Outline: The Roman Catholic papacy has long been a thorny issue dividing the ecumenical church. In this book several outstanding Lutheran and Catholic theologians, known collectively as the Group of Farfa Sabina, present the results of their five-year dialogue, showing how the papal (Petrine) ministry might actually serve to unify the worldwide communion of churches. Offering biblical, historic…
Outline: Matthew Levering offers an examination of the doctrine of creation and its contemporary theological implications, engaging with classical and modern views.
The knowledge base which has been the foundation of Catholic education in the passt and underlies Catholic educational practice today merits the attention of scholars and interested parties, both within and outside of the Catholic educational community. This comprehensive compendium of research focues on key aspects of Catholic education in the United States. The volume includes reviews of rese…
Nature was always important in Thomas Merton’s life—from his infancy in Prades, France, when he learned words like chrysanthemum, hollyhock, foxglove, chickadee, and kingfi sher from his mother’s careful coaching, to long hours in the fresh air watching his artist father create landscapes, to his fi nal years of solitude in the hermitage at Our Lady of Gethsemani, the Trappist monastery i…
This volume includes readable translations of a number of important texts that speak to both concrete and practical issues of church life as well as questions of its very nature and constitution. Long recognized for the quality of its translations, introductions, explanatory notes, and indexes, the Library of Christian Classics provides scholars...
The first book to examine in detail the theological vision of Pope Benedict XVI. Rowland assesses his attitudes on moral theology, western culture, the liturgy and structure of the Catholic Church; she considers his interpretation of the Second Vatican Council, and his relations with other important scholars and theologians.
The Christian Church possesses in its literature an abundant and incomparable treasure. But it is an inheritance that must be reclaimed by each generation. THE LIBRARY OF CHRISTIAN CLASSICS is designed to present in the English language, and in twenty-six volumes of convenient size, a selection of the most indispensable Christian treatises written prior to the end of the sixteenth century...
Thoughtful and eloquent, as timely (or timeless) now as when it was originally published in 1956, Thoughts in Solitude addresses the pleasure of a solitary life, as well as the necessity for quiet reflection in an age when so little is private. Thomas Merton writes: “When society is made up of men who know no interior solitude it can no longer be held together by love: and consequently it is …
Theology of religions is an area of theological reflection on interreligious relations which raises fundamental questions not just for Christians but for all people of faith in a pluralist, post-modern world. How to practise a religious faith with integrity while respecting other claims to ultimate truth? Must ‘the other’ always be regarded as a problematic complication on the fringes of a…
A holistic, eye-opening history of one of the most significant turning points in Christianity, The Reformation as Renewal demonstrates that the Reformation was at its core a renewal of evangelical catholicity.
In the sixteenth century Rome charged the Reformers with novelty, as if they were heretics departing from the catholic (universal) church. But the Reformers believed they were more cat…
An analysis of the Catholic tradition looks at the history of the Catholic Church, its spiritual practices, its tenets and beliefs, and the rituals of worship, and discusses such topics as saints, liturgies, and papal authority.
From 1962 to 1965, in perhaps the most important religious event of the twentieth century, the Second Vatican Council met to plot a course for the future of the Roman Catholic Church. After thousands of speeches, resolutions, and votes, the Council issued sixteen official documents on topics ranging from divine revelation to relations with non-Christians. In many ways, though, the real challeng…
Outline: Surveying the barriers that contemporary thinking has erected between the natural and the supernatural, between earth and heaven, Hans Boersma issues a wake-up call for Western Christianity. Both Catholics and evangelicals, he says, have moved too far away from a sacramental mindset, focusing more on the "here-and-now" than on the "then-and-there." Yet, as Boersma point out, the teachi…
Outline : "Men despite religion. They hate it and are afraid it may be true," declared Pascal in his Pensees. "The cure for this," he explained, "is first to show that religion is not contrary to reason, but worthy of reverence and respect. Next make it attractive, make good men wish it were true, and then show that it is." Motivated by the seventeenth-century view of the supremacy of human rea…
Outline: This book responds to the crisis of American democracy as perceived by such diverse thinkers as Christopher Lasch, Michael Sandel, Mary Ann Glendon, and Robert Putnam. Despite their philosophical differences, these thinkers highlight a common theme: a decline in the institutions of civil society once hold to be the vital center of the American polity. In place of these institutions …
Outline: In ordinary conversation, including among the "educated," the word "sin" rarely gets mentioned except when one is trying to be coy or facetious. As Thomas Mann once said, "sin" is nowadays "an amusing word used only when one is trying to get a laugh." But this small work will interpret sin in its true - that is, serious - meaning. What will emerge from its analysis is the discovery…
Outline: What happens after death to Jesus and to those who follow him? This book offers a constructive theology that seeks to answer that very question, carefully considering both Jesus' descent into hell and eventual resurrection as integral parts of a robust vision of the Christian bodily resurrection. Taking on the claims of N. T. Wright and Richard B. Hays, the author draws strongly upo…
Overview: In this volume the authors open a conversation with others in the church concerning a future Catholic biblical scholarship that maintains the freedom of critical inquiry but within a living loyalty to tradition. Looking not to critize but to strengthen, the authors model the type of dialogue that is needed today. Johnson first reviews the current state of Catholic biblical scholarsh…