Pope
John XXIII: A Penguin Life (Penguin Lives) by Thomas
Cahill The punchy Penguin Lives series is the best thing to
hit popular biography in some time, and Thomas Cahill is just the fun and
erudite guy to Penguinize Pope John XXIII. He captures both the irresistible
character of Angelo "Little Angel" Giuseppe Roncalli, a peasant born in
backwards Bergamo, and his place in world and church history. In fact,
Cahill shows, as John XXIII, Angelo brought the church into the modern
world in the 1960s, upsetting the poisoned apple cart of his nefarious
predecessor, Pius X, whom Cahill convincingly likens to a Joe McCarthy
with the private meanness of Nixon. John XXIII anticipated liberation theology
by seven decades, reached out to Protestants and even non-Christians, and
saved thousands of Jews from Hitler by wily machinations Cahill aptly compares
to Paul's epistle to Philemon. (Cahill says it's unfair to brand Angelo's
immediate predecessor, Pius XII, as Hitler's Pope--though he was a "moral
pygmy" next to the giant John XXIII.) Cahill gives a quickie history of
the Papacy that generations of cramming history students will thank God
for, and includes just enough about Pope John's irreverent wit and way
of life--the La Grenouille chef, the Jackie Kennedy friendship, the possibly
apocryphal quip to a buxom woman wearing a crucifix ("What a Golgotha!").
An exemplary brief bio of an exemplary man. --Tim Appelo - Amazon.com
Hardcover from Viking Books
Book Published: 10 January, 2002
