Search results for ""Author George Weigel""

The Catholic Church is on the threshold of a bold new era in its history. As the curtain comes down on the Church of the 16th-century Counter-Reformation, it rises on the Evangelical Catholicism of the third millennium: a way of being Catholic that will send the faithful into mission territory every day,a territory increasingly defined by spiritual boredom and aggressive secularism. In Evangelical Catholicism , Catholic theologian George Weigel proposes a program of faith-based reform that confronts these challenges head on. An urgent call to arms, Evangelical Catholicism reminds Catholics of the evangelical vocation into which they were baptized and of the joy and courage that comes from living on this side of the Resurrection.

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A leading Catholic intellectual explains why the teachings of the Second Vatican Council are essential to the Church's future—and the world'sThe Second Vatican Council (1962–1965) was the most important Catholic event in the past five hundred years. Yet sixty years after its opening on October 11, 1962, its meaning remains sharply contested and its promise unfulfilled.In To Sanctify the World, George Weigel explains the necessity of Vatican II and explores the continuing relevance of its teaching in a world seeking a deeper experience of freedom than personal willfulness. The Council’s texts are also a critical resource for the Catholic Church as it lives out its original, Christ-centered evangelical purpose.Written with insight and verve, To Sanctify the World recovers the true meaning of Vatican II as the template for a Catholicism that can propose a path toward genuine human dignity and social solidarity.

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In this remarkable exploration of the Catholic world, prominent Catholic author and papal biographer George Weigel offers a luminous collection of letters to young Catholics, not-so-young Catholics, and curious souls who wonder what it means to be Catholic today. Weigel takes readers on an epistolary tour of Catholic landmarks,from Chartres Cathedral to St. Mary's Church in Greenville, South Carolina from the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem to G.K. Chesterton's favourite pub in Oxford and from the grave of a modern martyr in Warsaw to the Sistine Chapel. Weaving together insights from history, literature, theology, and music, Weigel illuminates the beliefs that give Catholicism its distinctive texture and explores the theological importance of grace, prayer, vocation, sin and forgiveness, suffering, and,most importantly,love. Revised and updated with five new tour stops," Letters to a Young Catholic will inspire not only the young generation of Catholics whose World Youth Day celebrations have launched an era of renewal for the Church, but also the faithful, the doubtful, and the searchers of every age.

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The Lord’s Prayer contains mysteries generally overlooked by most Christians. For the Fathers of the Church, such mysteries or “difficulties”—many of which continue to puzzle modern scholars—marked divinely inspired points for prayer and reflection. Saints Cyprian of Carthage, Augustine of Hippo, Peter Chrysologus, Maximus the Confessor and others grappled with the hidden meanings behind these questions and the fruits of their efforts can inspire contemporary readers.In Mysteries of the Lord’s Prayer John Gavin, SJ explores eight mysteries of the Lord’s prayer in light of the early Church’s wisdom: How can human beings call God “Father”? Where is God the Father? How can God grow in holiness? Was there ever a time when God did not rule? Are there limitations to God’s will? Why should we seek bread? Can we make a deal with God? Does God tempt us? Without ignoring the insights of contemporary exegesis, this volume demonstrates that the responses of the Fathers to these questions have continuing relevance. Not only did they understand the issues surrounding linguistic, textual, and theological difficulties, but they also grasped the nuances of Christ’s words as illuminated by the scriptures as a whole. They provide an interpretation that challenges the mind and transforms the heart.Mysteries of the Lord's Prayer offers the general reader, as well as scholars, a chance to rediscover a prayer that unites Christians throughout the world. It also includes appendices to aid those who wish to explore the Fathers’ writings on their own for a deeper encounter with the wisdom of the early Church.

