Catholicism is generally over-institutionalized and over-centralized in comparison to other religions. However, it finds itself in an increasingly interrelated and globalized world and is therefore immersed in a great plurality of social realities. The Changing Faces of Catholicism assembles an international cast of contributors to explore the consequent decline of powerful Catholic organisations as well as to address the responses and resistance efforts that specific countries have taken to counteract the secularization crisis in both Europe and the Americas. It reveals some of the strategies of the Catholic Church as a whole, and of the Vatican centre in particular, to address problems of the global era through the dissemination of spiritually progressive writing, World Youth Days, and the transformation of Catholic education to become a forum for intercultural and interreligious dialogue. The volume also reflects on the adaptation of Catholic institutions and missions as sponsored by religious communities and monastic orders.

In Jesuit Art, Mia Mochizuki considers the artistic production of the pre-suppression Society of Jesus (1540-1773) from a global perspective. Geographic and medial expansion of the standard corpus changes not only the objects under analysis, it also affects the kinds of queries that arise. Mochizuki draws upon masterpieces and material culture from around the world to assess the signature structural innovations pioneered by Jesuits in the history of the image. When the question of a 'Jesuit style' is rehabilitated as an inquiry into sources for a spectrum of works, the Society's investment in the functional potential of illustrated books reveals the traits that would come to define the modern image as internally networked, technologically defined, and innately subjective.