New Short History of the Catholic Church

by Norman P. Tanner

Here is a one-volume history of the Christian people from Pentecost to the present day, with principal focus on the Catholic Church. Having passed AD 2000 it seems appropriate and necessary to have a new short history of the first two millennia of the Christian era. In the last half century there has been a massive amount of research into Church history, published in learned articles and in multi-volume works. Full notice is taken of these recent scholarly initiatives in writing this short account, which is also eminently readable. In each section there is a balance between the institutional and the more directly religious dimensions of the Church - here are some of the bishops, canon law, charity, councils crusades, devotions, heresies, laity, liturgy, martyrs, missionaries, parishes, pilgrimages, popes, prayer, priesthood, religious orders, sacraments, schools, theologians, universities and the vita consacrata. The scope is wide; the pace of the narrative is attractive.

Genres: History, Church History, Nonfiction, Theology

280 pages, Hardcover

First published April 21, 2011

About the author

Norman P. Tanner, SJ is a Catholic historian and priest of the Jesuit Order. He currently holds the position of Professor of Church History at the Pontificia Universita Gregoriana, in the Vatican City, Rome.

Fr. Tanner entered the Jesuit Order in 1961, and achieved his S.T.L. in Church history under the renowned historian, Frederick Copleston, SJ. He then received his Ph.D at Oxford University, as a member of Campion Hall; he also holds a B.Theol from the Gregorian University.

An internationally-acclaimed expert in Church councils, Fr. Tanner is the editor of a definitive translation of the major documents of the councils: Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils (2 vols). He has a special love for the later Middle-Ages, and has written several books on popular religion in the Medieval period, as well as a plethora of books and articles on the history and practice of the historical Church councils.

Fr. Tanner taught from 1978 until 2003 at Oxford University (a University Research Lecturer from 1997 until 2003); leaving his post to take up his current place at the Gregorian University.

Reviews

[Peter Ludwig · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book does an excellent job presenting a brief overview of the Church's history in a balanced, readable style.

[Roger · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is a serviceable short history of the Roman Catholic Church, with the caveat that it is written by a Jesuit priest, who perhaps glosses over the bad more than perhaps he should. Packing nearly 2000 years of history into a little over 200 pages leads to much compression - Tanner has dealt with this by taking a broad-brush approach to his work, but still manages to cover a lot of ground. By dividing the book two ways - chapters historically, and within each chapter sections looking at Church government, popular religion, missionary work and so on, the reader gets a flavour of what changed and what remained constant across the history of the Church.

At times Tanner runs the risk of seeming to be an apologist for the Church, downplaying the sins of the Borgia Popes for example, and portraying the Reformation as a minor disagreement that got out of hand. Likewise the split between Catholic and Orthodox is portrayed as an issue of bad timing. Tanner mentions in passing some of the geo-political machinations that were precursors to these splits - perhaps he could have made more of them. He devotes more time to recording the workings of the Church Councils and to theological, liturgical and doctrinal movements, an area that often gets overlooked in other Church histories, so perhaps he does have the balance right after all.

While we think of Roman Catholicism as a World religion now, Tanner shows us that this growth really exploded only in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and in fact many centuries of the Church's existence consisted of decline rather than expansion. The last two centuries have been difficult for the Church in other ways, walking a tightrope straddling tradition and modernity, scripture and human appeal.

This book is a useful guide for the major events in the history of the Church, but a book not be read in isolation.

Check out my other reviews at http://aviewoverthebell.blogspot.com.au/

[Peter · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is amazing how Fr. Tanner presents so much information in such a concise amount of pages. It was a page turner. His treatment of the medieval period was particularly helpful since often histories skip over this period.

[Janet · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent on the early history.

[Chase Johnson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well-paced useful highlights of the Catholic Church.

[Jessica · Rating 3 out of 5]

First, to me 266 pages is not that short. It took me most of the month of June to read this book which only contains five chapters. Granted, it wasn't 800 pages, which some history books are, but still not that short for me.

Second, I only gave it three stars because the longest chapter, chapter three, covered the early middle ages. I will admit that there seemed to be much that happened during that time, but not enough to consume a fourth or more of the book.

Third, and more important to me, I only gave it three stars because I was hoping to learn a lot about the Reformation that began in 1517 and the church's counter-reformation. What could have taken up a whole chapter in itself was only a very few pages at the beginning of chapter four. I was very disappointed in that.

The author seemed to get bogged down in mini-biographies instead of telling the story of the church throughout history. I finished the book, but I came very close to adding it to my DNF list.

Three stars is good, but I can't really recommend this book.