Search results for ""Ave Maria University Press""

In light of the shock and confusion caused by the clerical scandals of the summer of 2018, Ave Maria University organized a conference offering a response to the crisis. Its aim would be to use Ave Maria University's commitment to serving the Church through faithful scholarship as a platform to offer helpful reflections on what had taken place and how the Church might move forward. As a mission-driven institution, Ave Maria University wanted to offer its fidelity to truth as a Catholic university; its Marian identity as ""Ave Maria"" University, and the learned wisdom of its own professors and scholarly friends as a resource for the faithful and Church leaders to turn to during this time of crisis. The conference, ""Crisis in the Church: On the Faith of Mary as the Pathway to Peace,"" took place on the Ave Maria University campus on January 11-12, 2019. The quality of the papers and the fellowship enjoyed by the participans and attendees exceeded expectations. Sapienta Press of Ave Maria University hopes that by disseminating these conference proceedings in book form, many others will also benefit from the wisdom, fidelity, and learning offered by each of the contributors.

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Cutting through contemporary confusions with his characteristic rigor and aplomb, Steven A. Long offers the most penetrating study available of St. Thomas Aquinas's doctrine of the intention, choice, object, end, and species of the moral act. Many studies of human action and morality after Descartes and Kant have suffered from a tendency to split body and soul, so that the intention of the human spirit comes to justify whatever the body is made to do. The portrait of human action and morality that arises from such accounts is one of the soul as the pilot and the body as raw material in need of humanization. In this masterful study, Steven Long reconnects the teleology of the soul with the teleology of the body, so that human goal-oriented action rediscovers its lost moral unity, given it by the Creator who has created the human person as a body-soul unity.

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Saint Thomas Aquinas showed the world that Catholic theology is not just something meant to stimulate the mind. Indeed, the authentic study of the sacra doctrina exercises a shaping influence on the whole of the Christian life. In this volume, Dominican theologian Father Romanus Cessario, OP, follows this precedent by considering the integration of theology and Christian living. Focusing on various aspects of Catholic theology and spirituality, the essays in this volume explore the essential relationship between truth and grace. With characteristic wisdom and insight, Father Cessario reveals how theology and sanctity share a common origin and end. Here the doctrine of Saint Thomas Aquinas and his exponents emerges as something eminently relevant to Christian living in the twenty-first century. Written for all those who take the theological life seriously, Theology and Sanctity explains how - and why - only the truth has grace.

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John Paul II's works repeatedly emphasise the truth about the good . Truth and goodness constitute the philosophical core of John Paul II's thought. This work examines the interaction of these concepts from his early philosophical works through his encyclical on morality, Veritatis Spendor.

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The teachings of Blessed John Paul II continue to shape the Catholic Church and its engagement with the modern world. This book explores John Paul II’s fourteen encyclicals and their powerful religious and moral insights, highlighting John Paul’s ethical approach to human life, social justice, and world peace.

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Two of the Council's sixteen documents—the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium, and the Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, Gaudium et Spes—explain the Church's self-understanding of what she is and what she does better than has ever been done in any of the Church's official documents in the course of her long history. The diversity inherent in the Church as Catholic, or universal, is also covered in the book in a discussion of the Council's Decree on the Catholic Eastern Churches, Orientalium Ecclesiarum. Such currently widely discussed and debated contemporary issues as the primacy of the pope, the collegiality of the bishops, the universal call to holiness, the place of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the economy of salvation, the relations of the Church and Catholics with other Christians and with the modern world, and the dignity of the human person—all of these issues, and how they apply today in the life of the Church, go back to Vatican II and to the Council's great documents on the Church, which are more relevant than ever today with the passage of time.

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Dr. G.C. Dilsaver is rightly considered by many to be the father of Christian psychology, for his book Imago Dei Psychotherapy (IDP) enunciated the foundational principles of the first fully integrated Christian psychotherapeutic conceptualisation. The Imago Dei Psychotherapy (IDP) conceptualisation is based on the premise that the fullest understanding of human nature is found in traditional Christian, and especially Thomistic, anthropology, which delineates human moral action in its cognitive, volitional, and emotional elements. IDP maintains that locating the behavioural science of psychology within this traditional Christian anthropology of moral action unleashes that science's full and unprecedented clinical efficacy. Imago Dei Psychotherapy can be read with immense benefit not only by Catholics and Christians but by all who seek the most efficacious clinical means to mental health.

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Fr. Francis Martin is that rare breed among scripture scholars: a master of the biblical languages, trained in the best elements of the historical-critical method, who has also mastered the philosophical and thrological traditions necessary for adequately interpreting Scripture in faith.

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Ecology is too important to be left to self-appointed ""environmentalists."" Drawing together the wisdom of the Bible with his vast knowledge of the Western literary tradition (Shakespeare, Hopkins, Eliot and many others) and his experience of nature as a longtime resident of Japan, Fr. Milward conveys the beauty that those attentive to God's creation discover. He reawakens us to the sense of contemplative wonder and delight that children experience but that adults, in the busy hubbub of urban and suburban life, so easily forget. Each short chapter is a conversation with a spiritual master, guiding us toward the pearls of God's glory imprinted in the delicate patterns of the world.

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This reprint of Michael Novak’s first novel is an intriguing story about a young man preparing for priesthood in Rome and studying theology at the Gregorianum, and his struggles with whether he is truly called to the priesthood. It takes place in the 1950’s, a time of the Hungarian Revolution, the launching of the Sputnik, when Kennedy succeeded Eisenhower, just before Pope John XXIII would take the place of Pope Pius XII, and when there were evident stirrings within the Church that would ultimately result in Vatican II. The Tiber Was Silver provides a unique view of the pre-conciliar Church through the eyes of a young seminarian and draws the reader into his momentous decision.

