Faith and Leadership

The Papacy and the Roman Catholic Church

Michael P. Riccards

• Publisher: Lexington Books
• Year: 2012
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9780739171332
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Church

This study is a comprehensive history of the papacy, the oldest elective office in the world, and how it has managed over the centuries the most complex voluntary association of faith. The book argues that in fact through most of its existence, the papacy has adapted managerial models of the secular world and applied them to the Catholic Church. Since its emergence from the Jewish synagogues to a persecuted minority in the Roman Empire to becoming the established religion of the West, the Church and the papacy engaged the world on its own terms. It is only after the Council of Trent did the Church become somewhat more divorced and estranged from the environment around it. This book focused on those changes and on the great popes across the centuries who reformed and altered Catholicism. Special attention is directed to Gregory I, Innocent I, Innocent III, Pius IX, Leo XIII, Pius XI, Pius XII, John XXVII, Paul VI, and John Paul II. The conclusion is that the persistence of the Catholic Church for so many centuries was due to its ability to preserve the faith, but re-establish its forms and managerial class.

Table of contents

• ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
• INTRODUCTION
• Chapter 1 The Primitive Church
• Chapter 2 From the Bishop of Rome to Pope (Peter to Leo the Great, 500 A.D.)
• Chapter 3 The Threats to Orthodoxy
• Chapter 4 Beyond the End of the Empire, 500–800
• Chapter 5 The Medieval Papacy Moves East
• Chapter 6 From Abuses to Reforms, 800–1100
• Chapter 7 The Papal Monarchy, 1100–1500
• Chapter 8 The Worldly Popes
• Chapter 9 The Protestant Reformation
• Chapter 10 The Timidity of Reform
• Chapter 11 The Catholic Reformation
• Chapter 12 The Council as a Reform Movement
• Chapter 13 Religious Wars and Religious Repression
• Chapter 14 The Enlightenment
• Chapter 15 The Church Confronts the Leviathan
• Chapter 16 The Church and the Ancien Regime
• Chapter 17 The Emperor’s Attacks on the Papacy
• Chapter 18 Pius IX: The First Modern Pope
• Chapter 19 Leo XIII: The Soul of the Industrial State
• Chapter 20 Pius X: Moods of Piety and Repression
• Chapter 21 Benedict XV and the Mad Dogs of War
• Chapter 22 Pius XI and the New Men of Violence
• Chapter 23 Pius XII and the Spiritual Twilight of the West
• Chapter 24 John XXIII and the Promise of Aggiornamento
• Chapter 25 Paul VI: The Perils of Aggiornamento
• Chapter 26 John Paul II: The Uneasy Agenda of Restoration
• Postscript Benedict XVI (2005–)
• Conclusion
• SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
• About the Author