Catholicism and Citizenship Political Cultures of the Church in the Twenty-First Century

The book is very well-written and deals with Pope Francis' papacy in light of his view of Guadium et spes. The purpose of the book, Faggioli states, is to look at Catholicism in the modern world, as it has changed so much since Vatican II.

Catholicism and Citizenship is a concise book that represents the fruit of lectures presented by the author. Hope and insight never fail to radiate from each page.

Catholicism & Citizenship, does not offer just another book about the church and the temporal world. Rather, it promises a challenging exploration of the saeculum's bewildering contradictions, and it graduates a half-century-old theological reflection into an urgently present injunction to respond to the world as it is.

The prolific and polyglot historian Massimo Faggioli argues in this book that Francis is `the first post-conciliar pope.' Faggioli claims that the church, no longer seeking political or cultural hegemony, must go out to the world to show mercy in diverse forms of dialogue and service.

With this book, Massimo Faggioli cements his reputation as his generation's premier interpreter of the relationship between American Catholics and the Church in Rome. He is incisive, insightful, and unfailingly constructive in his observations.

In Catholicism and Citizenship, an accomplished historian of the Vatican II Church situates the novelty of Pope Francis's orientation—and the resistance it has provoked—on the complex, changing, and disturbing terrain of global politics and `the crisis of the nation state.' Francis envisions the Church as an engaged member of world society—missionary and prophetic, yet nonideological and inclusive. To those dismayed by public vitriol, worried about international politics, or doubtful that the Church can change the world, this book will bring new breadth of insight and encouraging seeds of hope.

Massimo Faggioli is in the first rank of theologians to come of age since the Second Vatican Council and to study both the Council and the post-conciliar era. In this book he sets out from Gaudium et Spes, the Council's document on the church in the modern world, to spur Catholic ecclesiology toward a new engagement with a globalizing world in political crisis, an engagement in line with Pope Francis's vision of a missionary church of mercy. Catholicism and Citizenship displays the author's usual skill at analyzing conciliar and later documents and providing their historical context. He brings to this task a unique perspective and familiarity not only with Italian but European experience and theology. Sparks of insight and information fly from every chapter.

Catholicism and Citizenship is excellent historiography, a synthetic scholarly survey of historians' findings and theologians' insights. All readers will find in its voluminous notes other books they would like to read; doctoral students will discover dozens of dissertation topics to explore; and scholars, arguments to pursue. General readers will meet provocative, new perspectives on the history and reality of the church in our time. All in all, a genuinely rich read.

Faggioli is the most articulate interpreter of American Catholicism today. Catholicism and Citizenship is an instructive and sobering call to action.

The work conducted here is extraordinarily well informed and worthy of thorough engagement in the discussions surrounding Catholicism and public theology.

Faggioli has given us a very thoughtful short volume that would provide an excellent text for university and theological school courses and selective parish adult discussion groups. I find his volume a gem.

Faggioli's volume is a must read both for its layout of Vatican II's political ecclesiology and the effort to make it integral for contemporary Catholic consciousness, as well as for its further bibliographical suggestions.