Reviews for The Correspondence of Pope Gregory VII

The average rating for The Correspondence of Pope Gregory VII based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2017-02-15 00:00:00 Darren Fraley As a student of St. Ignatius of Loyola and someone who reads any history of 16th and 17th century Jesuit saints that I can get my hands on, I loved this book. Not only does it give a beautiful profile of a beautiful saint, St. Peter Favre, but you really get a flavor for how the Jesuit order truly came to be and how they won so many souls for Christ. Cameos along the way from many other Jesuit saints include St. Peter Canisius, St. Francis Xavier, and of course St. Ignatius of Loyola. Through their correspondence you get such a great look at the early Jesuits, and you also get a unique feel for how they were employed by the Pope to defend the Church intellectually and spiritually against the personalities of the reformation. St. Peter Favre, recently canonized, is truly worthy of this great recognition by the Church, as you will see in the book. Incidentally, he is a personal favorite of Pope Francis and was canonized by him, so you get the extra bonus of insight into the mind and spirituality of Pope Francis.

Review # 2 was written on 2015-04-20 00:00:00 Jonathan Anderson This book reads more like an early history of the Jesuits than a strict biography. Lots of names and dates- more for scholarly than pleasure reading. The best parts were the excerpts from Peter's letters- so inspirational and beautiful. I kind of wish I had been reading his "Memoirs" (straight to the source) instead. I think the author may have had Jesuits in mind as his readers, or else people were more informed in Catholic tradition when he wrote this book in 1958. He talks over and over of the Spiritual Exercises as the core foundation of the Jesuit order but he never describes them at all- if you don't know what they are a little independent research there is a must. The Jesuit spirituality which permeates the book is quite refreshing- one sees that it has changed and/or diminished VERY much in modern times.