History of the Catholic Church: From the Apostolic Age to the Third Millennium

by James Hitchcock

The Catholic Church is the longest-enduring institution in the world. Beginning with the first Christians and continuing in our present day, the Church has been planted in every nation on earth.The Catholic Church claims Jesus Christ himself as her founder, and in spite of heresy from within and hostility from without, she remains in the twenty-first century the steadfast guardian of belief in his life, death, and resurrection. The teachings and redemptive works of Jesus as told in the Gospels are expressed by the Church in a coherent and consistent body of doctrine, the likes of which cannot be found in any other Christian body.

The history of the Catholic Church is long, complicated, and fascinating, and in this book it is expertly and ably told by historian James Hitchcock. As in the parable of Christ about the weeds that were sown in a field of wheat, evil and good have grown together in the Church from the start, as Hitchcock honestly records. He brings before us the many characterssome noble, some notoriouswho have left an indelible mark on the Church, while never losing sight of the saints, who have given living testimony to the salvific power of Christ in every age.

This ambitious work is comprehensive in its scope and in incisive in its understanding, a valuable addition to any school or home library.

Genres: History, Religion, Catholic, Christianity, Nonfiction, Church History, Christian

580 pages, Hardcover

First published October 1, 2012

About the author

James Hitchcock, Ph.D., is a longtime professor of history at St. Louis University, which he attended as an undergraduate. He received his masters and doctorate degrees from Princeton University and has authored several books, including The Supreme Court and Religion in American Life; The Recovery of the Sacred; What Is Secular Humanism; and Catholicism and Modernity: Confrontation or Capitulation?

Reviews

[Jeff Miller · Rating 5 out of 5]

A one volume history of the Catholic Church is quite an undertaking and to do it in a bit over 530 pages is not a simple task. Writing only 500 pages on any century of the Church would be a difficult task. Creating a one volume history imposes many expected limitations, but if done well can provide a very valuable service. There are several one volume histories of this type, although I have mainly read either the multi-volume sets such as The History of Christendom by the late Warren H. Carroll or histories covering specific area.

What James Hitchcock has pulled off if quite exceptional. This is a summary history that sweeps through the ages of the Church. While it leaves you wanting to know many more details of the history described, still you are given the best overview possible for this format.

For the most part this is a sequential sweep through the history of the Church from its birth to the present. While mostly the history is sequential some of the chapters are focuses on specific areas and can contain large sweeps of history regarding that topic. I was hooked from the introduction on. The information is presented in topic focused paragraphs with a topic title displayed to the right or left of the text. The topics are usually only a couple paragraphs in length. I really liked the format of the book because I will be using it in the future as a reference. Besides the lengthy index the topic headings next to the text make it very easy to scan and find specific information you might want to go back to.

I have heard complaints about Harry Crocker's one volume history "Triumph: The Power and the Glory of the Catholic Church" for being triumphalistic (doesn't that go with the title). So you might wonder how James Hitchcock presents the history of the Church. Well to sum it up the history of the Church can be described using Charles Dikens' start of "A Tale of Two Cities".

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way.

The Vatican II document Gaudium et Spes starts off "The joys and the hopes, the griefs and the anxieties of the men of this age." This history displays that tension and does not whitewash the history of the Church. He does not gloss over serious evils that occurred. This history is nicely balanced as a presentation and this is certainly the way I prefer it. Really the history of the Church is sort of a proof for the Catholic Church. If it was just up to us Catholics the Church would be a historical footnote by now. If she were not a divinely given institution she would have passed like all man-made institutions. It does the Church no good to minimize what has happened and it is always a temptation to do this. For example some apologists will minimize witch-hunting as something that mainly occurred among Protestants. As he states witchcraft persecutions were an "activity carried out by Catholics and Protestants with equal zeal." So while the low points are not left out, neither are the glories of Christendom reduced.

