A bit after the fact but better-considered: The great Gary Wills weighs in on The Passion in The New York Review of Books. Regular readers of NYRB will be familiar with Wills’ grace, insight, and erudition; newcomers should not be put off by the length or deliberately slower pace of his writing. Nor should Passion supporters — love the movie or hate it (we find ourselves somewhere inbetween), Wills will give you ideas to wrestle with.
Of greater interest, though, is Wills discussion of the ultra-conservative, ultra-secretive Legion of Christ and its attempts to thwart an investigation by The Hartford Courant — which led veteran religion reporter Gerald Renner to dig deeper. The result is The Vows of Silence: The Abuse of Power in the Papacy of John Paul II, and it should be of interest not just to those interested or invested in Catholicism, but also to anyone concerned about the relationship of religion, privacy, and a free press.