The Pope's Divisions : The Roman Catholic Church Today

London England: Faber & Faber .. Hardback. Slight foxing to edge. Slight shelf wear to top edge of D/J. Slightly sunned spine to D/J. Price clipped to D/J. 'How many divisions has the Pope?' Stalin once asked derisively: and he did not stay for an answer. In this book, a superb study of the Roman Catholic Church today, the author provides the best answer that can at the moment be given. Rome correspondent of The Times for more than twenty years, sympathetic to the Church though not himself a Catholic, the author is closely familiar with the Curia and its functionaries and an absorbed observer of recent Popes and papal elections. He has just spent a year travelling in the Catholic world in an attempt to guage the objective strength of this formidable body of over 700 million people. In Africa, South and Central America, the United States, Canada, ireland, Western Europe and the iron Curtain States, he observed, listened, drew conclusions. He examined, too, what is being said about current controversies which agitate the Church today; among them the nature of authority - often referred to as the 'Pope-Kung Conflict' - contraception and education. There could hardly be a more fascinating and more important theme for a book than this; and in this book the author does it justice. 382 pp. (We carry a wide selection of titles in The Arts, Theology, History, Politics, Social and Physical Sciences. academic and scholarly books and Modern First Editions etc.) . Very Good. Cloth. First Edition. 1981.