Catholic Modern: The Challenge of Totalitarianism and the Remaking of the Church by James Chappel n the last fifty years, most writing about modern Catholicism has treated Vatican II as the great watershed. According to the standard narrative, the Church before the Council was wedded to a stultifying scholasticism and sunk in soul-crushing authoritarianism. After the Council, a new spirit emerged, one of openness and dialogue. At long last, Catholicism shed its defensive, anti-modern mentality and began engaging the contemporary world. In Catholic Modern, James Chappel demolishes this conceit. Chappel describes how, in the course of the twentieth century, Catholicism accommodated …
Category: Church History
The Election of Pope Francis is informative and captivating—and raises many questions
Gerard O’Connell is one of the top Vaticanistas working today. An associate editor and Vatican correspondent for America magazine, he has rightly earned a reputation for his fair and in-depth reporting. While his sympathies skew in a more progressive direction, he avoids the ideological blinders and baggage often seen in the work of other Vatican commentators, such as Austen Ivereigh, Robert Mickens, and Massimo Faggioli. In his recent book The Election of Pope Francis: An Inside Account of the Conclave That Changed History, O’Connell turns his considerable talents to the 2013 Conclave that elected Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio as the first …
Church History
Ryan M. Reeves is Assistant Professor of Historical Theology at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, where he also serves as Dean of the Jacksonville campus. Ryan is also an adjunct professor for Reformed Theological Seminary and teaches summers at Campus Crusade (Cru). Ryan received his PhD from Cambridge University and has two masters from Reformed Theological Seminary. He also was a guest student in theology at the University of Münster and has studied at Notre Dame’s Medieval Institute and the Centro Pro Unione in Rome. Ryan lives in Jacksonville, Florida with his wife Charlotte and three kids: Zoë, Owen, and Dexter. The kids could …