Catholicism A global history from the French Revolution to Pope Francis

Review by Choice Review

McGreevy (Univ. of Notre Dame) writes that since the time of the French Revolution, Catholics have wrestled with their loyalty to the nation in which they reside and their commitment to a universal Church that often sought to supersede the authority of a country's laws and leaders. That tension was perhaps truer a century ago, when Catholics in nations like Mexico and France faced secular governments hostile, or indifferent, to the Church, but it is certainly worth asking if the competing demands of nationalism and Catholic obligation continue to test the faithful. McGreevey admits that in modern times the clerical abuse scandals and the consequences of the sexual revolution do not always concern the conflict between Church and state. The reviewer does not offer this observation as a criticism. In a massive work that discusses the role of Catholicism in nearly every corner of the world over two centuries, it is difficult to maintain a unifying theme. More important is the effort itself: McGreevy deserves praise for crafting a compelling history that describes the problems (and accomplishments) of a global Church. Bravo! Summing Up: Recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty; professionals; general readers. --Michael Gonzalez, University of San Diego

Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.

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Review by Booklist Review

On his fourth outing on the subject of the Catholic church, McGreevy delivers a thorough but often overly dense history. The work is a sprawling tale that intertwines church and state, featuring some of the most prominent figures in world history and politics. Covering revolutions, imperialism, and the sexual abuse scandal that has rocked the modern church, McGreevy (a history professor at Notre Dame University) uses more than 1,500 sources to tackle such difficult topics. As an academic resource, Catholicism is rigorous but informative, but as a pleasure read it is less successful. Despite being intended for the layperson (as McGreevy writes in the introduction, "I've made this study as much a story as my narrative skills allow . . . Specialists will regret what is missing and rightly so."), this is more geared to die-hard religious historians.

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.

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Review by Library Journal Review

Francis A. McAnaney Professor of History at Notre Dame University, McGreevy investigates the tension between progress and tradition that has animated the Catholic Church worldwide for over 200 years. He starts with antimonarchist French clerics celebrating the Revolution, only to have the murder of priests and destruction of churches create a fierce conservative backlash; shows the power the Church gleaned from missionaries; and ends by highlighting African Catholics fighting for independence, Latin Americans creating a theology of liberation, and Polish and South Korean Catholics countering repression--all defying cautious tradition.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

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Review by Kirkus Book Review

A sweeping history of modern Catholicism. McGreevy, a professor of history at Notre Dame and author of three books on Catholicism, examines the past two centuries. The author begins his authoritative survey with the French Revolution, noting that no series of events since the Reformation had so thoroughly rocked the Catholic landscape. The excesses of the Revolution and the upending of Catholic authority in France led to the global "ultramontane revival" movement. "At the revival's core," writes McGreevy, "was a deepening attachment to the institution of the church." This attachment would add significantly to the powers of the pope and the Roman ecclesiastical structure. The revival's "triumph" was the First Vatican Council, in 1869-1870, which confirmed the doctrine of papal infallibility and severed voices of dissent, modernism, and reform. "To signal church independence," writes the author, "Pius IX decided against inviting any monarchs or heads of state, a decision that for the first time eliminated lay participation in an ecumenical council." However, the church was already fighting nationalist movements around the world. As nationalism bumped up against the interests of the church, a new infrastructure was created to safeguard Catholic society and culture: "the Milieu," an unending series of social welfare organizations, movements, missions, and other initiatives. The Milieu spread across the 19th and 20th centuries and became a public and sometimes-pugnacious face for Catholicism. After decades of social upheaval, Pope John XXIII changed the course of Catholicism by calling the Second Vatican Council in 1959. The ensuing decades were marked by liberation theology; the monumental papacy of John Paul II; and, of course, the destructive onslaught of sexual abuse scandals, to which the author appropriately devotes an entire chapter. Throughout the text, McGreevy, a skilled historian and storyteller, provides a wealth of detail about the church and the changing world to which it has been reacting for the past 200 years. A must-read for practicing Catholics and anyone interested in religious studies. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

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