The formidable Edward T. Oakes takes apart Garry Wills, though he praises much of his most-recent book. The entire article is worth reading, though I particularly enjoyed this passage from the conclusion:
One finishes this occasionally illuminating book wondering whether its author is ever going to drop his tiresome pose as a suburban Poverello and take a course in elementary logic. As he should know from his own position as a Catholic professor at a secular university, the two great institutional legacies of the Middle Ages to modern civilization are the Catholic Church and the contemporary university, of which the latter is surely the more rigidly hierarchical: With its politically correct orthodoxies, its hegemonically imposed anti-hegemonic discourse, its salary-mongering, its freedom from taxation (how Constantinian!), its speech codes, its teacher evaluations conducted sub secreto pontificio, its heated debate over the minutest matters, its hair-splitting fights over teaching loads and research assistants (tenure as benefice!), the contemporary university makes the Catholic Church look like a Quaker meeting house.
