Synopsis
The Wisdom of the Popes by Thomas J. Craughwell is a kind of Bartlett's Familiar Quotations of the papacy—a collection of statements about various religious and social issues by popes going all the way back to St. Peter. Beginning with theological topics ("Who God Is," "Jesus Christ, True God and True Man," "The Holy Spirit"); Craughwell proceeds to consider papal wisdom regarding worship and ethics ("God rewards nothing but charity, for charity alone honors God," wrote Clement XI in 1713); and finally to papal pronouncements about such controversial matters as slavery, the Holocaust, and communism. Each of the book's 21 chapters is quite short, offering little analysis or historical context for its quotations. Nevertheless, The Wisdom of the Popes is a provocative resource for readers seeking to understand some of the Church's timeless teachings, and the book will surely compel many of those readers to dig more deeply into the questions it raises.