Papal
Vatican correspondent Joshua J. McElwee tackles the topics of faith and family life as covered in the 2015 World Meeting of Families and the October 2015 Synod on the Family. A follow-up to the successful 10 Things Pope Francis Wants You to Know, this booklet introduces readers to the most important points Pope Francis has made about the family. At a time when many Catholics are contemplating Church teaching, Joshua J. McElwee brings a fresh voice and perspective to the issues of faith and family closest to the hearts of Catholics everywhere.
Widely recognized as one of the most talented and respected journalists in Rome, Paul Badde offers here a unique glimpse into the drama of Pope Benedict's pontificate. He doesn't simply capture the various reasons for which Benedict XVI will go down in history, Badde chronicles the almost superhuman struggle against overwhelming hostilities that formed against this shy and exceedingly kind man.
With fascinating vignettes back into history, you'll learn how Pope Benedict's experiences in a totalitarian Germany impacted the papacy and the Church, and how this son of a policeman became the "Thomas Aquinas of our time" - one of the most brilliant and accomplished minds on the globe.
Leaning on his own personal conversations with Pope Benedict as well as his extensive interviews with those within the Holy Father's inner circle, Badde explains how Pope Benedict dealt with the blows and calumnies that rained down on him during those tempestuous eight years. You'll come to a
2017 Illumination Book Awards, Gold (tie): Children's Picture Book
2017 Independent Press Awards, Distinguished Favorite: Book Cover Design, Children's
2017 Catholic Press Association Book Awards, First Place: Children's Books
2017 Catholic Press Association Book Awards, First Place: Pope Francis
2017 Association of Catholic Publishers' "Excellence in Publishing Book Awards," Book of the Year
If you could ask Pope Francis one question, what would it be? Children have questions and struggles just like adults, but rarely are they given the chance to voice their concerns and ask the big questions resting deep in their hearts. In Dear Pope Francis, Pope Francis gives them that chance and celebrates their spiritual depth by directly answering questions from children around the world. Some are fun. Some are serious. And some will quietly break your heart. But all of them are from children who deserve to know and feel God's unconditional love. Also available in Spanish as Querido Papa Francisco. "Feels akin to sitting in on a series of intimate conversations." -Publishers Weekly "The People's Pope shows that he is a down-to-earth man who understands both religion and children." -Kirkus Reviews
Pope Benedict XVI is widely considered among many to be the greatest theologian and Catholic thinker of our time. In these pages, author James Day unpacks the voluminous teachings of Pope Benedict and presents his remedies for the many ills afflicting the Church and our culture, including individualism, materialism, secularism, and godlessness.
At a time when the many "isms" of our day are pulling people away from the Faith, Father Benedict presents a hope-filled future, but only if we are to follow the guidance of Pope Benedict and the path he presents to us in every aspect of life: the formation of the Christian faith, in loving others, in personal vocation, in education, and in how we see the natural world.
The priesthood is going through a dark time, according to Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI and Robert Cardinal Sarah. Wounded by the revelation of so many scandals, disconcerted by the constant questioning of their consecrated celibacy, many priests are tempted by the thought of giving up and abandoning everything.
In this book, the pope emeritus and the prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments give their brother priests, and the whole Church, a message of hope. They honestly address the spiritual challenges faced by priests today, while pointing to deeper conversion to Jesus Christ as the key to faithful and fruitful priestly ministry and genuine reform.
Benedict XVI and Cardinal Sarah fraternally offer these reflections to the people of God and, of course, in a spirit of filial obedience, to Pope Francis, who has said, I think that celibacy is a gift for the Church. . . . I don't agree with allowing optional celibacy, no.
Responding to calls for refashioning the priesthood, including proposals from participants in the Amazonian Synod, two wise, spiritually astute pastors explain the importance of priestly celibacy for the good of the whole Church. Drawing on Vatican II, they present celibacy as not just a mere precept of ecclesiastical law, but as a sharing in Jesus' sacrifice on the Cross and his identity as Bridegroom of the Church.
The Second Vatican Council says, We ought to try to discover a new reverence for the Eucharistic mystery. Something is happening that is greater than anything we can do. The liturgy is the summit toward which the activity of the Church is directed; it is the font from which all her power flows.
