A Proposal for Change in Catholicism's Third Millennium.
The papacy of the Roman Catholic Church is the world's oldest continuous institution. Paul Collins, historian and inveterate Vatican watcher, has looked beyond the details of this astonishing parade over 260 popes to uncover the dynamics of papal power.
He argues that if it was "service" that characterised papal leadership in the first millennium, "power" is what has characterised it in the second. He traces the developments in theory and reality that have lead to a modern papacy that exercises virtually sole and total rule over the world's largest religious community.
Collin's provocative new study proposes a new model in the Catholic Church as it enters its third millennium - one that would allow all Catholics to participate in the work and decision-making of the Church.
