Steve Weidenkopf, who teaches Church history at the Christendom College Graduate School of Theology in Virginia has written in Timeless: A History of the Catholic Church(Our Sunday Visitor, £15/$20), a concise summary of a sprawling, complex and often controversial subject. The book is an excellent textbook for college students as well as for those outside the Church who want to learn more about this strange, enduring institution.
Inevitably, with a huge period to span, the author concentrates on the events leading up to the first millennium and from there to the Reformation period. The 20th century is only touched on lightly, with a few pages devoted to the popes following Pius XII. The focus is largely on Europe as the locus of the faith in the past 2,000 years. This, we can be sure, will change in the future as the African and Asian churches come to assert themselves.
