Why Priests?

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

Praise for Why Priests?:

"Using his linguistic skills and his impressive command of both secondary literature and patristic sources, Wills raises doubts aplenty about 'the Melchizedek myth,' and the priestly claims for Jesus in the 'idiosyncratic' Epistle to the Hebrews ... His final chapter is a model of elegant simplicity, a contrast (intended or not) to the flummery often associated with his own church ... 'There is one God, and Jesus is one of his prophets,' Wills concludes, 'and I am one of his millions of followers.' For those millions, scattered across time and space, that's an affirmation worthy of celebration."
--New York Times Book Review

"How. . .did priests become dominant and then essential in Catholic Christianity? And why, Wills asks, in this provocative [and] historically rich. . .book, does the Vatican continue to sustain such falsehoods? . . . Wills's demolition of the many myths surrounding the origins of priestly status and function is in itself crucially informative and enlightening."
--The New Republic

"Published at a time when the number of Catholic priests continues to dwindle and the power of bishops over the faithful continues to weaken, . . . Why Priests? may accelerate both processes. . . . Wills draws on his expertise in classical language and his wide reading in ecclesiastical history to argue that the Catholic/Orthodox priesthood has been one long mistake."
--The Washington Post

"Pulitzer Prize winner Wills, a venerable voice on church history, thought and practice, provides a stunning critique of
the Roman Catholic priesthood."
--Kirkus Reviews (starred)

"Do we really need Catholic Priests? Wills, Pulitzer Prize winner and author of Why I Am a Catholic, dares to pose this
controversial question[.] ... One cannot help but be impressed with this brilliant work written by a scholar whose love for
the Church compels him to make it better."
-- Publishers Weekly

"Wills sets out to persuade his fellow-Catholics that the priesthood is both unnecessary and un-Christian. . . . Wills is not attempting to break with the Church or dismantle it. Rather, he wants to assure the faithful that they can get by without priests. 'If we need fellowship in belief,' he writes, 'we have each other.'"
--The New Yorker

Praise for Garry Wills:
"One of the country's most distinguished intellectuals [and] also one of its most provocative."
--The New York Times Book Review

"Wills brings to bear the skills that have justly brought him renown as America's greatest public intellectual: encyclopedia erudition, concise prose and a polyglot's gift for languages."
--Chicago Tribune

"Garry Wills is simultaneously one of this country's leading public intellectuals and American Catholicism's most
formidable lay scholar."
-- Los Angeles Times