Catholicism: A Global History from the French Revolution to Pope Francis

Catholicism: A Global History from the French Revolution to Pope Francis PDF Author: John T. McGreevy
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 1324003898
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 332

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Book Description
A magisterial history of the centuries-long conflict between “progress” and “tradition” in the world’s largest international institution. The story of Roman Catholicism has never followed a singular path. In no time period has this been more true than over the last two centuries. Beginning with the French Revolution, extending to the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s, and concluding with present-day crises, John T. McGreevy chronicles the dramatic upheavals and internal divisions shaping the most multicultural, multilingual, and global institution in the world. Through powerful individual stories and sweeping birds-eye views, Catholicism provides a mesmerizing assessment of the Church’s complex role in modern history: both shaper and follower of the politics of nation states, both conservator of hierarchies and evangelizer of egalitarianism. McGreevy documents the hopes and ambitions of European missionaries building churches and schools in all corners of the world, African Catholics fighting for political (and religious) independence, Latin American Catholics attracted to a theology of liberation, and Polish and South Korean Catholics demanding democratic governments. He includes a vast cast of riveting characters, known and unknown, including the Mexican revolutionary Fr. Servando Teresa de Mier; Daniel O’Connell, hero of Irish emancipation; Sr. Josephine Bakhita, a formerly enslaved Sudanese nun; Chinese statesman Ma Xiaobang; French philosopher and reformer Jacques Maritain; German Jewish philosopher and convert, Edith Stein; John Paul II, Polish pope and opponent of communism; Gustavo Gutiérrez, Peruvian founder of liberation theology; and French American patron of modern art, Dominique de Menil. Throughout this essential volume, McGreevy details currents of reform within the Church as well as movements protective of traditional customs and beliefs. Conflicts with political leaders and a devotional revival in the nineteenth century, the experiences of decolonization after World War II and the Second Vatican Council in the twentieth century, and the trauma of clerical sexual abuse in the twenty-first all demonstrate how religion shapes our modern world. Finally, McGreevy addresses the challenges faced by Pope Francis as he struggles to unite the over one billion members of the world’s largest religious community.

Catholicism: A Global History from the French Revolution to Pope Francis

Catholicism: A Global History from the French Revolution to Pope Francis PDF Author: John T. McGreevy
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 1324003898
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 332

Get Book

Book Description
A magisterial history of the centuries-long conflict between “progress” and “tradition” in the world’s largest international institution. The story of Roman Catholicism has never followed a singular path. In no time period has this been more true than over the last two centuries. Beginning with the French Revolution, extending to the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s, and concluding with present-day crises, John T. McGreevy chronicles the dramatic upheavals and internal divisions shaping the most multicultural, multilingual, and global institution in the world. Through powerful individual stories and sweeping birds-eye views, Catholicism provides a mesmerizing assessment of the Church’s complex role in modern history: both shaper and follower of the politics of nation states, both conservator of hierarchies and evangelizer of egalitarianism. McGreevy documents the hopes and ambitions of European missionaries building churches and schools in all corners of the world, African Catholics fighting for political (and religious) independence, Latin American Catholics attracted to a theology of liberation, and Polish and South Korean Catholics demanding democratic governments. He includes a vast cast of riveting characters, known and unknown, including the Mexican revolutionary Fr. Servando Teresa de Mier; Daniel O’Connell, hero of Irish emancipation; Sr. Josephine Bakhita, a formerly enslaved Sudanese nun; Chinese statesman Ma Xiaobang; French philosopher and reformer Jacques Maritain; German Jewish philosopher and convert, Edith Stein; John Paul II, Polish pope and opponent of communism; Gustavo Gutiérrez, Peruvian founder of liberation theology; and French American patron of modern art, Dominique de Menil. Throughout this essential volume, McGreevy details currents of reform within the Church as well as movements protective of traditional customs and beliefs. Conflicts with political leaders and a devotional revival in the nineteenth century, the experiences of decolonization after World War II and the Second Vatican Council in the twentieth century, and the trauma of clerical sexual abuse in the twenty-first all demonstrate how religion shapes our modern world. Finally, McGreevy addresses the challenges faced by Pope Francis as he struggles to unite the over one billion members of the world’s largest religious community.

