Mark Massa

A Council for the Global Church

History & Biography

“A magisterial achievement. Faggioli has created a brilliant and accessible narrative that is the result of a dozen years of research, reflection, and trenchant scholarship on both the Council and its reception under three popes. If, as he points out, Vatican II is the most important event in Catholic history since the Council of Trent, then Faggioli’s study joins the works of such eminent scholars as Hubert Jedin, John O’Malley, and Giuseppe Alberigo as required reading for those wishing to understand the course of Catholicism in the modern world. Faggioli is a past master at showing how—and why—the tangled story of the interpretation of Vatican cannot be disconnected from the history of the Council itself; with this work, the author has woven together both the history of those interpretations and of the Council to construct a ‘usable past’ for Catholics seeking to understand the five decades of Catholic history. Go out and buy this book.”

Weaving Hope

History & Biography

“Weaving Hope offers a lively and eminently readable close-up look at two realities that largely defined the world of nineteenth- and twentieth-century Catholicism in the United States: women religious and the dense network of Catholic schools that significantly shaped the lives and worldview of millions of Catholic school children. Farnham’s book now constitutes required reading for students of the American Catholic experience.”