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Popes and the Papacy: A History (Great Courses The Teaching Company)

by: Thomas F. X. Noble
en | The Teaching Company

1598031570  9781598031577 

Popes and the Papacy: A History (Great Courses The Teaching Company)
By Thomas F. X. Noble




Product Description:

Course Lecture Titles 1. What Is Papal History? When Did It Begin? 2. The Rise of the Petrine Idea 3. Popes, Byzantines, and Barbarians 4. The Popes in the Age of Charlemagne 5. Rome, the Popes, and the Papal Government 6. The Age of Iron 7. The Investiture Controversy 8. The Papal MonarchyInstitutions 9. The Papal MonarchyPolitics 10. The Popes at Avignon 11. The Great Schism 12. The Renaissance PapacyPolitics 13. The Renaissance PapacyCulture 14. The Challenge of ReformProtestantism 15. Catholic Reform and Counter Reform 16. Absolutism, Enlightenment, and Revolution 17. Pius IXPrisoner of the Vatican 18. The Challenge of Modernism 19. The Troubled Pontificate of Pius XII 20. The Age of Vatican II 21. The Transitional Pontificate of Paul VI 22. The Vatican and What It Does 23. John Paul IIThe Great? 24. Benedict XVI, the Future, and the Past




Summary: History without polemic
Rating: 5

As anyone who has studied this subject knows, it is difficult to find a raw history of the papacy without the anti-catholic or pro-catholic polemic infused throughout. Dr. Noble, despite teaching at a "Catholic" university, has done just that, given us a history without polemic. Dr. Noble reports just the facts, warts and all. He does not sugar coat or attempt to defend doctrines such as infallibility but simply places them in their historical context letting the student come to their own conclusions. After all, history is, to a great extent, at the mercy of presuppositions and it is not always easy to recognize those presuppositions in ourselves. Dr. Noble does not attempt to wrest any presuppositions and instill in us his own, he simply provides the history and the controversial backdrop that interprets that history in a delicate balance. Very well done and exactly what any history enthusiast is seeking.