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17 - The Catholic Church

from Part II - Transnational and Religious Missions and Identities

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 November 2023

By
Lawrence C. Reardon
Edited by
Cathie Carmichael ,
Matthew D'Auria  and
Aviel Roshwald
Cathie Carmichael
Affiliation:
University of East Anglia
Matthew D'Auria
Affiliation:
University of East Anglia
Aviel Roshwald
Affiliation:
Georgetown University, Washington DC
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Summary

During the past 2,000 years, Christianity has evolved from a small group of fishermen recruited on the Sea of Galilee to become the world’s oldest continuously operated religious institution and largest Abrahamic religion. Of all the Christian denominations, including Protestantism and Orthodox Christianity, Roman Catholicism remains the largest denomination.1 In 2018, the population of practicing Catholics was equivalent to the population of the People’s Republic of China, or 1.33 billion adherents. Traditionally Europeans dominated the church (21.5 percent). However, the majority of global Catholics are now composed of North and South Americans (48.3 percent), while the fastest growing communities are in Africa, at more than 17 percent.

Keywords

Catholic ChurchVaticanreligious nationalismeconomic nationalismpolitical nationalismKing Henry VIIIMussoliniMao Zedong
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge History of Nationhood and Nationalism , pp. 372 - 394
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

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References

Further Reading

Bireley, Robert, The Refashioning of Catholicism, 1450–1700: A Reassessment of the Counter Reformation (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1999).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cambridge History of Christianity, 9 vols. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006–2010).Google Scholar
Cameron, Euan, The European Reformation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012).Google Scholar
Carney, J. J., Rwanda before the Genocide: Catholic Politics and Ethnic Discourse in the Late Colonial Era (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014).Google Scholar
Helleiner, Eric, and Pickel, Andreas (eds.), Economic Nationalism in a Globalizing World (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2005).Google Scholar
Madsen, Richard, China’s Catholics (Berkeley: California University Press 1998).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Michnik, Adam, The Church and the Left (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1993).Google Scholar
O’Malley, John W., Vatican I: The Council and the Making of the Ultramontane Church (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2018).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Phillips, Jonathan P., The Second Crusade: Extending the Frontiers of Christendom (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007).Google Scholar
Snyder, Jack L., From Voting to Violence: Democratization and Nationalist Conflict (New York: W. W. Norton, 2000).Google Scholar

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