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

by John T. McGreevy

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781324066040
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	12/05/2023
Pages:	528
Sales rank:	204,008
Product dimensions:	5.30(w) x 8.10(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

John T. McGreevy is Provost and Professor of History at the University of Notre Dame and the award-winning author of three books on Catholicism and many essays. His work has been published in the Chronicle of Higher Education, the New York Review of Books, The New Republic, Commonweal, and other outlets. He lives in South Bend, Indiana.

Table of Contents

Introduction ix

Part I Revolution and Revival, 1789-1870

1 Revolution

In France and around the World 3

2 Revival

Devotions, Miracles, and the Papacy 29

3 Democracy

How Catholicism Fostered and Inhibited Democratic Revolutions 58

4 Triumph

1848, Vatican I and the Consolidation of the Catholic Revival 81

Part II The Milieu and Its Discontents, 1870-1962

5 Milieu

Why Nationalists Attacked Catholics and How Catholics Responded 111

6 Empire

Missionaries, Converts, and Imperialism 135

7 Nation

A Catholic Nationalism? 156

8 Crisis

The Politics of the 1930s 187

9 Ressourcement

Opening the Milieu 216

10 Decolonization

A Catholic Global South 245

Part III Vatican II and Its Aftermath, 1962-2021

11 Vatican II

A Church Transformed 275

12 Liberation

Freedom and Human Rights in the 1970s 307

13 Exodus

Sex, Gender, and Turmoil 327

14 Charisma

John Paul II and the End of the Cold War 352

15 Sexual Abuse (and its Cover-Up) 380

Conclusion: Pope Francis and Beyond 411

Acknowledgments 423

Notes 427

Index 495

Editorial Reviews

"If you want to understand the world, don’t ignore the history of its most global institution. John T. McGreevy exposes the paradoxes of the Church: an institution surprisingly adaptable to different cultures, riven by faction, yet called to common action. With admirable candor, impartiality, elegance, and economy, he tells a story of failings and faith."

Felipe Fernández-Armesto

"In this appealing, easily readable and amply noted volume, McGreevy identifies phases in the development of Catholicism over the past two-and-a-half centuries with the overriding interests, themes or controversies for each period in his view… a truly engaging and substantially reliable narrative on how Catholicism has arrived at its current phase as a global Church."

The Tablet - John Borelli

"This is an excellent book that thoroughly lives up to its ambitions. Given the hyper-specialization of so much academic history these days, the accomplishment here is even more notable: a readable, thorough and judicious treatment of a global institution over more than two centuries."

National Catholic Reporter - Michael Sean Winters

"Through vivid portraits and nuanced analysis of Catholic traditionalists and reformers, John T. McGreevy shows how persistent divisions within Catholicism have shaped as well as mirrored central conflicts in modern world history. Catholicism reveals why the Catholic church generates intense hatred and fierce loyalty, enraging conservatives by changing so much while frustrating progressives by changing so little. A landmark book."

James T. Kloppenberg

"A gripping story of how one of the world’s most important institutions has evolved over the past two centuries. McGreevy spans the globe, from the Philippines to Indonesia to Canada, providing welcome polyphony to a story that can often feel hermetically European. We hear the voices of those who dedicated their lives to the poor; we hear the voices, too, of those who suffered at the hands of the Church. This is, by far, the best single-volume history of the modern Church currently available."

James Chappel

"[McGreevy] is well placed to offer perspective on the Church as an institution at once teetering and thriving...[he] approaches it with an evenhandedness rare in the field."

The Atlantic - Paul Elie

"Catholicism: A Global History does justice to the vast scope and influence of this multicultural and multilingual creed… it covers vast ground with disciplined concision."

History Today - Daniel Ray

"Beautifully written… a sweeping study that casts into relief, on a global stage, the paradoxes and contradictions of Roman Catholicism… This book reads beautifully, and even the seasoned expert in Catholicism will learn a great deal."

The Times Literary Supplement - Piotr H. Kosicki

"One of [Catholicism’s] many strengths is the confidence to range across the world from Latin America to sub-Saharan Africa. Intellectually this would be a challenge for any historian, though McGreevy effortlessly guides us with a steady hand through this complex history over the last two centuries and more."

Enda Delaney

"McGreevy’s explanation of how the recession of Catholicism here in the West is being offset by rapid growth in the Global South offers hope for the future of the Body of Christ in a world that needs it."

National Review - Nicholas Frankovitch

"[McGreevy] does a remarkable job of explaining how the epic struggle between reformists and traditionalists has led us to the present moment in the Roman Catholic Church."

New York Times - Tim Egan

"This new survey of global Catholic history achieves what its ambitious subtitle promises. It is a remarkable accomplishment for a single text of such digestible length…It is to be hoped that this kind of nuanced and graceful treatment of church history can help displace both the naïve triumphalism and bitter cynicism that has taken root in contemporary Catholicism, especially in the United States."

Newman Review - Shaun Blanchard

"For those of us pained by how political divisions manipulate and distort Catholicism today, John T. McGreevy offers essential perspective and the mixed consolation that this is nothing new. His book unfolds an epic drama as power contends with democracy, authority with diversity, world with spirit"

Sister Helen Prejean

"The power, the glory, the sin, and the sorrow—the whole Catholic saga is here, a cross-cultural story essential to modernity and to Faith itself."

James Carroll

"In an epic about moral globalization since the French Revolution, John T. McGreevy narrates a quest for understanding and conversion, a tale of diasporas and missions. This is truly a majestic book."

Jeremy Adelman

"McGreevy’s achievement is undeniable. The narrative has a magnificent, magisterial sweep that really delivers the 'global history' promised in the subtitle. A global history in five hundred pages can hardly be exhaustive, but McGreevy’s method, to color and flavor his lucid and well-conceived survey with telling vignettes picked out in finer detail, gives readers a genuine insight into the historical processes at work."

First Things - Richard Rex

[McGreevy] does a remarkable job of explaining how the epic struggle between reformists and traditionalists has led us to the present moment in the Roman Catholic Church."

New York Times

"The Catholic Church, although threatened by secularization and rocked by scandals, remains the largest nongovernmental institution in the world, with more than a billion members, two thirds of whom live in the Global South. Through vivid portraits and nuanced analysis of Catholic traditionalists and reformers, McGreevy shows how persistent divisions within Catholicism have shaped as well as mirrored central conflicts in modern world history. Catholicism reveals why the Catholic church generates intense hatred and fierce loyalty, enraging conservatives by changing so much while frustrating progressives by changing so little. A landmark book."

James Kloppenberg

★ 2022-07-13
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.

Kirkus Reviews