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In The Irony of Modern Catholic History, acclaimed Catholic scholar George Weigel offers a bold reinterpretation of the Church's history since the nineteenth century, completely overturning conventional wisdom about the relationship between Catholicism and modernity. For much of the nineteenth century, both secular and Catholic leaders assumed that the Church and the modern world were locked in a battle to the death. The triumph of secular modernity-democracy, liberalism, mass education, religious freedom-would finish the Church as a consequential player in world history, and it would lead inevitably lead to the death of religious conviction. But today the Catholic Church is far more vital, and far more consequential, than it was 150 years ago, when Pope Pius IX retreated into the Vatican, forced to surrender the Italian lands the popes had ruled for centuries. And even in today's modern world, secularism is the exception, not the rule.In The Irony of Modern Catholic History, Weigel reveals how the encounter with modernity, rather than killing Catholicism, ultimately made the Church more coherent and less defensive. While previous histories of Catholicism posit modernity as the sole protagonist and Catholicism as a reactive force, Weigel asserts that Catholicism was a protagonist in this drama in its own right. He introduces readers to a remarkable cast of churchmen, intellectuals, and public figures whose actions drive both Catholicism and modernity forward - from the revolutionary Pope Leo XIII (1878-1903) to the still-disputed work of the Second Vatican Council to the close collaboration of Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI. Weigel highlights two great ironies: the first is that modernity has led Catholicism to rediscover its own evangelical or missionary essence. And the second is that Catholicism, long derided as the antithesis of the modern project, has developed intellectual tools that can help rescue modernity from deconstructing itself into an incoherence today. A richly rendered, deeply learned, and powerfully argued account of two centuries of profound change in the Church and the world, The Irony of Modern Catholic History ultimately reveals how Catholicism offers the twenty-first century truths-about the inherent dignity and value of every human being, about our moral obligations and responsibilities-essential for our survival and flourishing.

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A preeminent authority on the Catholic Church and papal biographer describes what he learned from chronicling the life of Pope John Paul IIIn 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 readers 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.A deeply humane portrait of an eminent scholar learning a saint, Lessons in Hope is essential reading for anyone seeking a fuller understanding of a world-changing pope.

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The annual Lenten pilgrimage to dozens of Rome's most striking churches is a sacred tradition dating back almost two millennia, to the earliest days of Christianity. Along this historic spiritual pathway, today's pilgrims confront the mysteries of the Christian faith through a program of biblical and early Christian readings amplified by some of the greatest art and architecture of western civilization.In Roman Pilgrimage , bestselling theologian and papal biographer George Weigel, art historian Elizabeth Lev, and photographer Stephen Weigel lead readers through this unique religious and aesthetic journey with magnificent photographs and revealing commentaries on the pilgrimage's liturgies, art, and architecture. Through reflections on each day's readings about faith and doubt, heroism and weakness, self-examination and conversion, sin and grace, Rome's familiar sites take on a new resonance. And along that same historical path, typically unexplored treasures,artifacts of ancient history and hidden artistic wonders,appear in their original luster, revealing new dimensions of one of the world's most intriguing and multi-layered cities.A compelling guide to the Eternal City, the Lenten Season, and the itinerary of conversion that is Christian life throughout the year, Roman Pilgrimage reminds readers that the imitation of Christ through faith, hope, and love is the template of all true discipleship, as the exquisite beauty of the Roman station churches invites reflection on the deepest truths of Christianity.

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Fr. Maurice Ashley Agbaw-Ebai, a native of Cameroon, has written a fresh, exciting new study of the lifelong engagement of Josef Ratzinger, later Pope Benedict XVI, with the German Enlightenment and its contemporary manifestations and heirs. Contemporary European disdain for organized religion and the rise in secularism on that continent has deep roots in the German Enlightenment. To understand contemporary Europe, one must return to this crucial epoch in its history, to those who shaped the European mind of this era, and to a study of the ideas they espoused and propagated. These ideas, for good or for ill, have taken hold in other parts of the modern world, being incarnated in many minds and institutions in contemporary society and threatening to enthrone a disfigured rationality without faith or a sense of Transcendence. Ratzinger’s extraordinary and sympathetic understanding of the sources of contemporary secularism equipped him to appreciate the gains of the Enlightenment, while still being a fierce critic of the losses humanity has suffered when reason falsely excludes faith. Fr. Agbaw-Ebai’s account reveals Ratzinger, in relation to his various interlocutors, to be the truly “enlightened” one because he demonstrates a truly balanced understanding of the human mind. To be truly rational one must be able to hold to faith and reason both, reason informed by faith in Jesus Christ. A particular merit of this book is Agbaw-Ebai’s presentation of Ratzinger’s treatment of the German Enlightenment’s greatest contributors: Kant, Nietzche, Hegel and Habermas, among others. In the postscript George Weigel characterizes what this study accomplishes in the larger framework of scholarship. “[Ratzinger’s] position remains too often misunderstood, and sometimes deliberately misinterpreted, throughout the whole Church. And to misunderstand, or misinterpret, Ratzinger is to misunderstand or misinterpret both the modern history of theology and the Second Vatican Council.” Agbaw-Ebai masterfully positions Ratzinger correctly in the history of ideas, and exhibits why Ratzinger will be remembered as one of its main players. Pure rationalists and true believers are equally indebted to him.

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