I recall her making a couple of anti-Christian statements in that book, but not specifically anti-Catholic. Here are my comments that are posted as a review of that book in the CM Bookfinder:
I enjoy Jean Fritz and use her books a lot. Her “Around the World in a Hundred Years” book is great for studying explorers and geography.
However, you need to know that she does not approach things from a pro-Christian perspective. She tries to be “neutral,” and thus, ends up presenting some interesting tidbits for discussion. For example, here are just a couple of sentences from the first chapter of “Around the World in a Hundred Years”: “Then suddenly all this wondering and figuring [about the earth’s shape and world maps and such] stopped. Christianity was a new religion, fighting for survival, and in A.D. 391 Christians burned the city of Alexandria and its famous libraries, which contained, along with many ancient treasures of scholarship, the work of Ptolemy. Christians did not believe in scholarship. They thought it was sacrilegious to be curious. Anything people wanted to know, they said, could be found in the Bible.”
Now, the thing is, unfortunately, many Christians did hold that view; however, Fritz lumps them all together into one generalized statement. Not all of her books bring up the topic of Christianity, but when she does, it is not usually complimentary. She has a wonderful style of writing, and I do recommend her books. Use them, by all means; enjoy them. But I wanted you all to be aware of her “bent,” especially those of you with young children.
So I wouldn’t give the book to the children to read on their own, but those couple of statements could either be edited out as you read aloud or used as a good discussion starter.