This is simply a great history of the Church that gives a topological summary giving you the birds-eye view. I really like how he crafted the topic summaries to pack in the information. This succinctness I am sure took some serious work to pull of. I also like that there is little editorializing of history while still delivering some fine insights. Plus peppered throughout were little details at times that added to the enjoyment. At times I thought that perhaps he might have left something out only to find it a couple of paragraphs later or separated into one of the more topic focused chapters.

To sum it up I think this is a quite a major work and just a great one volume look at Church history. There was only one time in the whole book where I scratched my head a little where a footnote regarding Joan of Arc read "She was canonized in 1920. Her sanctity is problematical insofar as she acted merely as a French patriot, but her canonization was based on her heroic virtue.". Although if you can go through 500 plus pages of a book of Catholic history and only have one quibble, that is a pretty amazing accomplishment.

[Anthony · Rating 5 out of 5]

September 2, 2013

A Review by Anthony T. Riggio of James Hitchcock’s History of the Catholic Church (From the Apostolic Age to the Third Millennium).

I am neither a philosopher nor a theologian but am a Catholic interested in knowing more about the origins of my own Faith. I do love history and the evolvement in the Catholic Church is a lesson in history that takes all of us through the development of Western Civilization. As a history major in college and the product of a parochial school education, I have studied Western man’s history over many years and only recently was able to conclude the ubiquity of the Catholic Church’s impact on man’s thinking and philosophical quest for knowledge and meaning of life.

I have read four very significant works which have whetted my appetite for understanding how my Church began and survived the times for more than two thousand years. The Catholic Church as an organization is the longest continuing institution Man has ever witnessed. In those two thousand years it has grown, albeit with many phases and continuing clarifications on practices but never on dogma.
I have read and reviewed “The Sword of Constantine” by James Carroll; “Christianity” by Diarmaid MacCollouch; “A Concise History of the Catholic Church” by Thomas Bokenkotter; “The Future Church” by John L. Allen Jr., and rated them accordingly on both Goodreads and Amazon.

After reading The Future Church, I came across the current book by Hitchcock from an Amazon notification and immediately bought it and left it on my book shelf for a couple of months as I needed a respite from reading about the Catholic Church and waited until the Spirit moved me to crack open this book in mid-August 2013 and completed it on September 1, 2013. Like all tomes on History (especially religion) it is a slow reading effort and initially I found myself a little bored by the repetitive outline of the Church’s history.

As I continued my struggle, the book became somewhat exciting and the reading was enlightening and I came to a thought of why we need the Catholic Church. Of course there are a multitude of reasons that can be raised and argued, but for me, it was the realization that the Church has never changed from its core belief tenants’ right from day one. And it is quite simple in its outline. Christ was born into the world to save mankind (all of Mankind) and certain teachings he presented (The Gospels) included the purposes he gave to his Apostles during the short period of his ministerial life including instructions for a hierarchy, as he appointed Peter as the “rock” upon which will build his church. As simple in his education as Peter was and as human as he was to deny Christ and then beg forgiveness, the Church needed a great intellect to give thought substance His message He accomplished this through “other” apostle, Saul/Paul. Paul provided the reasoning and intellectual structure to the Church as well as the raison de etre for teaching to the Gentiles or non-Jews. Christ’s invitation remains open to all Jews providing they accept the invitation.

As the belief system of Christ’s teachings was beginning to be formulated, many developed interpretive views of Christ and his teachings, questioning his divinity and purpose. Through the efforts of the early Church fathers, formal structure was added and clarification of beliefs was spiritually achieved.

I began to think, as I read, that man is such an intelligent being and the diversions he attempted to impact on Christ’s Church was akin to the concupiscence man encountered either in the Garden of Eden or at some point in the evolutionary process where Man could believe he was as smart as God. It is the Prometheus moment where Man became Man. Some would argue that Man became desirous or “sinful”. I believe, that Man being Man used his own ego to interpret God’s message.
This is clearly evidenced as one reads the History of the Catholic Church. The Christian belief system first became the pawn or tool for secular leaders and rulers and then the playground for thinkers and philosophers. This unfortunately included Men who were members of this church. Separations and Schisms’ were developed taking and using those parts of the Church teachings that they wanted or despised.

