Originally published at the turn of the century, this classic work by a French priest and historian attempts to understand the role of Catholic dogma in a world undergoing wide-ranging changes in science, social science, historical analysis, and cultural study. His inquiries, and those of other priests and scholars, ignited a controversy within the Catholic church that culminated in Pope Pius X's intervention in 1907 with his encyclical condemning these so-called "Modernist" views. Not since the tumult of Martin Luther's Reformation has the church undergone such internal conflict.
The...