The Popes and European Revolution

The Popes and European Revolution PDF Author: Owen Chadwick
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198269196
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 657

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Book Description
This book describes the change from the Catholic Church of the ancien regime to the church of the early nineteenth century as it affected the institution of the Papacy and through it the Church at large.

The Catholic Enlightenment

The Catholic Enlightenment PDF Author: Ulrich L. Lehner
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190232919
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 273

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Book Description
The most cherished values of modernity are unthinkable without the eighteenth-century Enlightenment. Equal rights, the growth of democracy, and the idea of perpetual progress stem from thinkers who lived 250 years ago but whose ideas are as attractive as ever. This book argues that while Catholic beliefs are commonly assumed to be at odds with modernity, most of the progressive reforms associated with the Enlightenment actually began to take shape during the Catholic Counter-Reformation two centuries earlier and were staunchly defended by enlightened Catholics during the eighteenth century. This is the forgotten story of a progressive Catholicism that actively engaged with the world. Although this mode of thought declined in the nineteenth century, it reemerged powerfully at and after Vatican II (1962-1965)

The Crisis of Authority in Catholic Modernity

The Crisis of Authority in Catholic Modernity PDF Author: Michael J. Lacey
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199778787
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 393

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Book Description
It is fairly clear that, while Rome continues to teach as if its authority were unchanged from the days before Vatican II (1962-65), the majority of Catholics - within the first-world church, at least - take a far more independent line, and increasingly understand themselves (rather than the church) as the final arbiter of decision-making, especially on ethical questions. This collection of essays explores the historical background and present ecclesial situation, explaining the dramatic shift in attitude on the part of contemporary Catholics in the U.S. and Europe.

New Short History of the Catholic Church

New Short History of the Catholic Church PDF Author: Norman Tanner
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 1441162127
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 280

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Book Description
Here is a one-volume history of the Christian people from Pentecost to the present day, with principal focus on the Catholic Church. Having passed AD 2000 it seems appropriate and necessary to have a new short history of the first two millennia of the Christian era. In the last half century there has been a massive amount of research into Church history, published in learned articles and in multi-volume works. Full notice is taken of these recent scholarly initiatives in writing this short account, which is also eminently readable. In each section there is a balance between the institutional and the more directly religious dimensions of the Church - here are some of the elements: bishops, canon law, charity, councils crusades, devotions, heresies, laity, liturgy, martyrs, missionaries, parishes, pilgrimages, popes, prayer, priesthood, religious orders, sacraments, schools, theologians, universities and the vita consacrata. The scope is wide; the pace of the narrative is attractive.

To Change the Church

To Change the Church PDF Author: Ross Douthat
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
ISBN: 1501146939
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 272

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Book Description
A New York Times columnist and one of America’s leading conservative thinkers considers Pope Francis’s efforts to change the church he governs in a book that is “must reading for every Christian who cares about the fate of the West and the future of global Christianity” (Rod Dreher, author of The Benedict Option). Born Jorge Mario Bergoglio in 1936, today Pope Francis is the 266th pope of the Roman Catholic Church. Pope Francis’s stewardship of the Church, while perceived as a revelation by many, has provoked division throughout the world. “If a conclave were to be held today,” one Roman source told The New Yorker, “Francis would be lucky to get ten votes.” In his “concise, rhetorically agile…adroit, perceptive, gripping account (The New York Times Book Review), Ross Douthat explains why the particular debate Francis has opened—over communion for the divorced and the remarried—is so dangerous: How it cuts to the heart of the larger argument over how Christianity should respond to the sexual revolution and modernity itself, how it promises or threatens to separate the church from its own deep past, and how it divides Catholicism along geographical and cultural lines. Douthat argues that the Francis era is a crucial experiment for all of Western civilization, which is facing resurgent external enemies (from ISIS to Putin) even as it struggles with its own internal divisions, its decadence, and self-doubt. Whether Francis or his critics are right won’t just determine whether he ends up as a hero or a tragic figure for Catholics. It will determine whether he’s a hero, or a gambler who’s betraying both his church and his civilization into the hands of its enemies. “A balanced look at the struggle for the future of Catholicism…To Change the Church is a fascinating look at the church under Pope Francis” (Kirkus Reviews). Engaging and provocative, this is “a pot-boiler of a history that examines a growing ecclesial crisis” (Washington Independent Review of Books).

