Series
Summary
"The Catholic Church. It began as a small band of supporters following the teachings of an itinerant preacher in an outpost of the Roman Empire. From there, the church expanded both its size and its importance in the grand scheme of Western history. Today, the church is the oldest continuously activ... Full description
- From Jesus to the creation of the Church
- The first Christian institutions
- Christianities in the early Church
- Persecution and saints
- Peace between empire and Church
- Institutional and doctrinal developments
- Latin theology, including Augustine
- Popes and bishops in the early Middle Ages
- Monasticism: Benedict and his rule
- Evangelizing northern and eastern Europe
- The Germanization of Christianity
- Charlemagne and the Church in feudal times
- Monks and hermits: new forms of monasticism
- Papal reform and church-state controversies
- Crusade, heresy, inquisition
- The papacy: Innocent III to Boniface VIII
- Francis, Dominic, and the Mendicants
- Flowering of church art in the Middle Ages
- Scholastic thought
- Medieval mysticism
- The Great Schism and the Conciliar Age
- The Renaissance church
- Luther, Calvin, and the Reformation
- Catholic responses: The Council of Trent
- The Jesuits
- Catholicism in Asia and the New World
- American Catholicism
- The Church in the Age of Reason
- Pius IX and papal infallibility
- Leo XIII and the modern world
- The eastern Catholic churches
- The Second Vatican Council
- The Catholic Church looks outward
- The challenges of new theologies
- John Paul II and the 21st-century church
- One? Holy? Catholic? Apostolic?