Provides a broad and deep survey of Roman Catholic life and thought, updated and expanded throughout

The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Catholicism provides an authoritative overview of the history, doctrine, practices, and expansion of Catholicism. Written by a group of distinguished scholars, this comprehensive reference work offers an illuminating account of the global, historical, and cultural phenomena of Catholicism. Accessible chapters address central topics in the practice of Catholic theology and the development of doctrine, including God and Jesus Christ, creation and Church, the Virgin Mary, the sacraments, moral theology, eschatology, and more. Throughout the text, the authors illustrate the unity and diversity of Catholic life and thought while highlighting the ways Catholicism overlaps with, and transforms, other ways of living and thinking.

Now in its second edition, The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Catholicism is fully updated to include recent developments in the study of Catholicism. Extensively revised and expanded chapters, many of which written by new authors, address contemporary issues such as theology and politics, environmentalism, and the clerical sexual abuse crisis. Entirely new chapters cover the early modern Church, the Bible in Catholic theology, the Eastern Catholic churches, liturgy, care for creation, the consecrated life, challenges for the Catholic Church, and more.

An informed and engaging intellectual journey through the past and present of Roman Catholicism, The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Catholicism:

• Illustrates the diversity of modern Catholic life and thought


• Describes Catholics in different lands, including the Holy Land, India, Africa, Europe, the British Isles, Asia, Oceania, and the Americas


• Surveys spirituality and ecumenism, inter-religious dialog, Catholic schools and hospitals, art and the sciences, the Holy See, and other central Catholic institutions and practices


• Covers major eras in Catholic history, from the Scriptures and the early Church to Post-Modernity


• Features new material on diverse practices of Catholicism across cultures, the global dimensions of the Catholic Church, race and ethnicity, and Eastern Catholic Churches

The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Catholicism, Second Edition, is the ideal textbook for surveys classes on Catholicism and Catholic theology in Catholic, Protestant, and non-confessional colleges and universities. It is also an invaluable resource for scholars and general readers interested in broadening their knowledge of Catholicism.