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

Roman Catholicism's history has never taken a certain route. This has never been truer than it has been in the past two centuries. John T. McGreevy traces the remarkable changes and internal conflicts that shaped the most multicultural, multilingual, and international institution in history, starting with the French Revolution and ending with the current difficulties.

Catholicism offers a captivating analysis of the Church's complex role in modern history, acting as both a shaper and a follower of nation-state politics, as well as a protector of hierarchies and an advocate for egalitarianism, through compelling personal narratives and broad, bird's-eye perspectives.

McGreevy chronicles the aspirations of European missionaries who established churches and educational institutions throughout the world, African Catholics who fought for political (and religious) independence, Latin American Catholics who were drawn to a liberation theology, and Polish and South Korean Catholics who demanded democratic governments.

He features a huge cast of fascinating figures, both well-known and obscure, such as the Mexican revolutionary Fr. Servando Teresa de Mier, the Irish emancipation hero Daniel O'Connell, the formerly enslaved Sudanese nun Sr. Josephine Bakhita, the Chinese statesman Ma Xiaobang, the French philosopher and reformer Jacques Maritain, the German Jewish philosopher and convert Edith Stein, the Polish pope John Paul II an opponent of communism; Gustavo Gutierrez, a Peruvian founder of liberation theology, and last but not least, Dominique de Menil a French patron of modern art.

In this crucial volume, McGreevy describes movements defending customs and beliefs from change as well as reform currents within the Church.

Conflicts with political authorities and a devotional revival in the nineteenth century, the Second Vatican Council and decolonization after World War II in the twentieth century, and the trauma of clerical sexual abuse in the twenty-first century all serve as examples of how religion shapes our modern world.

Finally, McGreevy discusses the difficulties Pope Francis faces in trying to bring the more than a billion members of the world's greatest religious group together.

Hardcover. 512 pages.