Religion Catholicism

The enduring influence of the Catholic Church has many sources, but in the first half of the 19th century, the foundations upon which the church had rested were shaken. For many people, liberalism in the guise of liberty, equality, and fraternity was the quintessence of the evils that shook those foundations. At the Vatican Council of 1869-1870, the church made an effort to set things right by defining the doctrine of papal infallibility. Author John W. O'Malley draws us into the bitter controversies over papal infallibility that at one point seemed destined to rend the church in two.

Reflecting on John Paul II's greatness, drawing on first-hand interviews to paint an intimate portrait of the new Pope, and boldly assessing the Church's current condition, God's Choice is an invaluable book for anyone seeking to understand the Catholic future and the larger human future the Church will help to shape.

Although there is so little written about Joseph in the Scripture and in the apocrypha, or perhaps because there is so little written, the life of Saint Joseph can be quite a complicated subject. The theological study of Saint Joseph, known as Josephology, shows us how differently the saint has been perceived throughout history, in different parts of the world, and in different denominations.

In Who Do You Say I Am?, Cardinal Timothy Dolan, Archbishop of New York, offers beautiful insights on the importance of Jesus and the Church in our day-to-day lives. With short daily reflections crafted to inspire anyone seeking to appreciate and deepen their faith, Cardinal Dolan explores the lessons of Jesus and offers fresh new understandings of the saints, prayer, the Bible, beauty, and the pursuit of God, especially in light of the often turbulent nature of faith itself.

Some Christians decry the deism of our Founding Fathers, claiming that outright anti-Christian principles lie at the heart of our Declaration of Independence and Constitution, crippling from birth our beloved republic. Here philosopher Timothy Gordon forcefully disagrees, arguing that while anti-Catholic bias kept them from admitting their reliance on Aristotle, Aquinas, and the early Jesuits, our Protestant and Enlightenment Founding Fathers secretly held Catholic views about politics and nature.

Ancient Rome's brutal culture exploited the weak and considered human life expendable...Four centuries later, even ordinary men and women prospered in what had become a vigorous new Christian society, a society that served the vulnerable, exalted women, treasured virtue, and loved peace. These audiobook document the many ways in which Christians penetrated and civilized that debased Roman empire, introducing then-radical notions such as the equal dignity of women, respect for life, protection of the weak and vulnerable, and much more. Listen to find out more....

In Lessons in Hope, George Weigel tells the story of his unique friendship with St. John Paul II. As Weigel learns the pope "from inside", he also offers a firsthand account of the tumult of post-Vatican II Catholicism and the Cold War's endgame, introducing listeners to the heroes who brought down European communism. Later, he shows us the aging pope grappling with the post-9/11 world order and teaching new lessons in dignity through his own suffering.

Born Jorge Mario Bergoglio in 1936, today Pope Francis is the 266th pope of the Roman Catholic Church. Pope Francis' stewardship of the church, while perceived as a revelation by many, has provoked division throughout the world. "If a conclave were to be held today," one Roman source told The New Yorker, "Francis would be lucky to get 10 votes." In To Change the Church, Douthat explains why the particular debate Francis has opened - over communion for the divorced and the remarried - is so dangerous.

In this beautiful spiritual travelogue, New York Times best-selling author George Weigel leads listeners through the historic streets of Kraków, Poland, introducing one of the world's great cities through the life of one of the most influential Catholic leaders of all time.

It has been said that John Henry Newman "stands at the threshold of the new age as a Christian Socrates, the pioneer of a new philosophy of the individual person and personal life." Newman's personalism is found in the way he contrasts the "theological intellect" and the "religious imagination."

For much of the twentieth century, a series of terrible events—abuse, both physical and psychological, and even deaths—took places inside orphanages. The survivors have been trying to tell their astonishing stories for a long time, but disbelief, secrecy, and trauma have kept them from breaking through. For ten years, Christine Kenneally has been on a quest to uncover the harrowing truth.

Why I Am Catholic traces Brandon Vogt’s spiritual journey that culminated in the realization that Catholicism was right about a lot of things and serves as a compelling reproposal of the Church for former Catholics; a persuasive argument for truth and beauty to those who have become jaded and disenchanted with religion; and at the same time offers practicing Catholics a much-needed dose of confidence and clarity to affirm their faith against an increasingly skeptical culture.

Gregory the Great (bishop of Rome from 590 to 604) is one of the most significant figures in the history of Christianity. His theological works framed medieval Christian attitudes toward mysticism, exegesis, and the role of the saints in the life of the church. The scale of Gregory's administrative activity in both the ecclesial and civic affairs of Rome also helped to make possible the formation of the medieval papacy.

Only two years after Pope Pius IX’s election in 1846 had triggered great popular enthusiasm across Italy, the pope found himself a virtual prisoner in his own palace. The revolutions that swept through Europe and shook Rome threatened to end the popes’ thousand-year reign over the Papal States, if not the papacy itself. The resulting drama was rife with treachery, tragedy, and international power politics. David Kertzer, one of the world’s foremost experts on the history of Italy and the Vatican, brings this pivotal moment vividly to life.

Sorrowful Mysteries is a detailed and extraordinarily compassionate examination of the appearance of Our Lady of Fátima, an attempt to unravel and put into perspective the lives of the three children, how this life-altering event changed them and the world they knew, and how it intersected with so many of the signal moments of the twentieth century—pandemics, revolutions, world wars, assassinations, and even skyjackings.

In a moving, dramatic conclusion to his four New York Times bestselling Mother Angelica books, Raymond Arroyo completes the saga of this singular nun with his most intimate book yet.

Quel était donc le secret de Marthe Robin, cette petite paysanne qui, malade, paralysée, vivant loin de la célébrité dans une discrétion absolue pendant 60 ans, a reçu plus de 100 000 personnes...

In The Accursed Tower, Roger Crowley delivers a lively narrative of the lead-up to the siege and a vivid, blow-by-blow account of the climactic battle. Drawing on extant Arabic sources as well as untranslated Latin documents, he argues that Acre is notable for technical advances in military planning and siege warfare, and extraordinary for its individual heroism and savage slaughter. A gripping depiction of the crusader era told through its dramatic last moments, The Accursed Tower offers an essential new view on a crucial turning point in world history.

The Cross and the Beatitudes is one of Archbishop Sheen's earlier works, first published in 1937. This special book draws a parallel between the first seven Beatitudes and Christ's final Seven Words. The final Seven Words are the few sentences and phrases that Jesus Christ spoke while on the Cross. Assigning a chapter to each pairing of early Beatitude and final Word, Archbishop Sheen shows how Christ spoke the Word early in His Ministry, lived according to the Beatitudes throughout His life, and stayed faithful to their precepts on the Cross.

For more than half a century, the question of extraterrestrial intelligence (ETI) has been widely dismissed in our culture. That wasn’t always the case. Some of the best minds of the last 25 centuries in Western civilization have grappled with this mystery. In Extraterrestrial Intelligence and the Catholic Faith, best-selling author Paul Thigpen begins with a fascinating historical survey of the public conversation about ETI, tracing the thought of prominent Catholics and others. This is a thorough guide to navigating the conversation from a faithful Catholic perspective.