The Real Story of Catholic History: Answering Twenty Centuries of Anti-Catholic Myths

This book is excellent and covers a broad range of "revisionist" history of the Catholic Church. It does not go into a very detailed defense of each false claim but is a great primer to study each topic further.

This book was organized and written incredibly well. Easy to read misconceptions explained and "debunked" in 2-3 pages each. This book is impossible to put down.There are so many myths/misconceptions tackled -- some I even believed to be completely true or partly true and some made me question my decision to return to the Catholic Church; things I've questioned before my return, that I found myself questioning again in recent years because I've heard them so many times since my return (12 years ago) -- that I now have a better understanding of historically, factually, and contextually.Note: I've fact-checked some things (especially about Luther and some of the things he's said that is indicated as quoted, but in reality it's quoted from another book about Luther, not Luther directly, in at least one or two instances) but I've found the author's account to be true for the most part and nothing was outright false either.I can't put this book down! So glad I found it in hardcover because I plan to read it again and again and refer to it often.

The Catholic Church has been around for two thousand years. It has an extremely rich and variegated history that has witnessed everything from the height of the ancient Roman Empire to the current hyper-connected state of our globalized world. Given such length and complexity, it’s no surprise that we find many inaccuracies, oversimplifications and outright lies and myths used by the detractors and enemies of the Church in an effort to cast her in an unfavorable light.I have personally experienced such myths of Catholic history in the form of questions ranging from the legitimacy of the Crusades of the Middle Ages to the alleged atrocities of the Catholic inquisitions in medieval Christendom. What’s the average Catholic to do in the face of such challenges?Professor Steve Weidenkopf is a lecturer of Church history at the Christendom college graduate school of theology and a regular contributor to Catholic Answers’ published material. His most recent work titled “The real story of Catholic History: Answering twenty centuries of anti-Catholic myths” is a magnificent compendium of sound scholarship and apologetic finesse that seeks to put to rest the most vicious and pernicious myths of Church history.Without ever whitewashing the faults perpetrated by some of her members, Professor Weidenkopf deals honestly with the major events of Church history and applies a much needed corrective to the popular yet false narratives that still enjoy widespread circulation. At 55 yet succinct chapters, the book is staggering in the number of topics it addresses. All the major events in Church history that have been subject to gross distortions are aptly handled including some you probably have not heard of such as this one: “The Church began mandating clerical celibacy during the Middle Ages so that it could acquire the clergy’s family property.”We have the mission as Catholics to bear witness to the apostolic faith in word and deed. Equipped with Professor Weidenkopf’s new book, we can be more confident that the splendor of truth will shine more radiantly as we work for the advancement of God’s kingdom on earth.

I bought this book because I wanted to know more about my faith history starting on the first century. This book contains many facts about the criticisms of the Catholic faith by the Church enemies, and the author introduces apologetics for each one of the different themes throughout two millennia. I found it very detailing in regards to history. The book is easy to read and difficult to put it down.My only disappointment was related to the Inquisition chapters. For all I have heard, read and seen before about the Inquisition, the author sounds softer than necessary and blames others (Spain, Portugal, France, the monarchy, etc.) for all the outrageous acts of evil executed by Church members.

This book is jam packed with refutation of the most common myths we hear against the Catholic Church. This book does a good job at dismantling them with accurate history and cited sources. I couldn't put the book down and blew through it in a few days. I highly recommend. It will aid in defense of the faith and a must have for your library.

Good

There is a lack of homogeneity from chapter to chapter.. There are sections really well argumented and convincingly persuasive for sharing the evidences with a skeptic, yet others seem to fall a bit short and just superficially address the issue. Thankfully there is a lot of good material for historical apologetics.

The different dates of the Western and Orthodox Christmas and Easter were caused by the West's adoption of the Gregorian calendar over the Julian calendar in the 17th and 18th centuries. It had nothing to do with discussions in the earlier centuries. When it started, the Gregorian calendar moved the dates on about 11 days after the Julian calendar. Now, it is about 13 or 14 days ahead. The Eastern churches have simply stuck with the Julian calendar for liturgical purposes.I was disappointed to see that error in a book that is supposed to be correcting errors.

We love this book. It's so informative. Would recommend this to anyone to read.

Factual