Ten Popes Who Shook the World

January 1, 2012

These portraits of ten highly influential popes were originally broadcast on BBC radio and here retain their colloquial style while exhibiting solid scholarship. After considering the role of the papacy itself in history, Catholic historian Duffy (history of Christianity, Cambridge Univ., UK; Fires of Faith: Catholic England Under Mary Tudor) offers his assessment of these individuals and their ability (or lack thereof) to respond to changes in the world and to effect changes. Among others, he considers Peter, the first pope; Leo the Great, who saw Rome become the center of the Christian world; Pius IX, who was unable to hold back the forces of modernity; Pius XII, whose purported silence in the face of Nazi atrocities Duffy puts in context; and John Paul II, who reinforced the Church's role as moral teacher and upholder of human dignity. VERDICT Readers seeking a more detailed, scholarly, and thorough history may prefer to turn to Duffy's Saints and Sinners: A History of the Popes. Others will find accessible and unbiased but not uncritical portraits of ten popes who influenced the world around them. For anyone interested in the history of the Catholic Church or the development of the modern world generally.--Augustine J. Curley, Newark Abbey, NJ

Copyright 2012 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

November 15, 2011
Historian-of-religion Duffy, a Cambridge University professor and former president of Cambridge's Magdalene College, presented most of this material on 10 significant popes on BBC Radio in 2007. He begins, inevitably, with Saint Peter, whose contemporaries would have called the bishop of Rome, not a pope. Leo the Great (44061) defined the central authority of Rome. Gregory the Great (590604) unwittingly invented Europe by working to convert England, Holland, and Germany. Gregory VII (107385) was a reformer who challenged the Holy Roman emperor, who had been his patron; Innocent III (11901216) waged bloody crusades but also made room for the Dominican and Franciscan orders. Paul III (153444), the last of the partying popes, sent Michelangelo to the Sistine Chapel and reacted to Luther's challenge by empowering both genuine reform and the Inquisition. Pius IX (184678) lost many of the papal states but expanded papal authority and rejected modernity. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the past century is represented by three popes: Pius XII (193958), John XXIII (195863), and John Paul II (19782005). Enlightening, if brief, portraits.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)