The Church: The Evolution of Catholicism

“The Church is a lucid, balanced, and readable book—a work of integration that is always reasonable, well informed, honest, and deeply hopeful.”
—Commonweal

In The Church, renowned religious historian and Vatican expert Richard P. McBrien offers a sweeping history of the evolution of the Roman Catholic Church, its influence  and power in an ever-changing world.  From Jesus’s apostle Peter to Pope Benedict XVI, The Church is a remarkable achievement that delves deeply into the past and the future of Christianity’s largest branch—in fact, the largest religious institution in the world—exploring its politics, doctrines, and the way the Roman Catholic Church views itself.

Richard P. McBrien is Crowley-O'Brien Professor of Theology at the University of Notre Dame. Educated at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, he has also served as president of the Catholic Theological Society of America. A leading authority on Catholicism, he is the bestselling author of Catholicism, Lives of the Popes, and Lives of the Saints, as well as the general editor of The HarperCollins Encyclopedia of Catholicism. Most recently a consultant for ABC News, McBrien offers regular commentary on all the major television networks. He is also a prizewinning syndicated columnist in the Catholic press.