Product Description
This book opens with a concise but sweeping history of the Catholic Church and the papacy, culminating in the brief but unforgettable reign of Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli as Pope John XXIII in the mid-twentieth century. At seventy-six years of age, neither a well-known public figure nor a highly trained theologian, he was at first regarded as a transitional pope. During his reign, however, he awed the world with the seminal and unprecendented change he brought about, in his concern for the fundamental plight of humankind. In rich, impassioned prose, Cahill follows the pontiff's life from his peasant roots to the landmark Second Vatican Council, with its emphasis on worldwide social justice, which marked the beginning of a true shift in the Catholic Church as its relationship to the modern world.
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