Summary
The public square: a continuing survey of religion and public life - Garry Wills, 'Why I Am a Catholic'
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Mr. Wills for the prosecution.
In the dock are Pope John Paul II and Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. If they get a conviction, it is possible, but not certain, that the prosecution will go after a long list of indicted coconspirators. The charges are very serious: disturbing the peace, breach of contract, and, most grave, insurrection against the rightful sovereignty of the People of God. The claim is that the defendants are guilty of having attempted nothing less than a coup. Few trials in recent memory have attracted the enormous public interest surrounding People of God v. Wojtyla and Ratzinger. The prosecution has retained Mr. Garry Wills--adjunct professor of history at Northwestern University and authority on all things Catholic for the New York Review of Books--as lead counsel. It is in many ways a shrewd choice. Wills has a reputation for being quick of tongue and quick of wit, with a rapid delivery of facts and judgments that impresses, sometimes at the risk of intimidating, the less educated.
Mr. Wills reportedly caught the prosecution's attention when he published two years ago Papal Sin, a book that immediately reached the best seller lists. Now his very long 366-page closing argument for the trial has been leaked in advance and published under the title Why I Am a Catholic Sources close to the prosecution say that Mr. Wills collaborated in the leak and chose the title himself. If true, it was an astute move. In his closing argument, Wills repeatedly refers to the critics of Papal Sin who accused him of being no true Catholic, or even an enemy of the Church. Knowing that much of his argument could be mistaken for the familiar anti-Catholic, and especially anti-papal, polemic that has been standard fare since the sixteenth century, he takes care in his closing argument to try to establish his Catholic bona fides. The bottom line, so to speak, is that he is certainly more Catholic than the Pope. Whether he succeeds or not in making that case is a question for the defense to explore and the jury to judge. My job is simply to report. I have read some of the scholarly critiques of Papal Sin, and people who should know say they a...See the full content of this document
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