Pope John Paul II and the Catholic Restoration

by Paul Johnson

Examines John Paul's formative years in the Polish church and his religious convictions and assesses the impact of those convictions, the Pope's charisma, and his Christian humanism on the Catholic Church

216 pages, Hardcover

Published January 1, 1982

About the author

Paul Johnson works as a historian, journalist and author. He was educated at Stonyhurst School in Clitheroe, Lancashire and Magdalen College, Oxford, and first came to prominence in the 1950s as a journalist writing for, and later editing, the New Statesman magazine. He has also written for leading newspapers and magazines in Britain, the US and Europe.

Paul Johnson has published over 40 books including A History of Christianity (1979), A History of the English People (1987), Intellectuals (1988), The Birth of the Modern: World Society, 1815—1830 (1991), Modern Times: A History of the World from the 1920s to the Year 2000 (1999), A History of the American People (2000), A History of the Jews (2001) and Art: A New History (2003) as well as biographies of Elizabeth I (1974), Napoleon (2002), George Washington (2005) and Pope John Paul II (1982).

Reviews

[Aaron Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book will get you thinking about how much the church (and Christians in general) should be involved in politics, and explores the battle between liberalism and change versus conservatism and tradition within the church.

Wojtyla, who experienced totalitarian atheism first-hand, helped stem the tide of totalitarianism and leftist ideology. This is an early biography, written in 1981 (he became pope in 1978 and died in 2005), but a great place to start. He was at the forefront of the fight against the great evils of his age: totalitarian atheism, violent politics, western materialism, ecclesiastical decay, and heresy.

[Erik]

Recommended by James Schall in Another Sort of Learning, Bibliography.