The book goes through all of the history of Western Civilization and the Catholic Church’s impact on all men in the Western world. It is a fascinating read and presented in a very readable format by topics with great margins for note takers that like to highlight or note significant passages in the book.

The author describes all of the “breakaway” or schismatic belief systems using the example of intersecting circles, where each new belief system’s circle intersects with the circle representing the Catholic Church but only embraces a part of the Catholic circle. Which is similar to what I was taught growing up and that is the Catholic Church was the pie and each slice out of that pie represented the breakaway churches.

Many of my Protestant brothers would argue that one will get to heaven through the acceptance of Christ as his personal savior and Hitchcock’s book makes it very clear that “Solo Scriptura” may be insufficient for salvation by itself. The author emphasizes tradition and doctrine of the Catholic Church is just as important and perhaps more so.

In any event doctrinal differences aside, I found the book most interesting and the scholarship superb. I highly recommend reading this book both for its historical value as well as for a clear understanding of the many secular and spiritual hurdles the Catholic Church has encountered over the last two millennium. I gave the book five stars in my rating.

[Adam DeVille, Ph.D. · Rating 1 out of 5]

An appallingly slipshod, error-strewn work that is an enormous disappointment not only coming from Hitchcock, but also from Ignatius Press, which used to be a reliable outfit. This book should not be recommended or read for reasons I discuss in part here: http://easternchristianbooks.blogspot...

[Kyle Evens · Rating 3 out of 5]

From the start, I will say that this book is overall acceptable if you consider only the survey of general events. I flat-out dislike the author’s biases; they have no historical basis and do nothing but hurt his text by making the reader question the explanations of an event of theological concept.

That said, I would recommend this if it were read in some sort of introductory course so that a discussion about these issues could occur. The lack of footnotes indicates it was probably written for such a purpose.

The gist of my complaint is the book has a storybook feel. There is always a “foil” that Christianity ultimately gets the best of in the author’s syntheses: Second Temple Judaism and Greek Polytheism are “corrected and unified” by the Early Church (with Acts and every word of the Gospels is taken as fact, despite the more prestigious priestly theologians of our time finding this view as foolish and incorrect). Rome (during the height of its strength) was immoral and decaying whilst the post-Constantine Empires that accepted Christianity became a “corrected and unified” universal empire. Barbarians from the Dark Ages are savage beasts (despite running Rome’s armies and most of its administrative state for nearly two centuries before the fateful day in 476) who brought civilization to its knees. Forget how 476 is now generally accepted as nothing but the replacement of one Gothic leader with a Greco-Roman puppet emperor for another Gothic leader who discarded the pretense)—it is only through Christianity that the Carolingians, Alfred the Great, and the Normans were “corrected and unified” to become powerful. This continues throughout the book and casts an eye-rolling air of bias and illegitimacy on the general content. As discussed below, the current big baddie (modernity) seems to have an upper hand and thus is cause for great concern going forward from the 2012 publication date.
The general narrative through leads to the author’s mournful conclusion: in the absence of Christendom, both grace and salvation are ebbing at a dangerous rate.

To put it in my own words: the author does not like what has happened once the common masses finally had the socio-political opportunity to not attend church, not tithe, not send their children to catechists, access to public education. While he is entitled to that opinion on a personal or theological level, he let it poison the historicity of the work as a whole.
This book is in ways a very dry “creative nonfiction” history where Early Christianity and Catholicism is the under-dog hero (whose bad actors were not all that awful) while its political and religious enemies are nothing short of soul-corrupting and society-ruining evil. Any problem you have with today’s world? Blame innovation.

If you have the chops to read material like this, I would instead recommend the works of Pope Benedict XVI (and works published as Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger), Fr. Josef Jungmann, and Fr. John P. Meier for your ecclesiastic history reading. In particular, though I recommend the relatively brief “Ecumenical Councils of the Catholic Church” by Professor Joseph Kelly. That author manages to pack the same general events into a much more succinct work that avoids the biases, armchair theologizing, and presumptions of the at-issue work.

