Jesus Wept

From the best-selling author and former New York Times investigative reporter, an unprecedented look at the defining struggles of the modern Catholic Church, told through the lives of the last seven popes carrying us from the wake of World War II up through the present day and providing essential context around the most pressing issues faced by Pope Francis



When the jolly Italian peasant-turned-cardinal Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli of Venice was elected Pope John XXIII in 1958, change was in the air. The Church, many said, had refused to enter the twentieth century. In response, Pope John launched Vatican II, an “ecumenical council” that summoned hundreds of church leaders to Rome. It marked one of the most progressive turns the Church had taken in centuries: “medicine of mercy,” as Pope John called it. Yet not everyone in the Church was prepared to accept this modernization. The lines were drawn in a battle that continues to rage into the twenty-first century.