Mr. Allen's book, Conclave, is an insightful look into how the Catholic Church chooses its pope. The weakness of Conclave is that it was written some years before the death of Pope John Paul so that some of its predictions & conclusions are a little dated, though its descriptions of the process remain useful. Now we have The Rise of Benedict XVI, a book on the election of John Cardinal Ratzinger to the Chair of St. Peter. Coming mere months after the events it describes, timing again becomes a strength and a weakness of Mr. Allen's work.
In many ways, this book is a sequel to Conclave. It glosses over the procedures of conclave, which Mr. Allen covered in more detail in his earlier book, but he is more specific in this volume as to who actually did what as the events unfolded. He has also updated his discussion of many of the issues that face the Church; most notably in his presentation of the child abuse scandal that has rocked the Church in the past few years.
In essence, this book is a history of the Vatican in the first six months of 2005. Clearly an insider, Mr. Allen offers a detailed view of why Cardinal Ratzinger was chosen as the new pope. He gives a decent, if not terribly in depth, biography of Ratzinger and gives a fair discussion of the challenges that await Benedict XVI. Best of all, he takes a balanced view of this watchdog of Catholic theology. Many progressive Catholics are worried about where Benedict may lead the Church. Mr. Allen acknowledges this but reminds us of an important point: it is impossible to predict how anyone will ultimately react to sitting in the big chair. We need to be patient an open-minded.
We need to be the same with this book, which was obviously assembled in haste and impatience. It's a bit repetitive in spots, probably from a lack of time for serious editing. And the lack of an index is an obvious flaw. Still, as a snapshot of the moment, it is impressive. It will be interesting to look back at this book at the end of Benedict's reign and see how well Mr. Allen foresaw things.
Allen did a lot of researching and veryfying for this book; he provides a lot of information not previously known, such as which other Cardinals were serious contenders, and other tidbits of the Conclave.
The editing is poor, however, in that Allen repeats the same details numerous times, and that this book is about Benedict XVI, but when you're into practically 25% of the book, it said virtually nothing about Ratzinger. The whole beginning section is dedicated to John Paul II.
Yes, John Paul was a magnificent figure, and he is loved and missed by all, and you cannot help but compare the current pope to the last one; but that much written of John Paul does not belong in a book about Benedict XVI. Granted, John Paul's papacy and death did effect the outcome of the 2005 Conclave, such as Cardinal Ratzinger's good handling of the Interregnum and funeral, which attracted many of the Cardinals to vote for him. But in a book about Benedict XVI, attention to John Paul II should be much more limited than.
On the plus side, though, details about the last few months of John Paul's life are extensively discussed in this book, going into how ill the Pope was. That's something a lot of people, including myself, have been looking for.
It is obvious that they rushed to put this book out, and the editors didn't really put much time into making sure that it was well-structured. Nevertheless, this book is rich in content, and a great deal of the information he gives cannot be found anywhere else.
