The volume, deepening specific aspects of the popes from Pius X to Francis, offers, overall, a historical reading of the papacy from the early twentieth century to the present. In this time – between uncertainties, resistances, cautious openings – the papacy realised the transition from intransigent Catholicism to dialogue with modernity and its most characteristic cultural, political and social expressions. In this regard, the presence of swings and retractions in the popes of the last decades are also an expression of the troubles that have marked the long and difficult coexistence between papacy, Roman Catholic Church and modernity, until pope Bergoglio’s new guidelines.