Hilary Mantel

2) Over the centuries, various religions have produced magnificent structures for the conduct of their worship ceremonies … cathedrals, mosques, synagogues. Might the resources expended on these projects been better used to provide assistance to the poor and downtrodden? Defend your answer.

3) When Bishop John Carroll built the first Roman Catholic cathedral in America, why did he NOT design a building that resembled the great Gothic cathedrals of Europe?

4) “Then, said Cranley, you do not intend to become a protestant? I said that I had lost the faith, Stephen answered, but not that I had lost self-respect. What kind of liberation would that be to forsake an absurdity which is logical and coherent and to embrace one which is illogical and incohetrent?” (From James Joyce’s Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.) Explain and analyze.

5) Dante’s “Divine Comedy” presents utterly metaphorical visions of three eschatological “places.” Discuss any aspect of his vision that you feel has contemporary resonance.

6) Do you agree with James Carroll’s contention that the roots of Christian anti-Semitism had its beginnings with the writing of the New Testament in the years after 70 AD? Defend your answer.

7) Why did not the Holocaust root out all phases of anti-Semitism? How could there have been a slaughter at a Pittsburgh synagogue almost 80 years to the day after Kristallnacht?