"This is an important book, as much for its aspiration as its achievement, for it advances a cause. Its two authors, both widely published and influential, here argue for the value of global Catholicism as an academic field with a distinct methodology, one shaped by the current realities of the Catholic Church as placed in historical perspective. In this, the inaugural and programmatic volume in the Brill series Studies in Global Catholicism, of which they are editors-in-chief, Faggioli, a theologian, and Froehle, a sociologist, both US-based at the time of publication (Faggioli has recently taken up a position at Trinity College Dublin), make strong assertions about the need for such a field, all the while unveiling numerous insights. Whether they succeed in establishing the new field, only time will tell. Meanwhile there is much to celebrate in this volume...
This is an ambitious book, and its goals are clearly laid out and well-defended. In the effort to emphasise the need for a new field, other contenders are sometimes caricaturede.g., world Christianity, for example, which might be better seen as a larger container in which Global Catholicism exists than a competitoryet there are truths in caricatures, too, so that the argument here has its merits. Jargonor, at least, terms worthy of further definingoperates extensively here as well (e.g., intradisciplinarity, abductive, geoecclesiology), and at times the pace of arguments can exceed their precision. Yet the overall effect is compelling enough in supporting the need for a new field. Meanwhile, this book can serve many other purposes, too, as it outlines very thoughtful and well-informed insights for grasping the current Catholic predicament, generating a sober hope about its possible future, and thoughtfully suggesting how to study it." - Paul V. Kollman in: Irish Theological Quarterly 90.4 (2025)
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