The Counter Reformation (Library of World Civilization)

The reform of the Catholic Church in the sixteenth century was historically as important as the contemporary Protestant Reformation. Though never committed solely to fighting Protestantism, it inevitably also became a Counter Reformation, since it soon face the threat created by Luther and his successors. The century between the career of Ignatius Loyola nad that of Vincent de Paul became a classic age of Catholicism. The lives of its saints, popes and secular champions could hardly be made more fascinating by any novelist. A must-read for Catholics or for anyone who wishes to greater understand the bedrock of Western Civilization and the beginning of Two Cultures in Europe and the world.