The Global Vatican

The Global Vatican PDF Author: Francis Rooney
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1442248815
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 332

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Book Description
From the centuries-long prejudices against Catholics in America, to the efforts of Fascism, Communism and modern terrorist organizations to “break the cross and spill the wine,” this book brings to life the Catholic Church’s role in world history, particularly in the realm of diplomacy. Former U.S. ambassador to the Holy See Francis Rooney provides a comprehensive guide to the remarkable path the Vatican has navigated to the present day, and a first-person account of what that path looks and feels like from an American diplomat whose experience lent him the ultimate insider’s perspective. Part memoir, part historical lesson, The Global Vatican captures the braided nature of religious and political power and the complexities, battles, and future prospects for the relationship between the Holy See and the United States as both face challenges old and new. Updated now to include a view towards Pope Francis’ first trip to the United States, The Global Vatican looks forward to the revitalization of the Church in this newest global papacy.

A Church that Can and Cannot Change

A Church that Can and Cannot Change PDF Author: John Thomas Noonan
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 328

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Book Description
Noonan's analysis of the development in Catholic moral teaching on usury, contraception, religious freedom, slave-holding, and divorce.

Church, Interrupted

Church, Interrupted PDF Author: John Cornwell
Publisher: Chronicle Books
ISBN: 1797202022
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 306

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Book Description
Church, Interrupted: Havoc & Hope: The Tender Revolt of Pope Francis is a revealing portrait of Pope Francis's hopeful yet controversial efforts to recreate the Catholic Church to become, once again, a welcoming place of empathy, love, and inclusiveness. Bestselling author, Vanity Fair contributor, and papal biographer John Cornwell tells the gripping insider story of Pope Francis's bid to bring renewal and hope to a crisis-plagued Church and the world at large. With unique insights and original reporting, Cornwell reveals how Francis has persistently provoked and disrupted his stubbornly unchanging Church, purging clerical corruption and reforming entrenched institutions, while calling for action against global poverty, climate change, and racism. Cornwell argues that despite fierce opposition from traditionalist clergy and right-wing media, the pope has radically widened Catholic moral priorities, calling for mercy and compassion over rigid dogmatism. Francis, according to Cornwell, has transformed the Vatican from being a top-down centralized authority to being a spiritual service for a global Church. He has welcomed the rejected, abused, and disheartened; reached out to people of other faiths and those of none; and proved a providential spiritual leader for future generations. Highly acclaimed author John Cornwell's riveting account of the hopeful—and contentious—efforts undertaken by Pope Francis to rebuild the Catholic Church. • Well researched and brilliantly written, readers, scholars, and fans of John Cornwell will want to read his most controversial and compelling work yet. • More than a third of America's 74 million Catholics said they were contemplating departure in 2018. It is estimated that over the past twenty years, the Catholic Church has been losing $2.5 billion dollars annually in revenues, legal fees, and damages due to clerical abuse cases. The decline in church attendance, marriages, and vocations to the priesthood and sisterhood tell a story of major decline and disillusion. Cornwell showcases Pope Francis's way forward, a hopeful message that gives reinvigorated reasons to stay with the church and help be the change the new generation would like to see. • For readers within and outside Catholicism fascinated by the future and restructuring of the church, this will be a book they want to read again and again as the church continues to change and grow.

Priests, Prelates and People

Priests, Prelates and People PDF Author: Nicholas Atkin
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 0857715909
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 403

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Book Description
The Catholic Church has always been a major player in European and world history. Whether it has enjoyed a religious dominance or existed as a minority religion, Catholicism has never been diverted from political life. "Priests, Prelates and People" records the Church struggling to adapt to the new political landscape ushered in by the French Revolution, and shows how the formation of nation states and identities was both helped and hindered by the Catholic establishment. It portrays the Vatican increasingly out of step in the wake of world war, Cold War and the massive expansion of the developing world, with its problems of population growth and under-development.