"...if a legitimate prince governs tyrannically and no other means of self-defence can be found than the expulsion and deposition of the king, then the people, acting as a whole...may depose him."

We might well wish that the relationship between the medieval Catholic Church and the Jews had been better, friendlier, more modern. But it was not modern, nor should we expect it to be. It was, however, a relationship marked by mutual respect and a remarkable degree of tolerance in an age that knew little of either.

Like Paul Johnson, I was a journalist who'd written frequently on historical topics. I also had a definite point of view on Church history, which was that it was being hijacked for liberal propaganda with the endless stream of books like Constantine's Sword, Hitler's Pope, and Papal Sin. I wanted to respond with the real story.

Christians, we are often told, are the people marooned on the wrong side of history. Critics charge that Christians have time and again buttressed hierarchy against equality, patriarchy against women's rights, absolutism against individualism, and small-minded tradition against broad-minded tolerance. Such notions are far from the truth.

"Progress and Religion" was perhaps the most influential of Christopher Dawson's many influential books. Anthropology, sociology, philosophy, religion, and history formed the backdrop for the key idea that religion is the soul of a culture and that a society or culture which has lost its spiritual roots is a dying culture. To Dawson, a return to the Christian culture that had formed Western civilization was the only remedy for a world adrift.

In spirit and in values, though at an immense distance, the Crusaders were our kin. While not forgetting their many transgressions, we should weep for what they lost and remember with pride their few astonishing victories. Ville gagnée!

Catholics trying to understand the Reformation sometimes complain about the wide range of Protestant churches, denominations and sects. The challenge is not as great as it seems at first glance because the tens of thousands of Protestant churches, denominations and sects trace their origins back, one way or another, either to the three major founders of the Reformation or to the Radical Reformation movement known as the Anabaptists. Understand them, and you'll go a long way toward understanding the complex reality called Protestantism.

The following is a translation of an interview that Mr. Nikolaus Kunkel, a witness to Pius XIIs actions to save Roman Jews during the Second World War, gave to the German Catholic News Agency (KNA) on November 7, 2000.

The great religious upheaval of the sixteenth century contributed to the long-term decline of religion and the rise of secularism in the West, although few of the participants could have foreseen this at the time.

As the world commemorates Yom HaShoah Day, remembering the Jews who perished at the hands of the Nazis during Holocaust, a Polish priest recounts the heroic rescues of Polish Jews by Catholic Nuns.