Willful Deceit
Why I Am a Catholic
by Garry Wills
Houghton Mifflin Company, 2002
(390 pages; $26.00, hardcover)
reviewed by William J. Tighe
Garry Wills’s earlier book, Papal Sin: Structures of Deceit, was written to expose what the author believes to be a systematic pattern of papal deceit and self-deception in refusing to acknowledge the changeable nature of Catholic doctrine and practice and in refusing to embrace what he sees as much-needed changes. These changes include making clerical celibacy optional, ordaining women, accepting contraception and homosexual practice, and at least ceasing to condemn abortion, if not actually accepting “conscientiousR . . .
