Product Description

In this extraordinary book, the controversial and profoundly influential Hans Küng chronicles the Roman Catholic Church’s role as a world power throughout history. Along the way, he examines the great schisms—between East and West, and Catholic and Protestant—as well as the evolving role of the papacy, the stories of the great reforming popes, and the expansion of a global church infrastructure. The book concludes with a searching assessment of how the Catholic faith will confront the immense challenges posed in the new millennium by those seeking reform of traditional strictures.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #205720 in Books
• Published on: 2003-01-07
• Released on: 2003-01-07
• Original language: English
• Dimensions: 8.00" h x .60" w x 5.15" l, .47 pounds
• Binding: Paperback
• 272 pages

From Amazon.co.uk
Hans Küng is well known as the scholarly enfant terrible of the Catholic Church. This "turbulent priest" was active in the Second Vatican Council and made his name questioning traditional church doctrines as papal infallibility. In 1979, amidst a great furore, the Vatican censured his writings as being inconsistent with the teaching of the Catholic Church.

It's not surprising then, that Küng's latest book is not so much a 'short history' of the Catholic Church as a justification of his disagreements with its hierarchy, projected back through time. In eight major sections Küng chronicles the early days of Christianity, then takes us through the church's relationship with the Roman Empire, charting the rise of the papacy, the full flowering of its power in the Middle Ages and its eventual corruption. He then goes on to outline the papacy's decline in the face of the Reformation and modernism, and finishes with an extended criticism of the modern papacy. Küng outlines the key events in the European history of the Catholic Church, but he never mentions the Church outside Europe. In addition, the whole history is angled to support his anti-papal, de-centralist agenda.

While one may lament such a subjective and narrow approach, Küng should be praised for his desire that the Catholic Church adapt to modern needs, and for his call that she be faithful to the essential principles of the Christian faith. Standing on its own The Catholic Church is a highly subjective and incomplete offering, but read with other excellent histories of the papacy and Christianity, such as Eamonn Duffy's Saints and Sinners, Chidester's Christianity, and Bokenkotter's Concise History of the Catholic Church it provides an interesting counterpoint. --Dwight Longenecker

From Publishers Weekly
The latest volume in the Modern Library Chronicles series looks at the history of the world's largest Christian body through the eyes of a theologian whom most Catholics regard as either a beloved reformer or an annoying dissident. King, a Swiss priest, was disciplined by the church in 1979 and prohibited from teaching as a Catholic theologian. Through a 1980 agreement with the Vatican, he is now permitted to teach, but only under secular auspices. In his compressed history of the church that traces its roots to Jesus Christ and the Apostle Peter, King continues to ply his trade in controversy. Woven through his mostly readable account is a consistent call for the abolition of the doctrine of papal infallibility, one of the stances that got him into trouble with church authorities two decades ago. King also uses his book to criticize the church's present efforts to safeguard its teachings through the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. His 1979 censure, he says, was a "personal experience of the Inquisition," yet he claims to remain faithful to the church in what he calls "critical loyalty." In concluding statements about the future, Kng says the church must open all ministries to women (although the current pope has quashed discussion of women's ordination) and be more open ecumenically. Church progressives will warmly embrace King's version of Catholic history, which is sure to be dismissed by loyalists.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
King is a Catholic priest and eminent theologian whose doctoral dissertation in 1957 on Karl Barth opened new vistas for ecumenical discussion. From 1962 through 1965, he served as a theological expert at Vatican Council II; since then, his books and articles have presented theological reflections of an unswervingly loyal if not always uncritical Catholic. Because of his stand on a number of hot-button issues, the Holy See removed King's license to teach in the Catholic theology faculty at T?bingen in 1979. He continued to teach at Tibingen, but as part of the general university faculty. In this, his latest book, King presents a summary of the major persons and movements that have formed the Catholic Church from its beginnings to the present. He uses the Church's history to devise four conditions, which need to be met if the Catholic Church is to have a future in the third millennium. This is a remarkable book, despite its less than elegant translation. Recommended for pubic and academic libraries. David I. Fulton, Coll. of St. Elizabeth, Morristown, NJ
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.