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The Irony of Modern Catholic History: How the Church Rediscovered Itself and Challenged the Modern World to Reform
A powerful new interpretation of Catholicism's dramatic encounter with modernity, by one of America's leading intellectuals
Throughout much of the nineteenth century, both secular and Catholic leaders assumed that the Church and the modern world were locked in a battle to the death. The triumph of modernity would not only finish the Church as a consequential player in world history; it would also lead to the death of religious conviction. But today, the Catholic Church is far more vital and consequential than it was 150 years ago. Ironically, in confronting modernity, the Catholic Church rediscovered its evangelical essence. In the process, Catholicism developed intellectual tools capable of rescuing the imperiled modern project.
A richly rendered, deeply learned, and powerfully argued account of two centuries of profound change in the church and the world, The Irony of Modern Catholic History reveals how Catholicism offers twenty-first century essential truths for our survival and flourishing.
Throughout much of the nineteenth century, both secular and Catholic leaders assumed that the Church and the modern world were locked in a battle to the death. The triumph of modernity would not only finish the Church as a consequential player in world history; it would also lead to the death of religious conviction. But today, the Catholic Church is far more vital and consequential than it was 150 years ago. Ironically, in confronting modernity, the Catholic Church rediscovered its evangelical essence. In the process, Catholicism developed intellectual tools capable of rescuing the imperiled modern project.
A richly rendered, deeply learned, and powerfully argued account of two centuries of profound change in the church and the world, The Irony of Modern Catholic History reveals how Catholicism offers twenty-first century essential truths for our survival and flourishing.
336 pages, Hardcover
Published September 17, 2019
48 people are currently reading
227 people want to read
About the author
George Weigel
125 books154 followersAmerican author and political and social activist. Distinguished Senior Fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center. Weigel was the Founding President of the James Madison Foundation.
Each summer, Weigel and several other Catholic intellectuals from the United States, Poland, and across Europe conduct the Tertio Millennio Seminar on the Free Society in Krakow, in which they and an assortment of students from the United States, Poland, and several other emerging democracies in Central and Eastern Europe discuss Christianity within the context of liberal democracy and capitalism, with the papal encyclical Centesimus Annus being the focal point.
He is a member of the advisory council of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation.
Each summer, Weigel and several other Catholic intellectuals from the United States, Poland, and across Europe conduct the Tertio Millennio Seminar on the Free Society in Krakow, in which they and an assortment of students from the United States, Poland, and several other emerging democracies in Central and Eastern Europe discuss Christianity within the context of liberal democracy and capitalism, with the papal encyclical Centesimus Annus being the focal point.
He is a member of the advisory council of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation.
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
March 2, 2021
"According to the conventional telling of this history, modernity was always the drama's protagonist and the Church was always the reactive (even reactionary) force. That Catholicism may have been a creative and independent actor in this process, rather than a merely defensive one, is seldom considered. Modernity acts; Catholicism reacts; end of story. The only tension in the drama is over the degree of reaction: How much should, or will, or can the Church concede to this, that, or the other modern claim, be that political, social, or cultural?"
These are among the opening lines of The Irony of Modern Catholic History. Weigel's response to this claim and further thesis of the book? "The conventional telling of the story of Catholicism-and-modernity is wrong."
The Irony of Modern Catholic History is, as Weigel himself describes: "a modest experiment in revisionist historiography." In keeping with its dramatic nature, the story is divided into five acts, tracing the history of the relationship between Catholicism and Modernity from about 1780 to 2015. While I am sure that the drama will be nothing new for an expert on modern Church History, for an amateur like myself, I found Weigel's writing to be both engaging and educational. Just as well, this is not a simple history book. Weigel remains faithful to his purpose and provides historical context only for the purpose of relating it to his thesis, which he defends well.
My only criticism is of the length of the book. I think that sections of the history could have been trimmed to keep the reader focused on the goal. However, the slightly over-zealous length detracts neither from the overall message nor from my recommendation to read it. I believe that any student of modern history or Christianity as a whole would benefit from Weigel's message, and it has left me with a number of questions to think on.
These are among the opening lines of The Irony of Modern Catholic History. Weigel's response to this claim and further thesis of the book? "The conventional telling of the story of Catholicism-and-modernity is wrong."
The Irony of Modern Catholic History is, as Weigel himself describes: "a modest experiment in revisionist historiography." In keeping with its dramatic nature, the story is divided into five acts, tracing the history of the relationship between Catholicism and Modernity from about 1780 to 2015. While I am sure that the drama will be nothing new for an expert on modern Church History, for an amateur like myself, I found Weigel's writing to be both engaging and educational. Just as well, this is not a simple history book. Weigel remains faithful to his purpose and provides historical context only for the purpose of relating it to his thesis, which he defends well.
My only criticism is of the length of the book. I think that sections of the history could have been trimmed to keep the reader focused on the goal. However, the slightly over-zealous length detracts neither from the overall message nor from my recommendation to read it. I believe that any student of modern history or Christianity as a whole would benefit from Weigel's message, and it has left me with a number of questions to think on.
