Jews, establishing a particularly fertile ground for what would become core to the ideology of the nascent Nazi party. The sense of Nordic-Aryan superiority and imagery was blended with explicitly Catholic images and themes. The racial theories of Houston Chamberlain and Arthur de Gobineau were popularly accepted, laying the groundwork for the racial anti-Semitism that would ultimately rationalise the Holocaust. Catholics, including a number of priests, were originally attracted to and involved in these developments. Hitler, in this period, actively cultivated Catholics and made (as it turned out a cynical) show of being one. This ended at the time of the 1923 Beer Hall Putsch, which ended in violence. Hitler came out of prison feeling he was the apocalyptic leader of a new world order and joined with other movements, many of which were vocally anti-Catholic. The bishops of Bavaria banned
participation by Catholics in the movement, with Munich’s Cardinal Michael von Faulhaber issuing a stern condemnation of antiSemitism.
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hough I agree with the subtitle of Gabriel Wilensky’s book, Six Million Crucifixions: How Christian Teaching about Jews Paved the Road to the Holocaust, and with his major thesis that Christians in general and Catholics in particular need to come fully to grips with the fact that the Christian teaching of contempt for Jews and Judaism over the centuries prepared the ground and laid the seeds for Nazi racial genocide, I cannot recommend his wellintentioned but deeply flawed book. Wilensky presents what has been called by Jewish scholars a lachrymose view of Jewish-Christian history, emphasising the negatives and ignoring or writing off the positive aspects of our twomillennium-long encounter. Where shades of grey are called for, he sees only black. He states, for example, that
“just the Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles combined have approximately 450 explicit antiSemitic verses”. There are, of course, problematic texts in the New Testament that later Christian polemicists used, or rather misused, to indict the Jews collectively of the death of Jesus. But at the time of their writing, few of these can be called anti-Judaic, much less anti-Semitic. Wilensky’s book is an indictment of the churches, particularly the Catholic Church and Popes Pius XI and XII, both of whom he calls, without sufficient evidence, anti-Semites. That is not scholarship. It is polemic. Eugene Fisher is the retired associate director of the Secretariat for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs at the US Conference of Catholic Bishops.
Seeking – and finding – God in almost everything T HE JESUIT GUIDE TO (ALMOST) EVERYTHING: A Spirituality for Real Life, by James Martin SJ. HarperOne, San Francisco. 2010. 406 pp. Reviewed by Allan Wright ATHER James Martin, the Jesuit author of numerous books including the best-seller My Life with the Saints, draws primarily from the writings of St Ignatius of Loyola and the wisdom of other Jesuits to bring to life an abundance of spiritual and practical insights for living in today’s world full of complexities and confusion. In The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything, the insights of St Ignatius, a 16th-century mystic and saint, are presented as relevant today as they ever were. Through the skillful writing and pastoral nature of Fr Martin, the Ignatian way of “finding God in all things” is made accessible to
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scholar and layperson, believer and non-believer alike on each page of this book. Fr Martin’s gift as a writer and storyteller allows the reader to feel right at home with the writings and thought of St Ignatius, who becomes a friend on the journey rather than an archaic, antiquated saint whose spirituality is out of touch with the 21st-century thinker. Quite the opposite. Questions that confront all people are addressed in this book including: how do I know what I’m supposed to do in life? How do I make good decisions? How can I face suffering? How can I find God? How do I pray? How do I love? All these questions and many more are discussed through the lens of Ignatian spirituality, which is at its core very practical and useful no matter what the generation or century. The Jesuit Guide to (Almost)
Everything does not shy away from naming the foundation of St Ignatius’ life, after his army injury, which was his relationship and commitment to follow Jesus Christ and the teachings in the Gospel. Fr Martin does an excellent job of repeatedly going back to the underpinning of all Catholic theology and spirituality which is Jesus himself. In the chapter titled “The Six Paths”, Fr Martin examines the different paths people choose to take in life concerning their relationship or lack of relationship to God. People are often in transition between these paths, but he is insightful about the popular credo that a person can be “spiritual but
