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  • Brief Notices
  • Robert Trisco and Christopher M. Bellitto

New Catholic Encyclopedia, Supplement 2009. Vol. 1: A-I; Vol. 2: J-Z. (Detroit: Cengage Learning. 2010. $273.00 (print version). Vol. 1: Pp. xxxiv, 447, ISBN 978-1-41-447527-1; vol 2: xvi, 449-948, ISBN 978-1-414-47528-8. Set ISBN 978-1-414-47526-4. E-book ISBN 978-1-414-47526-4.)

Although this supplement is focused on "Science and the Church," it contains articles on new ecclesial documents such as the encyclicals of Pope Benedict XVI and personalities such as Charles Darwin; Cardinal Avery Dulles, S.J.; Sigmund Freud; and Pope John Paul II. There are also updated articles on [End Page 873] all the states and archdioceses of the United States, on the Greek Catholic Churches (Eastern Catholic) in the United States and Canada, the Catholic Church in Latin America, Bavaria, and India; and on The Catholic University of America. This supplement has also been published in electronic form, which contains all of the previous versions of a revised, updated, or rewritten entry; this policy will be observed in each successive supplement. The supplement for 2010 will be devoted mainly to "Modern History and the Church," and the supplement for 2011 to "Literature and the Arts." The electronic form is available to subscribers to the Jubilee Volume (2001), the second edition of the encyclopedia (2003), and all forthcoming supplements.

Robert Trisco
(The Catholic University of America)

O'Malley, John W., S.J. A History of the Popes: From Peter to the Present. (Lanham, MD: Sheed & Ward. 2010. Pp. xvi, 351. $26.95. ISBN 978-1-580-51227-5.)

In recent years, Eamon Duffy's Saints & Sinners: A History of the Popes (New Haven, 1997) has dominated the one-volume market in this field. Now John W. O'Malley provides a shorter, clearer, more direct and readable but still informative history of popes and the papacy (despite its title). Teachers would be better off assigning O'Malley's "leaner narrative" (p. ix), since average readers and undergraduates can lose their way in Duffy's sometimes dense text. Another aspect that makes it more accessible is the organization of six parts into a total of thirty-one chapters of about ten pages each. "From the Margins to the Center of the Roman World" takes the story up to Gregory the Great; "Bringing Order Out of Chaos" goes from the Merovingians to Gregory VII, a chapter whose subtitle, "Who's in Charge Here?," reminds us why O'Malley is a popular public speaker. The high-medieval period comprises "Development, Decline, Disarray," followed by "Renaissance and Reformation" detailing a period of papal recovery; but then comes "Into the Modern Era," a troubled tale, and "The Papacy as a Global Institution" from World War I to the present day. Given this strong story line, it would be easy for professors to supplement the volume with lectures and readings that play to their own interests and for the general reader to dig deeper. The reason why this history sounds like a compelling story is its source material: O'Malley's series of thirty-six, twenty-five-minute talks recorded for Now You Know Media in 2006. These were transcribed, edited, and rewritten. Reading it is a bit like experiencing an engaging book-on-tape in reverse.

Christopher M. Bellitto
(Kean University) [End Page 874]

Robert Trisco
The Catholic University of America
Christopher M. Bellitto
Kean University
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