“The Catholic Church through the Ages”

The Catholic Church through the Ages is a book by Fr. John Vidmar, O.P.. It is one-volume survey of the history of the Catholic Church from its beginning until (and including) the pontificate of Benedict XV. The book explains the Church’s progress by using Christopher Dawson’s division of the Church’s history into six distinct “ages,” or 350-400 year periods of time, each cycle beginning with great enthusiasm and advancement and ending in decline and loss. Writing with the experience of twenty years of teaching, Father Vidmar has fashioned an ideal text that combines substance with readability. Undergraduates, graduates, and interested lay people have given the author an idea of what topics should be emphasized. As a result, he has emphasized such areas monasticism, the Crusades, medieval theology, the Inquisition, Reformation, French Revolution, the nineteenth century, and the Church in the United States. As a supplement to each chapter, the author has included an annotated list of reading and audio-visual materials. You can see a list of his other books here. Fr. John Vidmar, O.P., holds an STD from the Angelicum in Rome. He is the Provincial Archivist and associate professor of theology at Providence College in Providence, RI.