Mr. Weigel's book shed much light on the selection of the head of the Catholic Church. It has caused me to re-think much of the way I look at the whole institution. There is something very wonderful about the whole thing.

George Weigel has given us a brief but engaging and informative overview of the state of the Catholic Church, the election of Benedict XVI, and where Benedict will take the Church. It reads very well, and in fact you find yourself wanting more.

For instance, one of the issues for which Benedict was best known while Cardinal Ratzinger was his sympathy for the traditional Latin Mass, even when fashionable opinion in the Catholic world despised it. He has said things about the reformed liturgy that his admirers today would have condemned people as "schismatic" for saying in the 1980s and 1990s.

So it is of enormous significance that such a man was elected pope. Weigel notes, in one fleeting reference, that Benedict will probably liberalize the allowance for the traditional Mass, but that's all we get. It's almost as if Weigel, whose wing of Catholicism has not exactly had much good to say about the old rite, and which mastered all the arguments in favor of the new, isn't quite sure what to do or say now that we have a pope who's willing to concede half the points made by traditionalists.

I am perhaps being petty by dwelling on this point. The fact is that aside from this blind spot, Weigel has a sound grasp of the mind of the new pope and the serious challenges the Church faces. He is one of the most significant observers of the Church today, which is why, if you want to get up to speed on this material quickly, you can't go wrong reading Weigel.

(Oh, and by the way: N. Ravitch, below, is professor emeritus Norman Ravitch, who reviews all kinds of books he hasn't read and is a stark, raving anti-Catholic. Do a Google search on him.)