Reviews for Catholicism between Luther and Voltaire

The average rating for Catholicism between Luther and Voltaire based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2014-05-15 00:00:00 Lori Anastasio "As I see it, the ‘Christian Middle Ages,’ as far as the essentially rural masses are concerned, is a legend which is being increasingly challenged. And, if it is legend, the two Reformations constituted, despite mutual excommunication, two complementary aspects of one and the same process of Christianization whose impact and limits still have to be assessed." As I was reading this book I found myself agreeing with one half of Delumeau's ideas, and then strongly disagreeing with the other. The first half of this work is largely a look at the Council of Trent and its immediate aftermath. It's a pretty familiar story by now: in the wake of the Reformation, Catholicism countered by cracking down on 'superstitious' practices and by trying to create a more active, education, and uniform clergy. Deluumeau argues that this should be seen in the context of comparable reform occurring in Protestant countries, and observes that both sides had largely the same goals, just to varying degrees. Delumeau was one of the earlier historians to argue along these lines, bucking the trend of scholarship that saw Protestants and Catholics solely as opposing camps, and focused particularly on theological differences. Delumeau's focus on the commonalities between the two sides, therefore, is interesting. But it's harder for me to get on board with his second point: that the two faiths were so similar because they were both undertaking a process of "Christianizing" the rural masses that had been Christian in only the most superficial sense of the word. This argument makes me very grumpy. I think it's a weird argument to make for a number of reasons, but mostly because it takes post-Tridentine Catholicism to be the one "true" Catholicism, and assumes that forms of faith that deviate from it are contaminated in some way. I think that's an odd way to approach religion. Medieval Christianity was undeniably weird from a modern perspective, superstitious as well. It was very flexible and diverse, because it was universal. Nearly everyone in Europe practiced it, so it was naturally practiced in a wide variety of ways. Delumeau seems to take this fact to imply that these people were not Christians in any real sense of the word, simply because their idea of Catholicism was not the same as the definition codified a hundred years later. He even goes so far as to suggest that the drop-off in Church attendance over the course of the 18th century was some kind of purge, where all of the 'fake' Catholics fell away leaving a core of true believers (ugh). This is a terribly unimaginative way to view religion and history and it makes me feel a little resentful to a book that is otherwise very good.

Review # 2 was written on 2014-02-22 00:00:00 David Lomax I found this book very interesting, there were aspects of John Paul II's life that I didn't know about before reading, like his talents as a poet and playwright. The final chapters dealing with the last years of his life seemed a bit short, and I felt the author could have elaborated more about this period. Otherwise, it's a good book.