[Fr. · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really wanted to like this book. Hitchcock has a good reputation, his Recovery of the Sacred is an important and worthwhile book, and I'd like to know a good readily available book on the history of the Church.

But the problem is that his command of theology is not as good as he thinks it is. From the introduction:

Jesus’ parable of the wheat and the tares teaches that good and evil exist together in the world, and the reality of human freedom provides the only satisfactory explanation of moral evil—God’s mysterious willingness to grant that freedom and permit its full exercise, even when it is used to thwart His divine plan.

God's plan cannot be thwarted, and human freedom is not at all the only explanation for evil. The tendency to blame freedom for evil is a very modern one--I have an early Twemtieth Century textbook whose authors knew better. (Grace, Actual and Habitual (Volume 7); A Dogmatic Treatise; the primary author was a Jesuit, so my views on this point are not just a function of my Dominican leanings.)

Want more?

a sometimes excessive concern for doctrinal clarity that was motivated by both the Greek passion for philosophical certitude and the religious passion to be faithful to the Gospel.

An example would be handy. As it is, I have no idea what he's talking about.

Some books (Esther, Maccabees) appeared in the Septuagint but not in other compilations

Parts of Esther are in the Septuagint and not elsewhere, but most of it is right there in the Hebrew sources.

But despite Augustine’s enormous prestige, the Council [of Orange] stopped short of fully embracing his own statement of the question, and it condemned the doctrine of predestination.

No, the Council of Orange did not condemn predestination (again, my Jesuit author and his translator/editor have a lot to say about it). You can look at the canons from the Council of Orange for yourself and see.

That's where I quit reading. You can call me overly picky if you like, but here's the deal: When I read a non-fiction book, I have to trust the author. When he gets things wrong that I know about, how can I trust him on things I don't know about?

[Chad · Rating 3 out of 5]

Continuing the ecumenical strand in my reading, I tackled a rather ambitious History of the Catholic Church packing over 2000 years of history into ~500 pages. I have read a book of similar scope about the Orthodox Church last year (review here) and I went through a huge Chesterton phase a few years back. But getting a bird's eye view, so to speak, has been extremely helpful. I was able to connect all the dots between the events of the New Testament to the Church of the Middle Ages to events of today.

This history of the Church takes the perspective of a knowledgeable believer, perhaps comparable to Saints in the Latter-Day Saint tradition, at least in terms of tone. It attempts to be comprehensive, but how to do that well in so short a space? The author organizes the book into 14 chapters, further broken into mini-sections of 2-5 paragraphs. I didn't like the format at first, as it fell too superficial. But for it serves its purpose as a broad overview, and I found myself looking up additional books on topics I would like to read up on in more detail.

While the book does address controversial aspects of the Catholic Church, it clearly has its biases. For instance, on the Inquisition the author writes:

The chief purpose of the Inquisition was to persuade the accused heretic to recant, in which case he was made to do public penance... Torture was permitted in order to obtain a confession, but it was used sparingly in heresy cases, since an individual who denied being a heretic was considered to have recanted.

On the topic of indulgences:

Technically, the indulgence was not being sold; recipients had to be truly penitent of their sins, as well as give money, and poor people could gain an indulgence without payment. But even some orthodox theologians considered the practice of granting indulgences overly mechanical and self-centered, and some of the indulgence preachers were extremely aggressive and appeared to be engaged in a sordid trade.

In this strain, the author acknowledges bad behavior, but doesn't go into sordid detail and seeks to put it in the most positive light possible. This is understandable, and it is valuable to understand the history of the faith from the perspective of a believer. As Krister Stendahl taught, when you are trying to understand another religion, you should ask the adherents of that religion and not its enemies. I do appreciate self-reflective pieces as well that seeks to acknowledge fault and do justice in light of it, and I am certain there is plenty of that genre in Catholicism.

