Let's Not Forget Got (Image Books)

Let's Not Forget God is a book I have been sitting on for months. I keep looking at it on my shelf, wanting to make time for it, but other books win the battle instead. This week I finally decided to bite the bullet and read and review this book. The book is approximately 130 pages, but it is a very dense book. I felt like I needed a Latin-English dictionary when reading it, because Cardinal Scola so casually drops Latin in his writing that, I found myself googling as I was reading.

In this book, Cardinal Scola discusses the crisis of religious freedom in the 21st Century. He does this by providing us a lesson in history, dating all the way back to the persecution of Christians and the Edict of Milan. Scola doesn't glibly give state that the Edict of Milan made Christianity legal, but he dives deeper into it and focuses on the impact it had on other religions and the empire. He also briefly examines whether Constantine's motivation for taking up the banner of Christianity was purely personal or also political in nature. Chapter Two speeds us through the centuries to see the evolution of religious freedom, including the Middle Ages and present day times. Chapter Three is devoted to Dignitatis Humanae how it developed leading from papacies leading up to Vatican II and the interpretation of it in the papacies of Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI. The remainder of the book focuses on present day challenges and the Catholics role in this intersection of their faith and society.

This was a fascinating, but challenging read. There were times I had to put it down and look up a phrase and times I had to turn back several pages and re-read what I just read to let it sink in. Religious freedom is something that affects all Catholics, whether they are aware of it or not. This is not the first book I would recommend to those looking to learn about religious freedom. However, it is a book I would recommend to someone who has more than a general idea about the subject and wants to better understand the historical basis and how it affects us today. Four stars.

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