About the Book: Despite its many crises, the Catholic Church remains a major global force. Caiani chronicles how this institution, once entrenched in temporal power, retreated into defensiveness after the French Revolution, denouncing liberalism and socialism while clinging to dogmas like papal infallibility and Marian apparitions. Though it lost its “kingdom,” by the early 20th century it had gained a worldwide reach. This book explores the Church’s fraught journey through modernity, democracy, science and secular culture