While the whole book is fascinating, I found the adaptations of the Church to the modern era to be of particular interest. While the Catholic Church has been a continuous organization for 2000 years, there was a definitive shift in the last century. Pius IX was the last pope to rule as a prince when the Papal States became a part of Italy. The author commented:

The question of the papacy’s “temporal power” remained an issue in Catholic circles for many years. The argument in its favor was both theoretical—the Papal States were bestowed by God—and practical: How could the Pope be secure in the exercise of his spiritual authority unless he ruled an autonomous principality free of the secular powers? But on balance, the loss of the Papal States proved to be beneficial to the Church. They were only a fragile protection for papal autonomy, and fifteen hundred years of fighting for territory often had a deeply corrupting effect on the papacy.

While Pius IX oversaw the loss of temporal power, Pope John XXIII struck an entirely different image of what it meant to be pope:

In a sense, the “style” of the new Pope was more important than his specific policies. Apart from anything he decreed or authorized, John immediately effected a revolution in the public image of the papal office, an abrupt transition from the concept of the pope as ruler to the pope as kindly pastor.

Throughout the Middle Ages, the popes played a major part in politics, for better or for worse. From the perspective of today, it seems very distasteful. It smacks of church and state being intermingled. But one thing that Fareed Zakaria points out in his The Future of Freedom: Illiberal Democracy at Home and Abroad, it kept a power that could rival the power of the state, in effect keeping state power in check. Zakaria traces this back to Constantine's decision to leave the pope behind in Rome when he moved to the East:

The church never saw itself as furthering individual liberty. But from the start it tenaciously opposed the power of the state and thus placed limits on monarchs' rule... The Catholic Church was the first major institution in history that was independent of temporal authority and willing to challenge it. By doing so it cracked the edifice of state power, and in nooks and crannies individual liberty began to grow.

The book felt very different for me as it started to catch up to events of today, specifically everything after the 1960s. I don't think it's just because it starts to cover events from my lifetime or my parents' lifetime; I started to feel the author take stances on the political issues of today and was decidedly pessimistic about modern advancements. In sweeping generalizations like this:

In 2010, the frontiers of morality stood at a point that had been mere science fiction at the time of Vatican II. Besides abortion, euthanasia, and suicide, the issues included induced sex changes, artificial insemination, cloning, and "creation" of life in laboratories, often to be destroyed from embryonic stem cell research.

The crisis was metaphysical more than moral, in that the very identity of humanity was being called into question by a seemingly irresistible, all-devouring technology and by men determined to deny both higher moral truth and any concept of inherent human significance.

The author seems to think that everything has gone downhill since Vatican II right before the 60s. Vatican II was a Pandora's box that opened concessions to modernity. He is clear that he doesn't blame either Popes John XXIII or Paul VI. But something definitely was amiss:

For many, the postconciliar period therefore proved to be a time of rudderless experimentation, with change itself apparently now the only new certitude. In that environment, the distinction between essentials and nonessentials was for many people no longer clear. If Catholics could now eat mean on Fridays, why would they not get divorced, especially if the purpose of the Council, and of "Good Pope John", was to make the faith less burdensome?

I couldn't help but see many touchstones with my own faith. The media reception of Vatican II felt all too familiar reminding me of reading Twitter commentary of General Conference:

The gist of such reporting was that at long last the Church was admitting her many errors and coming to terms with modern culture. The Council Fathers were divided into heroes and villains, "liberals" and "conservatives," and the conciliar deliberations were presented as morality plays in which open-minded progressives repeatedly thwarted the plots of Machiavellian reactionaries.

The book left me feeling with a greater appreciation of the Catholic church and its history. I know in my own faith community we tend to paint the Catholic church in a negative light, and it is in a large part due to ignorance. I find myself increasingly drawn to our similarities.

