James Carroll Constantine's Sword

A bold and moving book tracing the two-thousand-year course of the Church's battle against Judaism by National Book Award-winning author James Carroll. More than a chronicle of religion, this dark history is the central tragedy of Western civilization. The Church's failure to protest the Holocaust--the infamous "silence" of Pius XII--is only part of the story: the death camps, Carroll shows, are the culmination of a long, entrenched tradition of anti-Judaism. From Gospel accounts of the death of Jesus on the cross, to Constantine's transformation of the cross into a sword, to the rise of blood libels, scapegoating, and modern anti-Semitism, Carroll reconstructs the dramatic story of the Church's conflict not only with Jews but with itself. Constantine's Sword is a brave and affecting reckoning with difficult truths that will touch every reader.