{"product_id":"constantines-sword-the-church-and-the-jews-a-history-9780618219087","title":"Constantine's Sword: The Church and the Jews--A History","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\"Carroll, whose love for the Catholic Church . . . is not only matched by a lovingly critical eye. . . but an urgent plea that Rome set another course.\" -- \u003cem\u003eBoston Globe\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eIn this bold and moving book sure to spark heated debate, novelist, cultural critic, and National Book Award-winning author James Carroll maps the profoundly troubling two-thousand-year course of the Church's battle against Judaism and faces the crisis of faith it has provoked in his own life as a Catholic. More than a chronicle of religion, this dark history is the central tragedy of Western civilization, its fault lines reaching deep into our culture.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe 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. From Gospel accounts of the death of Jesus on the cross, to Constantine's transformation of the cross into a sword, to the rise of blood libels, scapegoating, and modern anti-Semitism, Carroll reconstructs the dramatic story of the Church's conflict not only with Judaism but with itself. Yet in tracing the arc of this narrative, he implicitly affirms that it did not necessarily have to be so. There were roads not taken, heroes forgotten; new roads can be taken yet. Demanding that the Church finally face this past in full, Carroll calls for a fundamental rethinking of the deepest questions of Christian faith. Only then can Christians, Jews, and all who carry the burden of this history begin to forge a new future.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eDrawing on his well-known talents as a storyteller and memoirist, and weaving historical research through an intensely personal examination of conscience, Carroll has created a work of singular power and urgency. \u003cem\u003eConstantine's Sword\u003c\/em\u003e is a brave and affecting reckoning with difficult truths that will touch every reader.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eCarroll, James:\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e - \u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eJames Carroll\u003c\/b\u003e was raised in Washington, D.C., and ordained to the Catholic priesthood in 1969. He served as a chaplain at Boston University from 1969 to 1974, then left the priesthood to become a writer. A distinguished scholar- \u003cbr\u003ein-residence at Suffolk University, he is a columnist for the \u003ci\u003eBoston Globe\u003c\/i\u003e and a \u003cbr\u003eregular contributor to the Daily Beast. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHis critically admired books include \u003ci\u003ePracticing Catholic\u003c\/i\u003e, the National Book Award-winning \u003ci\u003eAn American Requiem\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eHouse of War\u003c\/i\u003e, which won the first PEN\/Galbraith Award, and the \u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e bestseller \u003ci\u003eConstantine's Sword\u003c\/i\u003e, now an acclaimed documentary. \u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Harper Paperbacks","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50614632808722,"sku":"9780618219087","price":17.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_d9a95d46-0bcd-4320-95b6-dc59cf40b9cc.jpg?v=1732454206","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/constantines-sword-the-church-and-the-jews-a-history-9780618219087","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}