[Barry]

DNF @33%

Confusing, because the author seems to be unorganized. Discussion moves from one topic to another in the next paragraph, yet may move back to the initial topic a few pages later. Why did the author not organize the contents more chronologically, topically and / or per specific figure, I have no idea. As a result, it was a pretty disjointed, confusing and not at all enlightening reading experience.

Furthermore, as a historical book, I find the lack of citation to be really concerning. I’d think a lot of the claims on the historical events presented in the book may need to be properly referenced to another reliable source(s).

Similarly, I don’t know if the author provides the correct interpretation of some of the creeds, concepts, ideas that were debated by the early Church Fathers, because he does not provide proper citation. As a result, it may seem like a lot of the theological discourses are of his personal interpretation.

Overall, a disappointing read, especially because I really do want to learn the histories of the Catholic Church from an accurate historical POV.

[Luke Thomas · Rating 5 out of 5]

An impressive accomplishment for Dr. Hitchcock is fitting 2000 years handily within 500 pages. This work deftly weaves the primary threads of Catholic history into a manageable and discernible whole. It certainly accomplishes what a good work of history should do: gives clarity, form, and prompts a desire for more.

[Wystan · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fascinating lens of how the Catholic church influenced the history of the modern world.

That doesn't mean I agree with it. I felt particularly spicy about certain descriptions of the more recent chapters of history.

[Fr. Wirth · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent comprehensive view of Catholic Church History with an easy to use topical index to locate many different subjects. Hitchcock is one of the very best.

[Kenneth · Rating 5 out of 5]

A good summary of Catholic history. Reads like an encyclopedia while having enough narrative style to keep the interest of the reader throughout. Can be used for reference or read straight from start to finish.

The author is a "conservative" Catholic. For that genre the treatment is fair with only a few foundational omissions. Apologetic in tone in addition to covering the breadth of material in a short volume, Hitchcock has done an admirable job of mass marketing Catholic history for the laymen in the pews.

The book is stamped with the praise of high churchmen as well as neoconservative political writers associated with Ignatius Press. This type of thing I suppose qualifies for the "nihil obstat" (an essential mark of sanctioned Catholic literature in, say, the good old days of Sheed & Ward).

A pleasure to read, albeit other books have been written in this vein quite often. This new effort deserves some added attention. The work will be read by the choir on the whole. Of particular note however due to the shelf space provided in the pitiable selection on religion in most corporate book stores.

[Joey · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a textbook for my Church History class but is accessible to all. It covers 2000 years worth of history in a little over 500 pages so it is abbreviated, but it was very interesting and I found myself spending as much time looking up more information about related topics as I did reading the text. It is written from the perspective of the Catholic Church, western culture, and there is some bias in the post-Vatican II topics covered in the last chapter, but an excellent historical overview for anybody interested in learning more about Church history without being bogged down with nitty-gritty details. Instead, it introduces topics in a meaningful way, where further research for details can be pursued as topic peak the reader's interest.

[Katherine Moss · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the most in depth histories of my heritage faith ever written. I have to say; James does a great job documenting this mammoth of a religion, and he leaves no stone unturned. If you are Catholic, wanting to become so, or just curious about religion in general, this one is a highly recommended read.

[Luke · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book provides a decent survey of the history of the Church, but it can be one-sided at times, leaning very much into a neo-con ideology and sparingly, if ever, drifting from it- often to it's detriment.

[Gonzalo Alfonso · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am nominally Catholic and honestly I had never dived into the history of the Catholic Curch like with this book.

I went into it because I felt like I needed to know a bit more about the role the Church had played throughout history and why it stood out as it did. People talk a lot about how bad the Church is and I felt like that was a skewed vision. It couldn't have been so popular if it was so bad. So I wanted to see if my gut was right in some degree. Turns out there are lots of aspects where religion (I say religion because it was Christianity the most widespread in the west, but it could've been another and I'm sure good things would've happened also) impacts positively in life. More than I thought.

First book I read on the matter and, though it uses a lot of religious lexicon, I was able to enjoy most of it and learn a lot. Surely someone more devoted will be able to retain or learn more than I did. I loved the historical approach of the author. Recommended.

