Product Description

Carl Anderson, Supreme Knight of the Knights of Columbus, surveys the exciting and history-changing ideas of Pope John Paul II in A Civilization of Love. By popularizing not only John Paul's vision but also that of his successor, Benedict XVI, Anderson hopes to inspire Christians to work toward creating a civilization of love. In such a civilization every person is a child of God. We are all intrinsically valuable. The battle today is between the culture of death (where people are judged by their social or economic value) and the culture of life. Anderson pushes aside religious differences in order to spread a message of hope to those who are weary of the constant turmoil of modern society. While he does specifically challenge Christians to take an active role in their faith, you do not have to be a Christian to participate in the movement toward a civilization of love.

By embracing the culture of life and standing with those most marginalized and deemed "useless" or a "burden" on modern society, Christians can change the tone and direction of our culture. Anderson demonstrates that regardless of our differences, we can come together on the centrality of loving and caring for others. He brings a message of inclusion and hope in the midst of a clash of civilizations and provides a road map for helping Christians understand their role in the world.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #28391 in Books
• Published on: 2008-04-01
• Released on: 2008-03-25
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 224 pages

Review
"...a bracing call to a new American revolution: a revolution of virtue. Give this book to friends who say there’s nothing to be done to heal a wounded culture." -- GEORGE WEIGEL, distinguished senior fellow, Ethics and Public Policy Center

"Anderson artfully weaves theory and practice, giving us a rare specimen indeed: a practical guide for idealists." -- JOHN L. ALLEN JR., senior correspondent, National Catholic Reporter

"Anderson has written a book brimming with insights into the transforming power of Christian faith. A Civilization of Love is both a call to personal holiness and a handbook for Catholics who are prepared to take seriously Christ’s command to his disciples to be ‘salt and light’ in the world." -- ROBERT P. GEORGE, McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence, Princeton University

"Few elements of Catholic social teaching have been more forcefully stated, or more regularly ignored, than our calling to bring Christian teachings to bear on social, political, and economic issues. Anderson seeks to bring that message home." -- MARY ANN GLENDON, Learned Hand Professor of Law, Harvard University

By embracing the culture of life and standing with those most marginalized . . . Christians can change the tone and direction of our culture. Anderson demonstrates that we can come together on the centrality of loving and caring for others -- San Francisco Examiner

About the Author

As Supreme Knight of the Knights of Columbus, Carl Anderson is the leader of the world's largest fraternal organization of Catholic laymen. Anderson was special assistant to President Reagan and acting director of the White House Office of Public Liaison, and later served on the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.

After teaching at the Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family in Rome, Anderson became the founding vice president and first dean of the Washington, D.C. session of this graduate school of theology located at The Catholic University of America.

Named by Popes Benedict XVI and John Paul II to several Vatican commissions, Anderson is a member of the Pontifical Council for the Family, the Pontifical Council for the Laity and the Pontifical Academy for Life, and is a consultor to the Pontifical Council for Social Communications and the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace.

Customer Reviews

Excellent Critique of Modern Society from an Authentically Catholic Viewpoint
"A Civilization of Love" is a quick read but it packs a lot of authentic Catholic social teaching. What I really liked about this book is how it focused on a broad set of social issues that span the political spectrum. Too often prominent Catholics focus their attention on either conservative issues (abortion, homosexuality, divorce, contraception, euthanasia, etc.) or liberal ones (poverty, environmentalism, workers' rights, immigration, etc). Mr. Anderson discusses the importance of ALL of these things to Catholics and how they are ALL part and parcel of our "culture of death".

All of these issues stem in his view from a society that "sees human beings as the products of blind, mechanical, and amoral forces, one in which human life has only a kind of quantitative, economic value. Individuals are see as units of production or consumption, and those who cannot prove they have value in these terms are increasingly subject to removal."

As noted in previous reviews, the author does have a rather annoying tendency to name-drop. I think he was trying to lend credence to his arguments by implying that they are supported by high level members of the Church hierarchy. But it came off as rather un-Christian boastfulness. Jesus got his message across pretty effectively without constant mention of His high-level connections, know what I mean?

All in all, I highly recommend this book for all Catholics interested in making this world a better place.

Geared more toward the board-member and UN-ambassador set
I found the book a little dry and, for the most part, not very relevant to my life. If I were on a board of directors, or working for the UN, I might have found this book more relevant.

Some excerpts:

p. 50: "Ironically, this French intellectual embraced by the political Left had breathed new life into the legacy of the German philosophical icon of the Nazis: Friedrich Nietzsche - at least in regard to how Sartre had advanced the rejection of Christianity, Christian morality, and indeed any traditional criteria for judging moral conduct."

p. 100: "But our experience of industrialization within Western nations during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries should make us better appreciate the experiences of the equally dramatic course of economic development globally, especially the impact on poor, developing countries."

p. 150: "Fears of an imagined Catholic fifth column or the alleged subservience of American Catholics to a 'foreign prince' are, for the overwhelming majority of Americans, a thing of the past."

Lost in the masquerade
Carl Anderson has written a scholarly-sounding book that is well-written and informative with regard to a certain reading of history and of the important papal encyclicals over the years. But it is impossible to read what he has written as an honest paean to love in light of what he leaves out of the book, and in the severe partisanship that characterizes his other political writings and activities over the years.

Like George Weigel, his writing is littered with references to his own frequent conversations with Pope John Paul II and other high Church officials. These stories come across as more self-reverential than illuminating with regard to the issues under discussion.

As a former Reagan Administration official, who welcomed George Bush to speak before the Knights of Columbus during the heat of the 2004 presidential campaign but publicly shunned and disparaged his fellow Catholic John Kerry, Anderson seems challenged when it comes to practicing what he preaches. His recent open letter belittling another Catholic Senator, Joseph Biden, focuses in the same way on the criminalization of abortion, like so many conservative authors who choose to elevate a single Supreme Court decision as the unparalleled moral test of our time.

In contrast, Anderson's book tells the story of a woman whom he and his wife assisted with an adoption in response to an unintended pregnancy. He also rightly boasts about the efforts of the Knights of Columbus to support the needs of women during pregnancies stressed by poverty or social circumstance. He cites Pope John Paul's encyclical Evangelium Vitae in insisting that we are called to promote life not only by condemning the evil, but also by promoting the good. Indeed, the US Bishops' Conference offered the same citation in their Faithful Citizenship document in November 2007, while going on to suggest that constructive measures to deal with abortion are as important as efforts to criminalize it.

But when it comes to politics, Mr Anderson has no patience for lilly-livered abortion reducers like Biden and Obama. He focuses in his open letter on Biden's discomfort with criminalization, while ignoring Biden's expressed determination to work for abortion reduction. What the open letter to Biden made explicit, the book offers implicitly in the subjects it leaves out. There is no discussion of the $3 trillion war in Iraq, the neglect of the global warming problem that the Vatican has spoken of relentlessly for the past year, and no talk about the unfolding global economic crisis that has resulted from the conservative obsession with deregulation.

It is telling that all of the other Amazon reviewers to date have loved this book with 4- or 5-star ratings. One suspects that the large swath of the Knights of Columbus who will be voting for Senators Obama and Biden have chosen to spend their money on less political treatments of the wonderful subject of love.