not religious”. He aptly points out: “While ‘spiritual’ is obviously healthy, ‘not religious’ may be another way of saying that faith is something between you and God. And while faith is a question of you and God, it’s not just a question of you and God. Because this would mean that you, alone, are relating to God. And that means there’s no one to suggest when you might be off track.” Throughout the book, Fr Martin writes about aspects of Ignatian spirituality (the importance of listening, for example), including various quotes from St Ignatius himself. He also inserts quotes from the gospels or another Jesuit saint, writer or colleague and then
draws from his life experience to make the story come alive. These life experiences are common to us all and the gift in reading this book is that in relating to the real-life stories, we connect our sometimes ordinary daily lives with the life of faith that connects us to God. The wealth of spiritual insight this book provides is enormous. Although its more than 400 pages might seem intimidating for the average layperson, this userfriendly book responds to the multitude of questions that people ask regarding faith, incorporating the wealth of Scripture, tradition and personal stories to make it an enjoyable journey. Those who are accustomed to the ways of St Francis, St Thérèse of Lisieux or Bl Teresa of Calcutta will find a friend in St Ignatius. Wright is the author of Jesus in the House and The Bible’s Best Love Stories.
Delightful portraits of heaven HEAVEN: Our Enduring Fascination With the Afterlife, by Lisa Miller. Harper Collins, New York. 2010). 331 pp. Reviewed by Peggy Weber HEN my son was about 7, he asked me the compelling question: “Are there cheese curls in heaven?” Well, Lisa Miller, the religion editor at Newsweek magazine, does not answer that particular question. However, she does present an incredibly well-researched body of work in her book Heaven: Our Enduring Fascination With the Afterlife. She truly provides a broad and comprehensive look at what people and religions believe about life after death. The author’s notes, bibliography and index are 71 pages long. This certainly should make one aware of the depth of Miller’s research. However, even though her book has scholarly merit, it also has a human touch. Miller inserts delightful portraits of the people she interviews amid a lot of information. For example, speaking with a visual artist in New York City she asks: “Do you believe in heaven?” “Oh no,” he replies, “I would like to believe in, like, karmic retribution or divine justice, some of which is
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implied by heaven. I would like to believe that the people who cut in line will get their just desserts, but I don’t think they will.” She also interviews a Trappist monk and Yale professor Pete Hawkins who described heaven as “a Bach concert that fills you up to brimming—no matter how little you know about classical music.” Jesuit Father James Martin’s interview is compelling and Miller is impressed. She notes “Jim Martin is living proof that you can believe in heaven— and that you can believe that heaven is unbelievable at the same time.” Miller spoke with Muslims, Jews, fundamentalist Christians, Mormons and nonbelievers. She includes information about Zoroastrianism and the ancient Greeks. One learns a lot by reading this book. But some of the research is subject to interpretation. For example, Catholics might quibble a bit with some of her statements. For example, she writes that “the Church was—and is—seen as both the conduit for God’s
love in the world and a kind of intermediary institution, like a bank, to which sinners make payments in the form of prayers and penance—and receive credit in the afterlife as indulgences.” She concludes that purgatory brought about the Protestant Reformation. Clearly, Miller has taken on a monumental task. She has delved into a deep theological question and emerged with a readable and well-documented book. And the reader will especially enjoy the personal journey of Miller as she looks into the question of heaven. She writes: “At the beginning of this book, I said I believed that heaven was hope. I would now amend that to say ‘radical hope’—a constant home for unimaginable perfection even as we fail to achieve it. As Emily Dickinson said, heaven is what we cannot reach. But it is worth a human life to try.” Miller’s book makes one hope for heaven. And it makes one appreciate all the people who are on the heavenly journey—even those in search of cheese curls.