[Jacob Naur · Rating 5 out of 5]

Precise, honest, and covering most of the significant events and theological debates through 2000 years, this book is well worth your time. In my view, most modern-day historians completely ignore the Catholic history, which is basically the history of Europe. Even now, when Christendom has ceased to exist, it is quite easy to see what will go wrong and why now that I know what has been and could be. There is no civilisation outside a strong and pervasive Christianity.

Finally, and most importantly, this book read like an invitation to the rich, invigorating, and genuinely joyful (however forgotten) Catholic writers, thinkers, and theologians as well as saints. If you are considering reading the book, you should. You will not be disappointed.

[Dale Kueter · Rating 4 out of 5]

Father Hitchcock present a history of the Catholic Church from Jesus to modern times. It's an academic review of the church's formation, early disputes, the good times and bad. It covers the popes, clergy who thought they were popes, the mixing of church and state, Protestant reformation, reformers within the church, saints and sinners.

[Argene Clasara · Rating 3 out of 5]

The author has a tendency just to list historical facts, hence the overemphasis on description and the absence of narrative and analysis. Further readings is superb. Quite good introduction for Ecclesiastical History.

[Blake Solomon · Rating 3 out of 5]

I hungered for a bit more narrative but overall this is an incredible text. I had the thought “how did we get popes”, found this book and here we are. Curiosity: sated.

[Baltazar Soto · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great history of the Catholic church that answers many questions concerning the faith. All Catholics should be aware of their own history.

[Aaron · Rating 5 out of 5]

A quality read. Does not shy away from the more dark parts of the Catholic Church's past

[Rob Henderson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Seems to be a fair assessment.

Information is given in digestible portions and is concise and interesting. It is a long read but a good one.

[Arbré Écorce · Rating 3 out of 5]

I called this my tic tok book. Most of the paragraphs were stand alone paragraphs and could be read independently of the rest of the book

[casey · Rating 5 out of 5]

There was so much information in this book that it took quite a while to get through. I am so glad I read it.

[Matthew Berg · Rating 4 out of 5]

This one was very much on the cusp for me. While I appreciate the scope of the effort, I was disappointed in the lack of supporting annotations within the book. Likewise, while I appreciate that in cramming two thousand years of history into five hundred pages the treatment of some individuals and events are necessarily perfunctory, I found a number of cases where an ambivalent figure was treated with almost unqualified exaltation.

That said, the book did not shy away from some of the more embarrassing aspects of Church history even if it did not dwell on them, and it succeeded in presenting a concise overview of the topic and more than enough material for further study. The sheer ambition of the project is what tipped it from a three to a four for me.

[Hayden Dickens · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is like sprinting through the history of the West and Christianity even though it is relatively long. The good, the bad, and the ugly of the Church…luckily guided by a loving Father. A phenomenal attempt at summarizing the Church though. My next hope would be for him to break several key events or people into their own books because this was well done

[Kevin · Rating 5 out of 5]

2000 years is a lot to cram into one volume, however James Hitchcock managed to do just that. His book provides a thorough yet concise summary of Catholicism. He doesn't pull any punches when he talks about the Schism with the Eastern Orthodox churches or the reasons for the Reformation. Yet he doesn't slam the church and ends his book being optimistic about the future of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic faith.

A good first read for anyone who wants to get a good summary of our church's history. Not a good read if you are more interested in studying a specific time period of that history.

[Joe Valentine · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thought-provoking detailed summary

covering 2000 years of history in a single volume is a daunting task, and the author succeeds on many levels. the number of events and person identified and discussed is amazing. Fundamental to the book is the author's respect for the faith tradition and for the ongoing guidance provided to the church whose history is recorded here.

[Jason Hallmark · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent survey of 2000 years of church history. Well organized, and very fluid writing make this book a very accessible read. Helped point me to a number of follow up sources I would eventually like to study.

[Clare]

HS to review @ www.GoodReadingGuide.com