December 19, 2020
A little bit of philosophy and ecclesiology and a lot of history and papal document exposition, and this was a great way to see and interpret our current place in the Church. This might not be what the average person looking for a history of the modern church is looking for, but this is great for Catholics wishing to understand the roots of our Church as it is today, and how to make the best of evangelization and the Church today.
January 27, 2020
He lost me slowly over the first half of the book, and then all at once with this phrase on page 160: “the global plague of abortion (a practice closely linked in the West to radical feminism).” I wanted a book of history, not polemics, and wasn’t going to get it here.
November 1, 2020
Dnf - was not written in an engaging manner. Maybe I would need to be Catholic to understand
March 10, 2020
George Weigel, like his mentor St. John Paul the Great, offers incredible depth and meaning to a meme-driven, emoji-filled world starving for substance and meaning.
The secular world thinks it’s the future and faith is the past. Weigel shows how the Church moved over the past 250 years from opposing to exploring to embracing to critiquing modernity. Since John Paul, Weigel demonstrates, Catholicism has been converting modernity (transcending “modern’’ ideas like atheistic communism).
“Put out into the Deep,” Weigel explains, “was John Paul II’s metaphor for… the drama of Catholicism-and-modernity: the Church must leave the shallow, comfortable waters of institutional maintenance and set out into the roiling, turbulent ‘deep’ of the late modern and increasingly postmodern world. To do what? To make a great catch — to convert the 21st century world to Christ and to help strengthen the moral and cultural foundations of modernity’s noblest aspirations and achievements.”
George Weigel books take us to new, unexpected levels. Newt Gingrich, one of the great thinkers of both of the Trump era and the 1990s Republican Revolution, notes two Weigel books helped cement the former Speaker’s decision to convert to Catholicism a decade ago.
In today’s often shallow world, people with little knowledge of history latch onto isolated historical snippets (that may or may not be explained accurately) and use them to justify their side’s latest agenda of the day. Repetition turns those snippets into prevailing narratives.
Hidden truths. Weigel, in reviewing the last 250 years of Church and world interactions, explains history teaches us both what happened and why it happened. So “two historians study Ronald Reagan with the same basic biographical facts at hand: the first portrays him as a great president, the man who won the Cold War and gave America an era of prosperity and confidence; the second tells the story of an amiable lightweight who was preternaturally lucky and left office before his incapacities revealed themselves to the world. Both historians are working with the same materials; what distinguishes them is a matter of focus.”
Deeper Focus. Weigel’s focus is powerful, zooming out to show the bigger picture our limited vision missed then zooming in with the supporting facts to put all the pieces together. You read a Weigel book and know why the prolific John Paul selected Weigel to be his biographer.
Answering the Big Questions. The newest Weigel book, “The Irony of Modern Catholic History: How the Church Rediscovered Itself and Challenged the Modern World to Reform,” similarly takes readers to a deeper, more meaningful place showing how Catholicism is reshaping what remains of the modern age, moving from defense to a new type of leadership role.
“It was long past time for late modern humanity to take up once again the Big Questions: Why is there a world, a universe, at all? What is good? What is evil? What is true happiness, and what is mere delusion? Is there anything human beings can look forward to beyond the grave?” Weigel writes. “Too much of late modern intellectual and cultural life seemed to have become cynical and jaded, aiming low rather than high. It was time, John Paul urged, for late modernity to recover that sense of awe and wonder at the sheer mystery, the unmerited gratuitousness of being, which ancient philosophers knew was essential to a truly human life.
The secular world thinks it’s the future and faith is the past. Weigel shows how the Church moved over the past 250 years from opposing to exploring to embracing to critiquing modernity. Since John Paul, Weigel demonstrates, Catholicism has been converting modernity (transcending “modern’’ ideas like atheistic communism).
“Put out into the Deep,” Weigel explains, “was John Paul II’s metaphor for… the drama of Catholicism-and-modernity: the Church must leave the shallow, comfortable waters of institutional maintenance and set out into the roiling, turbulent ‘deep’ of the late modern and increasingly postmodern world. To do what? To make a great catch — to convert the 21st century world to Christ and to help strengthen the moral and cultural foundations of modernity’s noblest aspirations and achievements.”
George Weigel books take us to new, unexpected levels. Newt Gingrich, one of the great thinkers of both of the Trump era and the 1990s Republican Revolution, notes two Weigel books helped cement the former Speaker’s decision to convert to Catholicism a decade ago.
In today’s often shallow world, people with little knowledge of history latch onto isolated historical snippets (that may or may not be explained accurately) and use them to justify their side’s latest agenda of the day. Repetition turns those snippets into prevailing narratives.
Hidden truths. Weigel, in reviewing the last 250 years of Church and world interactions, explains history teaches us both what happened and why it happened. So “two historians study Ronald Reagan with the same basic biographical facts at hand: the first portrays him as a great president, the man who won the Cold War and gave America an era of prosperity and confidence; the second tells the story of an amiable lightweight who was preternaturally lucky and left office before his incapacities revealed themselves to the world. Both historians are working with the same materials; what distinguishes them is a matter of focus.”
