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National Catholic Register book review of Pope Fiction

More Entertaining Than Fiction

by David Pearson

But of course there was once a woman pope. Her name was Joan. If it were not so, Whoopi Goldberg would not have confirmed it from her pulpit in the center of the Hollywood Squares. Or, at least, the comedienne wouldn’t have hogged the microphone after her turn had passed to make the pronouncement — and with the seriousness of a distinguished historian presenting a research paper at a university symposium.

No, this was clearly something the Whoopster felt she had to get through to a world in denial.

In truth, Whoopi said it, I didn’t buy it, and that settled it. Then I read Patrick Madrid’s new book and found out just how tall the tale really was. Suffice it to say that Whoopi probably had no idea just how much of a whopper she had bit into by believing and repeating that particular "pope fiction."

In laying out the lapses in logic lurking beneath this and 29 other frequently parroted fallacies about the papacy, along with the bends scandalmongers force on historical facts — unwittingly or deliberately — Madrid makes a startlingly simple, yet thorough, defense of the binding spiritual authority of St. Peter and his successors on all who would call themselves Christians. The world gives skeptics plenty of reasons to doubt divine initiative behind, and protection over, the Church’s highest office. Madrid dissects all the most popular ones and takes on enough less-familiar salvos that the book ends up reading as much like a brief history as an apologetics exercise.

The best part is, it’s a fun read. Madrid, editor-in-chief of the spunky Catholic evangelization magazine Envoy, is an adroit wordsmith as well as a seasoned defender of the Faith. This is an apologetics lesson as taught by a favorite high-school teacher — the one who draws in even the most disinterested students, gets them to laugh out loud, then feeds them a whole lot of truth while their mouths are still open.

There’s St. Peter, "the rock that will not roll." Here comes Pope Vigilius, a somewhat chicken-hearted sort, "poultry in motion." And there go Clement VII, Benedict XIII and John XXIII — a few of the Middle Ages’ "smooth-talking antipopes."

Yet, while Madrid’s playfulness should indeed appeal to younger readers, Pope Fiction won’t disappoint those of any age looking for a substantive encounter with the actualities behind the allegations. This favorite teacher doesn’t fail to amuse — but, by the time the final bell rings, he’s also filled his students with facts and inspired them to want to know more.

"All popes, even the saintly ones, have been sinners in need of God’s mercy and grace," reads a section on papal infallibility. "Some, unfortunately, were heavy-duty sinners who seemed to give no thought to the eventual hellfire that awaited them if they refused to repent and change their wicked ways. But even their gross sinfulness didn’t change by one fraction the fact that, as popes, they enjoyed the charism of papal infallibility. They may have lived horrible lives, but they were prevented by this grace of the Holy Spirit from formally teaching error to the Church. Amazing, but true; and we should thank God for that kind of armor-plated protection. Even bad popes can’t wreck the papacy!"

Breezy, yes, but Madrid backs up his findings with copious Scripture excerpts and scores of citations from scholarly books and journals. Read the book for pure enjoyment, but don’t be surprised when you find yourself mulling the finer points of things like ultramontanism, sedevacantism and Monophysitism.

As for the specific pope fictions covered, Madrid begins with the arguments some Christians raise over the primacy of St. Peter. He had no special authority, say some. Jesus wasn’t referring to Peter when he said "upon this rock I will build my Church," according to others. Jesus called him "Satan," Paul publicly rebuked him, the Bible never says he ever went to Rome, and so on.

From there it’s on to charges that the papacy is a medieval Roman invention, the apostle John was prophetically referring to a future pope when he wrote about "666" in Revelation, the Galileo controversy proved that the papacy was a sham and the modern-day papacy doesn’t resemble Peter’s ministry in the Acts of the Apostles.

Various things said and done by a number of individual popes through the centuries have been held up as proofs that the papacy is, at best, a naive notion and, at worst, the direct work of the devil; Madrid enlightens on many of them. My favorite turned out to be the story of Pope Sixtus V, a brawny man of action who, thanks to his impetuous aggressiveness, probably came closer than any other pope to formally teaching error to the Church. He micromanaged the production of a badly botched revision of the Latin Vulgate Bible, then died suddenly days before he was to formally promulgate it. A twist of fate or the protection of the Holy Spirit?

"The history of the papacy isn’t all good," writes Madrid. "If the papacy and the succession of the Apostles were of merely human origin and not divinely established and preserved by the Triune God, they would have collapsed centuries ago under the weight of human weakness. … But [the] dark chapters are simply the proof that the Catholic Church is Christ’s Church, not the pope’s Church."

As for Whoopi Goldberg, a talented entertainer by any standard, I don’t think she’s a fibber. More likely, she’s underinformed and overeager. Along comes a delicious legend, popularized by a best-selling historical novel — 1996’s Pope Joan by Donna Woolfolk Cross, who implies it’s based on a true story and who has sold the movie rights to a major studio. Given that kind of momentum, what is a star to do but provide a little advance publicity for industry mates across town? Especially when the body on the brunt end of the slam is Hollywood’s favorite sacrificial straw man of late. (That’d be the Catholic Church.)

Well, for starters, she might consider spending an evening with the very entertaining Pope Fiction. But she shouldn’t wait for the movie. The truth flies off these pages, but it will never be big at the box office.