When Pope Francis was elected pope in 2013, I witnessed a lot of fellow Latter-day Saints praising the new pope and wishing God’s blessings upon his and his pontificate on facebook and other venues (even if his first act as pope was idolatrous [a prayer to Mary]); furthermore, in light of the recent meetings between LDS and Catholic leaders addressing moral issues, I have no doubt that many within the Church will hope for theological, not just moral, ecumenism in the near future. For those of us who have studied Rome’s history and theology, however, this is polar opposite of what any Latter-day Saint should hope for—what Rome teaches as dogma about issues such as the papacy, Mary, the Mass, veneration of images, etc., falls under the anathema of Gal 1:6-9. This stance may make me unpopular, but so be it.
For those wishing to study the real issues about Roman Catholicism, I would recommend the following (broken down into [1] sources and [2] works refuting, biblically and/or historically, Catholic dogmas on central issues—Mary, the Papacy, the Mass, and the early Councils); at the end, I have included some Catholic apologetic and scholarly works on various issues, too:
Heinrich Denzinger, The Sources of Catholic Dogma
Ludwig Ott, The Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma
Jacques Dupuis, The Christian Faith
Catechism of the Council of Trent (AKA The Roman Catechism)
1994 Catechism of the Catholic Church
1983 Code of Canon Law
Documents of Vatican II (1962-1965)
Karl Josef von Hefele, A History of the Councils of the Church (5 vols.)
Richard P. McBrien, Catholicism
The Harper-Collins Encyclopedia of Catholicism, ed. Richard P. McBrien
Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church (8 vols.)
Idem. Creeds of Christendom (3 vols.)
Eric Svendsen, Who is My Mother? The Role and Status of the Mother of Jesus in the New Testament and Roman Catholicism
Stephen J. Shoemaker, The Ancient Traditions of the Virgin Mary's Dormition and Assumption
J.E. Merdinger, Rome and the African Church in the Time of Augustine
William Webster, The Matthew 16 Controversy: Peter and the Rock
Edward Denny, Papalism
Michael Whelton, The Two Paths
Michael Tierney, The Origins of Papal Infallibility, 1150-1350: A Study on the Concepts of Infallibility, Sovereignty, and Tradition in the Middle Ages
George Salmon, Infallibility and the Church
Ignatius Von Döllinger, The Pope and the Council
J.N.D. Kelly, The Oxford Dictionary of Popes
Laurent A. Cleenewerck, His Broken Body: Understanding and Healing the Schism between the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches
John F. Bigane, III, Faith, Christ or Peter: Matthew 16:18 in Sixteenth Century Roman Catholic Exegesis
Henri de Lubac, Corpus Mysticum: The Eucharist in the Church in the Middle Ages
Edward J. Kilmartin, The Eucharist in the West: History and Theology
John Philip Jenkins, Jesus Wars
Jacques Le Goff, The Birth of Purgatory
Ramsay MacMullen, Voting about God in Early Church Councils
Pro-Catholic Apologetic Works
Robert A. Sungenis, Not by Faith Alone: The Biblical Evidence for the Catholic Doctrine of Justification
Idem. Not By Bread Alone: The Biblical and Historical Evidence for the Eucharistic Sacrifice
Not by Scripture Alone: A Catholic Critique of the Protestant Doctrine of Sola Scriptura ed. Robert A. Sungenis
B.C. Butler, The Church and Infallibility
Scott Butler et al. Jesus, Peter, and the Keys
Steve Ray, Upon This Rock
Idem. Crossing the Tiber
Karl Keating, Catholicism and Fundamentalism
Patrick Madrid, Pope Fiction
Idem. Any Friend of God is a Friend of Mine
Scott Hahn, Kinship by Covenant
James T. O'Connor, The Hidden Manna
Dave Armstrong, A Biblical Defense of Catholicism
Idem. The Catholic Verses
Idem. Pillars of Sola Scriptura
John Henry Newman, An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine
Idem. Lectures on Justification
Yves Congar, Tradition and Traditions
George Agius, Tradition and the Church
Tim Staples, Behold your Mother
John McHugh, The Mother of Jesus in the New Testament
Martin Sheehan, Apologetics and Catholic Doctrine
Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica
Mark Shea, By What Authority?
Trent Horn, The Case for Catholicism: Answers to Classic and Contemporary Protestant Objections
Pro-Catholic Apologetic Works
Robert A. Sungenis, Not by Faith Alone: The Biblical Evidence for the Catholic Doctrine of Justification
Idem. Not By Bread Alone: The Biblical and Historical Evidence for the Eucharistic Sacrifice
Not by Scripture Alone: A Catholic Critique of the Protestant Doctrine of Sola Scriptura ed. Robert A. Sungenis
B.C. Butler, The Church and Infallibility
Scott Butler et al. Jesus, Peter, and the Keys
Steve Ray, Upon This Rock
Idem. Crossing the Tiber
Karl Keating, Catholicism and Fundamentalism
Patrick Madrid, Pope Fiction
Idem. Any Friend of God is a Friend of Mine
Scott Hahn, Kinship by Covenant
James T. O'Connor, The Hidden Manna
Dave Armstrong, A Biblical Defense of Catholicism
Idem. The Catholic Verses
Idem. Pillars of Sola Scriptura
John Henry Newman, An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine
Idem. Lectures on Justification
Yves Congar, Tradition and Traditions
George Agius, Tradition and the Church
Tim Staples, Behold your Mother
John McHugh, The Mother of Jesus in the New Testament
Martin Sheehan, Apologetics and Catholic Doctrine
Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica
Mark Shea, By What Authority?
Trent Horn, The Case for Catholicism: Answers to Classic and Contemporary Protestant Objections
