Jesus Wept: Seven Popes and the Battle for the Soul of the Catholic Church

Journalist Shenon (The Commission) delivers a dense history of the modern Catholic church. Covering the past 75 years, he depicts an institution caught between the competing ideals of authority versus tolerance, or what Pope John XXIII referred to as the “medicine of mercy.” During WWII, Shenon notes, Pope Pius XII promulgated “dire warnings about sinful practices” and ignored “irrefutable intelligence” about the deaths of millions of Jews at the hands of the Nazis. Later, he centralized power in the Vatican with a 1949 decree that reinforced strict divisions between Catholics and Protestants. In the 1960s, John XXIII permitted worship in Latin to be replaced with vernacular language and pursued reconciliation efforts with the Jewish people. Subsequent popes were drawn into debates over birth control, sexuality, and relations with the world’s religions. Shenon digs most deeply into the church’s child sexual abuse scandals, arguing that John Paul III and Benedict XVI helped to cover them up by sitting on reams of evidence and failing to investigate accused clergy members. Drawing on prodigious research, the author paints a richly detailed portrait of a complex, hierarchical, and secretive institution as it grappled with a modernizing world. Unfortunately, the profusion of detail sometimes precludes broader meditations on the long-term implications of the crises described. Still, devoted Catholics and scholars of Catholicism will want this on their bookshelves. (Feb.)