Reviews for Understanding reception

The average rating for Understanding reception based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2017-04-30 00:00:00 Fddfg Gfdg Out of the nearly 100 books I read in the year 2012, this was certainly by far the best one. This book is a history book. It is a history of the Catholic Church. But because the Catholic Church has been the single most influential organization in world history, it's also a history of western civilization with all it's ups and downs. It's the story of emperor's, and bishops, and wars, and crusades. Not only is it a history, it is a vindication of the Catholic Church's preservation of western civilization. It is a defense of Catholicism against Paganism, Arianism, Pelagianism, Gnosticism, Protestantism, Nationalism, Socialism, And Fascism. This book, through the conquest of kings, plight of despots, and misery of the righteous, tells the story of how the Catholic Church made it. The author somehow manages to tell this amazing story, defend the Church, and make this book very very readable. This book is literally memorizing. The story of the Catholic Church is a story like no other. This book has gone a very long way towards moving me to the Catholic position. This is a must read.

Review # 2 was written on 2014-08-05 00:00:00 Julie Bartley To be honest, this book was so noxious that I never finished reading it. He does a disservice to the Catholic Church in his arrogant strutting and his careless interpretation of the Fourth Crusade and the Protestant Revolt (a term with which I agree). He has the audacity to say that April 12 (the unfortunate in 1204 when the Fourth Crusade despite Pope Innocent III's threat of excommunication) conquered Constantinople and proceeded to sack it should be made a feast day. It was a horrible event, although perhaps exaggerated by Byzantine chroniclers, that led to the desecration of churches. REMEMBER: THE ORTHODOX HAVE VALID SACRAMENTS!!! If April 12 should be observed in the Church, it should be as a Day of Penance for the sin that the Crusaders committed against the Unity of Holy Mother Church. Protestants were not, as he argues, merely barely civilized Germans but members of a sophisticated European society that had produced a much more restrained Renaissance than the decadent Italian Renaissance. The Catholic Church is indeed the Church established by Christ and is infallible but her triumph is in the fact that despite all the sinfulness, stupidity and just plain hard heartness of Her children she has never failed to teach the Truth and has never erred.