This profound statement about the Eucharist stands at the center of this book by Cardinal Ratzinger. He compellingly shows us the biblical, historical, and theological dimensions of the Eucharist. The Cardinal draws far-reaching conclusions, focusing on the importance of one's personal devotion to and adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, for the personal reception of Communion by the individual Christian, as well as for the life of the Church. For Ratzinger, any transformation of the world on the social plane grows out of the celebration of the Eucharist. He beautifully illustrates how the omnipotent God comes intimately close to us in the Holy Eucharist, the Heart of Life.
Given on the feast of the Assumption, August 15, 1989, this apostolic exhortation focuses on the way Saint "Joseph, like Mary, remained faithful to God's call until the end." Pope John Paul II encourages us to consider the ways that Saint Joseph lived his faith day to day.
This 25th anniversary edition provides the complete text of the apostolic exhortation, accompanied by a commentary by Joseph Atkinson that makes Pope John Paul II's language more accessible. In six parts, readers are given a fuller understanding of Saint Joseph as guardian, husband, carpenter, and patron.
References to various religious documents and Biblical passages provide rich context for highlighting Saint Joseph's role in Christ's life and as patron of the Church today. Joseph Atkinson's commentary helps readers to understand the exhortation, and offers reflection questions and a prayer after each section. Reading the exhortation becomes a way to fully recognize and appreciate Saint Joseph's role in salvation history.
In this special Anniversary Edition, we can delve more deeply into our comprehension of the guardian of the Redeemer, husband of Mary, and patron of the Universal Church.
In this bold, momentous work, Joseph Ratzinger--in his first book written since he became Pope--seeks to salvage the person of Jesus from recent "popular" depictions and to restore Jesus' true identity as discovered in the Gospels. Through his brilliance as a theologian and his personal conviction as a believer, the Pope shares a rich, compelling, flesh-and-blood portrait of Jesus and invites us to encounter, face-to-face, the central figure of the Christian faith.
From Jesus of Nazareth: "the great question that will be with us throughout this entire book: What did Jesus actually bring, if not world peace, universal prosperity, and a better world? What has he brought?
The answer is very simple: God. He has brought God! He has brought the God who formerly unveiled his countenance gradually first to Abraham, then to Moses and the Prophets, and then in the Wisdom Literature--the God who revealed his face only in Israel, even though he was also honored among the pagans in various shadowy guises. It is this God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the true God, whom he has brought to the peoples of the earth.
He has brought God, and now we know his face, now we can call upon him. Now we know the path that we human beings have to take in this world. Jesus has brought God and with God the truth about where we are going and where we come from: faith, hope, and love."
The Study Guide is also available!
--Pope Francis, from The Joy of Discipleship Near the end of Luke's Gospel, two disciples slowly make their way home from Jerusalem to the village of Emmaus. At the outset, they are deeply saddened by Jesus' tragic death. By that evening, however, they have made a 180-degree turn: from dejected disciples to followers filled with joy--a joy they simply must share with others as fast as they can. What accounts for this change? They have encountered the risen Christ! In The Joy of Discipleship, Pope Francis reminds us that joy should be one of the defining characteristics of any person who has truly encountered Jesus. This skillfully curated collection of homilies, speeches, and other documents from Pope Francis, compiled and edited by James P. Campbell, offers a fresh perspective on why Christian disciples should be so joyful in the first place and how that joy might manifest itself in our individual daily lives. Covering a broad range of themes--Christ's Resurrection, mercy, wealth and poverty, the Christian family, and more--The Joy of Discipleship moves us to meditate on Christ and then inspires us to move out from our own four walls, jubilantly proclaiming God's transforming love in word and deed. For anyone who wants what Pope Francis has--an active, abiding, authentic love for Jesus Christ, for the Church, and for the people of this world--The Joy of Discipleship will point the way. "This volume gives us a portrait of the Pope and what amazing joy fills his life, his mind, his teaching . . . his discipleship!"
