Subscribers of the New Yorker who are anti-Catholic (not a few we would guess) have come to adore James Carroll. Carroll is a former priest who today competes with many former priests and seminarians as the biggest anti-Catholic bigot on the block. With his latest book, we think he’s won.
Constantine’s Sword, the Church and the Jews: A History will be available January 10. Its thesis is available now, thanks to a blurb on the website of Carroll’s publisher, Houghton Mifflin: “The Church’s failure to protest the Holocaust—the infamous ‘silence’ of Pius XII—is only part of the story: the death camps, Carroll shows, are the culmination of a long, entrenched tradition of anti-Judaism.” In other words, the Church created Hitler.
Carroll has a long and infamous career of bashing the Church. Whether he’s ripping the Church for canonizing Edith Stein, blaming Pius XII for the Holocaust or going bonkers because the Church has had it with nuns who believe in a do-it-yourself religion, Carroll can always be counted on to take the side of the anti-Catholics. That’s because he is one.
Look for the big media to eat this one up. Between the deceitful John Cornwell (Hitler’s Pope), the embittered Garry Wills (Papal Sin) and the anti-Catholic James Carroll (Constantine’s Sword), the Catholic-bashing appetite in this country is positively gluttonous.
That so much of the hatred comes from those who were once Catholic—or still claim to be—says something. About them. To lug around this much pent-up rage about a voluntary organization that they’ve walked away from is a sign that serious self-inflicted damage has been done. Its time they spent less time in a library and more time in a gym. We’d all be in better shape if only they would.
