1848 is the starting point of this volume, and it ends with the closure of the Second Vatican Council in 1965. Its subject is the Roman Catholic Church. It attempts as did the two previous volumes in this series to present an outline history of the Church, with detailed descriptions of events selected as significant. The text has been composed for the most part by one author, the well-known Belgian historian Roger Aubert. But important contributions from other hands, relate to the Americas, Australia and New Zealand, the Eastern Churches, and the 'Young Churches' in Asia and Africa. Among these the contribution on U.S.A. from the hand of John Tracy Ellis is of particular importance. But the outstanding feature of the volume is simply that the events recounted and the situations and opinions described here have not been set down as a single history before, many of them indeed never before in print. The Roman Catholic Church is the largest identifiable society of human beings, so that in spite of the variety of cultural factors it is hoped that a single story can be found in these pages which may also be of value for reference.