The book by American historian Thomas Woods debunks the anti-Christian and anti-clerical mythology cultivated for three centuries (starting with the Enlightenment) and included in textbooks - a tendentious portrayal of the Church as a reactionary force resisting the development of science, culture and civilization in an effort to keep peoples in primitive darkness and ignorance. Based on the results obtained by historians over the past hundred years when studying the history of the European Middle Ages and early modern times, the author shows how great the role of the Church and the Christian religion was in the creation of many of the most important aspects of modern civilization - science, law, art and architecture, agriculture , charity, etc. After reading this book, you will learn why modern science originated in the bosom of the Catholic Church, how Catholic priests developed the idea of free market economics 500 years before Adam Smith, how the Catholic Church invented universities, how Western law developed from church canon law, how the Catholic Church humanized the West, insisting on the sacredness of all human life. The book is intended for a wide range of readers interested in the history of Europe and the world, as well as the history of religion.