A Short History of the Catholic Church

by José Orlandis

Book Overview

"The History of the Catholic Church" is an essential part of world history over the past two thousand years. This book, written for Christians and non-Christians alike, is meant for readers who are... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1851821252
• ISBN13: 9781851821259
• Release Date: January 1993
• Publisher: Four Courts Press
• Length: 166 Pages
• Weight: 0.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.5" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

"You must have this book!" she said. She was correct!

As we were coming into the Church in 2003, an owner of a bookstore told me, "You must have this book!" She was correct! Everyone, Catholic or Protestant should own this book. Everything you want to know is there - well, it alone will make you curious and want to buy and read more books, but this is History you need to know. As a Protestant I was so uninformed about what Catholics really believed and why they believed it. I also did not know the first 1500 years of history of the Christian Church. I knew the Bible and knew the Bible well - but I had jumped over the history between the Resurrection and the Book of Acts up to the Reformation. I keep a well-worn paperback of this Jose Orlandis book in a handy spot and always glance at it when I am in that room. I am always tempted to read a line or two. I sometimes feel so smug about knowing so much history and I was never a history buff. There are no opinions in this tiny book - "Just the facts, Sir, just the facts." Let me know if you like it - but do go buy it - especially for anyone who is presently considering becoming Catholic or any anti Catholic. Everyone should own Short History of the Catholic Church by Jose Orlandis.

Two thousand years of trials and triumphs in a nutshell.

In roughly 150 pages, author Jose Orlandis presents to readers a neatly compacted history of the Catholic Church up to the early years of the collapse of the Communist bloc. Published originally in Spanish as "Historia breve del Cristianismo" ('Brief History of Christianity'), this English translation by one Michael Adams is quite brief as well, even cursory to some. But, as Orlandis points out in his Preface to this work, he made the book short "in order to make it accessible to a wide readership, to people who might not be inclined to read a more elaborate book." This being said, the author does manage to effectively profile the main events and theological developments which molded the Church to its present form. "A Short History of the Catholic Church" is orthodox in its outlook and does not neglect to mention unfavorable events and characters in Church history. Orlandis dedicates a curiously laudatory paragraph in the final chapter to Opus Dei, the lay organization which is considered controversial in some circles but enjoys at the same time the support of conservative Catholics including Pope John Paul II himself. In a more conventional vein, the author supplemented his text with a fine chronological table divided by centuries, but unfortunately did not insert a bibliography.