Papal reputations examined

An entertaining and informative time was had by all in the Milltown Institute on Monday 1 November, for the launch of The Papacy since 1500, edited by Jim Corkery SJ and Thomas Worcester SJ (pictured here – see more photos here). The book was launched by Jesuit historian Fergus O’Donoghue, who noted the incisiveness and relevance of the various essays. He welcomed particularly the fact that a number of them were written by women. He noted that the book draws attention to the difference between the reputation which popes have in their own time and the reputation they gain from theologians and historians working with the benefit of hindsight. Pope Leo XIII, for instance, caused shock among some Catholics when, appalled at the plight of factory workers, he wrote the encyclical Rerum Novarum (1891) – which became the foundation stone of all later Catholic social teaching. The book is published by CUP.