Deeper Focus. Weigel’s focus is powerful, zooming out to show the bigger picture our limited vision missed then zooming in with the supporting facts to put all the pieces together. You read a Weigel book and know why the prolific John Paul selected Weigel to be his biographer.
Answering the Big Questions. The newest Weigel book, “The Irony of Modern Catholic History: How the Church Rediscovered Itself and Challenged the Modern World to Reform,” similarly takes readers to a deeper, more meaningful place showing how Catholicism is reshaping what remains of the modern age, moving from defense to a new type of leadership role.
“It was long past time for late modern humanity to take up once again the Big Questions: Why is there a world, a universe, at all? What is good? What is evil? What is true happiness, and what is mere delusion? Is there anything human beings can look forward to beyond the grave?” Weigel writes. “Too much of late modern intellectual and cultural life seemed to have become cynical and jaded, aiming low rather than high. It was time, John Paul urged, for late modernity to recover that sense of awe and wonder at the sheer mystery, the unmerited gratuitousness of being, which ancient philosophers knew was essential to a truly human life.
July 28, 2023
A very important book by Weigel. He seeks to provide a cohesive take on the last 200 years of Church history, a stretch of time that can seem confusing to many Catholics today in terms of the diversity of its magisterial output. How could the Church go from setting itself basically in opposition to the world and modernity under Pius IX and transition into serious engagement with the modern world during the Second Vatican Coucil and its aftermath without abandoning its principles and convictions? Weigel crafts a convincing case that the challenge posed by modernity to the Church forced the Church to a self-examination that helped it to gradually rediscover its evangelical essence that had been obscured over time and to recast itself as a "public Church" and a "proposing Church" (p. 260). The author makes it clear at the outset that he is not writing history proper but rather tracing out a thread he identifies through the events and figures of last 2 centuries of ecclesiastical history.
The only real downfall of this book is that it is written in a way that will likely 'turn off' those who would likely benefit most from the perspective it brings, such as ideologically 'traditionalist' Catholics on the one hand and ideologically 'progressive' Catholics on the other. At times he brings a polemic tone that might cause readers from either of these camps to be dismissive of his overall point. And that would be a pity in my opinion (but maybe not entirely the author's fault). His concluding tentative assessment about the place of the papacy of Pope Francis in the overarching drama of Catholicism and modernity is a bold one yet perhaps premature.
The only real downfall of this book is that it is written in a way that will likely 'turn off' those who would likely benefit most from the perspective it brings, such as ideologically 'traditionalist' Catholics on the one hand and ideologically 'progressive' Catholics on the other. At times he brings a polemic tone that might cause readers from either of these camps to be dismissive of his overall point. And that would be a pity in my opinion (but maybe not entirely the author's fault). His concluding tentative assessment about the place of the papacy of Pope Francis in the overarching drama of Catholicism and modernity is a bold one yet perhaps premature.
February 5, 2021
Excellent book! It increased my understanding of the Catholic Church and Modernity in the context of history. I found it an encouraging, even-handed evaluation of the subject.
January 5, 2025
Insightful review of Catholic response to the modern world and the role of the Church in saving modernity.
June 9, 2023
I enjoyed the book. I feel far worse and far better about the state of the Church after reading it. I give only four stars because I need to read a competing view of modern Catholic history before I give it 5 stars. Regardless of my agreement with Weigel’s interpretations it is quite clear that the Church must be under constant reform; yet reform based firmly in the tradition faithfully handed on from which the Church came. If the Church cannot grow it will die. The “opening of windows for a new springtime” *appears* to have let the exterior corrupt the interior. This notion can be rejected entirely. The noxious gas that may have entered while the windows were opened is being purified and offered again to the exterior which is suffocating in it’s own squalor. The future of the Church needs bold witnesses of word and deed to the Gospel of Life. It needs disciples that don’t point to themselves but point to the one who they follow Jesus of Nazareth. This authentic encounter is fostered and facilitated as it ever has been, through the life of the Church: tangibly through the sacraments, and intangible through the Word of God and prayer.
June 18, 2020
An excellent history and appraisal of the Catholic Church's ideological struggles over the past three centuries. Highly recommended to all my friends. There is only one point of criticism worth mentioning. The book only runs itself aground at the arrival of the Pope Francis era. Its criticism of his approach to Vatican II interpretation is the 21st century is half-baked and ill-supported. His "new historicism" argument seems to forget that history does have a place in the development of theology (did Weigel already forget his research on Newman?), as is demonstrated by Vatican II and the rehabilitation of Henri de Lubac. I guess history only becomes an impositition on theology when the theology doesn't go the way you want it. But Weigel's argument on this point is unbalanced and brief. That aside, the rest of the work in this book is fantastic, and I will be recommending it to all my friends.
December 5, 2023
Vatican 2 defender goes full Alanis Morissette mode.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews