In reading Church history—and still more so in writing it—one must guard against the temptation of viewing everything through the prism of the present. Still, such a reading cannot be avoided entirely, and so as I was enjoying this splendid new book by the doyen of Church historians in this country, I found myself occasionally casting sidelong glances at the popular revolt brewing around the current pope and his curial hangers-on in the midst of a crisis far graver and more widespread than anything imagined by Catholics of the nineteenth century.
O'Malley, a Jesuit teaching at Georgetown University, has authored recent books on the Councils of Trent and Vatican II. O'Malley has now filled a gap I lamented when, earlier this year on CWR, I reviewed the late John Quinn's rather short book on Vatican I, noting my amazement that Vatican I has been largely neglected. That gap has now been filled by a scholar of the first rank who tells a complex history with lucidity, serenity, and grace.
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