The Pope In Winter - Rated 
'The Pope In Winter' seemed to be a fairly balanced look at the life and policy of Pope John Paul. I guess any religious biography is going to be controversial and that staunch catholics will be upset at some of the ideas explored here. The one, and main, thing in this books defence is that the author is a catholic and has a great deal of access and experience of Vatican events. At times some of the chapters rambled and the style wasn't too easy to plow through (hence the 3 stars) but generally it was a good read and put across it's ideas clearly. Some of the more esoteric and philosophical religious ideas were a bit of a chore, but relevant to the overall themes of the book. This book has some excellent colour plate sections showing the pope at various ages and times in his life, some flattering and others less so, but as he was only human it is good to see him in various human poses and situations. The overall message is that Pope John Paul changed the papacy quite dramatically and it explains how. I guess it depends on your own personal views to see whether you feel those changes were positive or negative, but this book goes some way in helping you make that choice. A good read, with some interesting ideas to explore and recommended for a more balanced view of Catholicism and the papacy rather than the glossy image portrayed by the Vatican and it's supporters.
Another Cornwell Triumph - Rated 
A splendid record of this good man's ups and downs. I've read many books written about John Paul II and most of them are repetitious. This one is refreshingly new. Actually, I've read all of Cornwell's books and I have yet to be disappointed. He is probably the most knowledgeable man on the planet concerning the papal household.
If you like pope-books, try `Jesus of Nazareth' by John Paul's successor, Benedict XVI. Also, for an eye-opener, get your fingers on Lucien Gregoire's `White Light Dark Night' a newly released biog of the Polish Pope's predecessor, the 33-day Pope. We've heard too much of his death, finally, the record of the life of John Paul I: his childhood, seminary days, priesthood, bishop, cardinal, pope.
Careful but unflinching portrait - Rated 
This is an elegant, sharply intelligent account of Karol Wojtyla's pontificate, a refreshing antidote to the more official and fulsome biographies of him. The author is a respected catholic thinker and academic. He hasn't set out to shock, but to flesh out the complex personality of John Paul II and to relate him to his time- a period of great political change in central Europe and of knife-edged diplomacy and still unresolved conflict in the middle East. Cornwell has his own un-named sources for some previously unknown anecdotage, some of it startling, some amusing. Ultra-conservative catholics may find these Vatican tales a touch scandalous, but they humanise this figure of power and authority, and indeed they seem to ring true when one already knows a bit about the character of Wojtyla before he became Pope. It may be an uncompromising, "warts and all" portrait, and Cornwell is unequivocal about what he sees as the Pope's failings in, for instance, religious pluralism, but he is respectful of his achievements. He details the Pontiff's early visits to his native Poland at the days when the Solidarity movement faced up to the communist-controlled regime. At that time Wojtyla whole-heartedly encouraged the spirit of freedom in his compatriots without overtly urging a people's revolt, and though he could not claim to be the prime mover of the fall of communism, his moral leadership could not be ignored, and his oratory and diplomatic skills, as Cornwell puts it, were "perfect" for the occasion. The book is also realistic about those occasions on which John Paul II and the Holy See appeared to stumble over, or not to react swiftly enough to, controversies that engulfed the church in the late 20th century, such as the child abuse scandal in the USA involving Catholic priests. He also dispassionately analyses Wojtyla's personal viewpoint during the arguments over womens' rights, including the debate over the ordination of women, and sexual health issues such as contraception for AIDS sufferers. What might appear from its back cover quotes to be a calculatedly iconoclastic account turns out to be a thoughtful and immensely readable biography.
The Pope in Winter - Rated
Not a particularly easy read due to the burden of so much historical information. Cornwell is a catholic historian who must stick in the throat of traditionalists.John Paul 11 had a particular interest in human sexuality which the book expounds,making it even more of an anachronism that women's lives should be governed by the decrees of one both celibate and infallible.
An interesting read - Rated
A good outline of the previous Pope's 60-year spiritual journey and of the man's inconsistencies and fallibilities, especially in his later years. As the author states in his preface, this is not an alternate biography of John Paul II - it is a parallel one. It fills in some of the gaps left by the Pope's hagiographers. This is emphatically not just a hatchet-job - JP's role in the downfall of communism in Poland is fully covered - but it does mention many of the incidents in the latter part of his career which the Vatican would doubtless rather cover up, particularly regarding the hardening of attitudes on women, the centralising of papal authority in the hands of the pontiff and the debilitating effect of Parkinson's disease. Overall, I think this book provides the reader with a fuller and more rounded portrait of a ferociously intelligent, complex, colourful, flawed and very human person.
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