Constantine's Sword: The Church and the Jews: A History
Constantine's Swordis a sprawling work of history, theology, and  personal confession by James Carroll (the author ofAn American Requiem, among many  others). Carroll begins his landmark project by describing contemporary Catholic  remembrances of the Holocaust and the Church's intolerable legacy of hostility  towards Jews. He then surveys Catholic anti-Judaism beginning with the New  Testament and proceeding through the early Church, the Crusades, the  Inquisition, the Enlightenment, and World War II, before concluding with "A Call  for Vatican III," a Church council that would make meaningful repentance for an  entrenched tradition of hatred. Carroll's prescriptions for repentance,  continued in a powerful epilogue, are bracingly concrete: "there is no apology  for Holy Week preaching that prompted pogroms until Holy Week liturgies,  sermons, and readings have been purged of the anti-Jewish slanders that sent the  mobs rushing out of church.... Forgiveness for the sin of anti-Semitism presumes  a promise to dismantle all that makes it possible." Carroll's personal  reflections as an American Catholic infuse his historical narrative, and  although his reflections are sometimes unnecessarily detailed, they are  admirable for the principle they express: "I find myself unable to accuse my  Church of any sin that I cannot equally accuse myself of," he writes. Carroll's  judgments on the Church are rightly harsh, even agonizing. And yet his vision  for a future rapprochement between Christians and Jews is hopeful, in part  because he personally has come to understand the deep connections between Israel  and the Church: "Jesus offers me, a non-Jew, access to the biblical hope that  was his birthright as a son of Israel."--Michael Joseph Gross