--From the foreword by Daniel Cardinal DiNardo
The Eucharist is the source and summit of our Faith because the Blessed Sacrament is Christ himself, the full manifestation of his boundless love.
In this encyclical letter On the Eucharist, Pope John Paul II seeks to rekindle in the faithful the profound sense of amazement and gratitude that surrounds the Eucharist.
"In the humble signs of bread and wine, changed into his Body and Blood, Christ walks beside us as our strength and our food for the journey, and he enables us to become, for everyone, witnesses of hope," John Paul II writes. "The Church has received the Eucharist from Christ her Lord not as one gift -- however precious -- among so many others, but as the gift par excellence, for it is the gift of himself, of his Person in his sacred humanity, as well as the gift of his saving work."
For over two decades, Eugenio Pacelli, Pope Pius XII, has been blasted in the public square as "Hitler's Pope", accused by bestselling authors of cowardice in the face of the Nazi regime. Some have even said that the pope was complicit in Hitler's grab for power, privately fueled by a hatred for the Jewish people. And if they are right, who would not join in condemning a leader like this, especially one who claims to represent all Christians?
But what if this image of Pius XII is completely backward? Archival and archaeological researcher Michael Hesemann has unearthed thousands of documents--including from the Vatican Secret Archives (or the Vatican Apostolic Archive), only recently opened to scholars--to give a startling picture of Eugenio Pacelli as a shrewd diplomat and a champion of the Jewish people during World War II. Saving thousands upon thousands of lives, Pius demonstrated such courage and compassion in these times that Jewish leaders across the globe praised him, and the ecumenical Pave the Way Foundation has since nominated him for the Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum's Righteous among the Nations award.
The Pope and the Holocaust traces Pacelli's fight for peace in the 1930s and 1940s, including his years as apostolic nuncio in Germany, where he resisted Nazism. Even some of his most controversial moves, such as the 1933 Vatican concordat, were made to protect Jewish and Christian lives. What emerges clearly from Hesemann's evidence is a portrait of a man radically committed to the Jews and the revelation God gave to them. As Pope Pius himself remarked in 1938, "It is not legitimate for Christians to take part in anti-Semitism. Spiritually, we are all Semites."
At life's many crossroads, the sacraments of the Church--Baptism, Confirmation, Confession, Holy Eucharist, Matrimony, Holy Orders, and Anointing of the Sick--bring people into contact with the saving work of God. In this collection of homilies, Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI) explains these celebrations of the Church and shows how they always offer an opportunity to announce our faith in Christ and to deepen our understanding of it.
Ratzinger endeavored as a theologian to develop an understanding of the sacraments that would help to make participation in them, and in the Paschal Mystery, more fruitful. Many of these homilies connect the sacraments with a profound interpretation of Scripture. The scriptural passages interpreted in each homily are listed at the beginning of the chapter, so that this volume can also be used for scriptural meditation.
Since the Church herself is both a sacrament--that is, a sign of God's saving action in the world--and the place where the sacraments take place, two of the chapters are about the Church, the body of believers where God dwells.
After Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI resigned from the papacy in 2013, he never stopped thinking or writing. Near the end of his life, he and editor Elio Guerriero gathered together a whole volume of new material, dealing with the themes closest to his heart. The pope asked that it be published upon his death.
This final work is What Is Christianity? It takes up a kaleidoscopic array of themes: the Christian faith's relationship with other religions, especially Judaism and Islam; the theology and reform of the liturgy; the priesthood; the saints; the Eucharist; the tragedy of abuse; the beauty of nature; Italian and German culture; and much more.
With prophetic insight into our times, Benedict warns of a "radical manipulation of man" in the name of tolerance, insisting that the only "authentic counterweight to every form of intolerance" is Christ himself--and Christ crucified.
A lifelong Catholic, the late pope pays tribute to some of the giant figures of Christianity who have served him through the years as guiding stars: his predecessor Pope John Paul II, the twentieth-century German Jesuit martyr Alfred Delp, and the silent carpenter Joseph, his patron saint.
What Is Christianity? is a frank spiritual testament from a theological master, a churchman who loved the faith of simple Christians but who always stood ready, even in his last days, to dialogue about every aspect of human life--in love and in truth.