Why Priests?, Garry Wills
Why Priests?, Garry Wills
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Why Priests?
A Failed Tradition

Author: Garry Wills

Narrator: Michael Prichard

Unabridged: 8 hr 12 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 02/12/2013


Synopsis

Bestselling author of Papal Sin and Why I Am a Catholic,
Garry Wills spent five years as a young man at a Jesuit seminary and
nearly became a priest himself. But after a lifetime of study and
reflection, he now poses some challenging questions: Why do we need
priests at all? Why did the priesthood arise in a religion that began
without it and opposed it? Would Christianity be stronger without the
priesthood, as it was at its outset?

Meticulously researched, persuasively argued, and certain to spark debate, Why Priests?
asserts that the anonymous Letter to Hebrews, a late addition to the
New Testament canon, helped inject the priesthood into a Christianity
where it did not exist, along with such concomitants as belief in an
apostolic succession, the real presence in the Eucharist, the
sacrificial interpretation of the Mass, and the ransom theory of
redemption. But Wills does not expect the priesthood to fade entirely
away. He just reminds us that Christianity did without it in the time of
Peter and Paul with notable success.

Wills concludes with a
powerful statement of his own beliefs in a book that will appeal to
believers and nonbelievers alike and stand for years to come as a
towering achievement.

About Garry Wills

Garry Wills is an adjunct professor and cultural historian in the Department of History at Northwestern University. He has written many acclaimed works on religion and on American history, including Lincoln at Gettysburg, for which he received the Pulitzer Prize; Cincinnatus: George Washington and the Enlightenment; and the New York Times bestsellers What Jesus Meant and Why I Am a Catholic. A frequent contributor to the New York Review of Books and other publications, he studied for the priesthood and took his doctorate in the classics.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Vince

[URL not allowed] Why Priests?, the latest book from author and historian Garry Wills, is one slippery fish. The provocative title suggests a foundation-shaking argument, but the book is as much biblical history as contemporary critique. At first glance, the title may sound ant......more

Goodreads review by Edward

Gary Wills asks the question of why Christianity, specifically Roman Catholicism, needs priests in the first place? He would keep “priests” around, but only as church administrators and functionaries, stripping them of their special “sacred” position, and would move toward a more Protestant model. S......more