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The roles of the Holy See and papal diplomacy vis-à-vis international organisations have a long and intricate story that spans centuries. Papal Diplomacy and the Quest for Peace explores the encounter between the Holy See and the international order, from the establishment of the United Nations (UN) in 1945 through the pontificate of Pope Paul VI (1963-78). Both Araujo and Lucal have worked for and represented the Holy See in the environment of the UN and, to a lesser extent, other international organisations. Consequently, their investigation is based on not only academic study of papal diplomacy and its relations with international organisations, but also participation in the activities of the Holy See within some of these organisations. They contend that while the Church and international organisations have distinctive goals and interests which can introduce strong differences on particular issues, they nonetheless share other perspectives such as the maintenance of international peace and security. The Holy See has expressed general approval of the UN, especially its initiatives aimed at ""peaceful coexistence and collaboration between nations."" At the same time the Holy See has not hesitated to state its morally grounded positions on pressing contemporary issues (e.g., family planning, abortion, human embryonic cloning, and family life) that have not always been congruent with those of temporal sovereigns and international organisations, including the UN. To date, Pope Pius XII's initial aspiration to join the UN has not been fulfilled, but the Holy See formalised its participation in the General Assembly of the United Nations in summer of 2004. In spite of occasional criticism by some segments of secular society, the interaction between the Holy See and the UN continues to exist and to be fruitful in a variety of contexts. Papal Diplomacy and the Quest for Peace seeks to elucidate this encounter and dynamic by examining congruence and divergence on vital issues of great importance to both institutions, most especially the quest for peace and the protection of the dignity and legitimate interests of humanity.

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Scholars have often been quick to acknowledge Thomas Aquinas's distinctive retrieval of Aristotle's Greek philosophical heritage. Often lagging, however, has been a proper appreciation of both his originality and indebtedness in appropriating the great theological insights of the Greek Fathers of the Church. In a similar way to his integration of the Aristotelian philosophical corpus, Aquinas successfully interwove the often newly received and translated Greek patristic sources into a thirteenth-century theological framework, one dominated by the Latin Fathers. His use of the Greek Fathers definitively shaped his exposition of sacra doctrina in the fundamental areas of God and creation, Trinitarian theology, the moral life, and Christ and the Sacraments.For the sake of filling this lacuna and of piquing scholarly interest in Aquinas's relation to the Fathers of the Christian East, the Aquinas Center for Theological Renewal at Ave Maria University and the Thomistic Institute of the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception at the Dominican House of Studies co-sponsored an international gathering of scholars that took place at Ave Maria University under the title Thomas Aquinas and the Greek Fathers. Sensitive to the commonalities and the differences between Aquinas and the Greek Fathers, the essays in this volume have sprung from the theme of this conference and offer a harvest of some of the conference's fruits. At long last, scholars have a rich volume of diverse, penetrating essays that both underscore Aquinas's unique standing among the Latin scholastics in relationship to the Greek Fathers and point the way toward avenues of further study.

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In 1989, in response to Richard Schenk’s doctoral dissertation, Josef Ratzinger wrote that “the only way to bring fresh wind into systematic theology is to connect looking back at the great masters in the history of the faith with questioning anew and more profoundly in the horizon of our times.”Soundings in the History of a Hope offers Schenk’s experimental attempts to meet these requirements for the renewal of systematics, looking above all to St. Thomas Aquinas and some of his patristic sources,contemporary critics, and later readers in order to retrieve seminal ideas for addressing issues that would continue to develop after Thomas’s time. The essays in this volume examine interreligious relationality, hope and doubt, human labor and mortality, structures of nature, movements of history, and events of grace and failure—between the gaudium et spes of today’s world and its many “sorrows and worries.”

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This insightful collection of essays focuses on Christ’s saving work and presence in the Church through the sacrament of Orders. The essays on Christ and his work draw creatively upon the Christology of St. Thomas and the soteriology of St. Anselm. The essays on Orders range from a treatment of the priestly representation of Christ to the nature of the ""character"" imparted by the sacrament of Orders. The last essay, with Professor Lawrence Welch, explains the coherence and integrity of the teaching of Presbyterorum ordinis.

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Do we need the Church? Does the Church, with her teaching, preaching, and sacramental life, get in the way of human happiness? What is the Church's relationship to Christ and to the grace of the holy Trinity? These are among the questions that Fr. Charles Morerod addresses in his richly pastoral and learned book. This book invites Christians to learn anew why the Church, the Body of Christ, is God's chosen mode of sharing Christ's life with us.

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To know Shakespeare is to know his plays, not just one by one but all together—or what T. S. Eliot calls ""the pattern in his carpet”.

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In its concern with science as an essentially human enterprise, Faith, Science, and Society makes an original and challenging contribution to the philosophy of science. On its appearance in 1946 the book quickly became the focus of controversy. Polanyi aims to show that science must be understood as a community of inquirers held together by a common faith; science, he argues, is not the use of ""scientific method"" but rather consists in a discipline imposed by scientists on themselves in the interests of discovering an objective, impersonal truth. That such truth exists and can be found is part of the scientists' faith. Polanyi maintains that both authoritarianism and scepticism, attacking this faith, are attacking science itself.

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Avery Cardinal Dulles, SJ here offers a complete theology of the Church's Magisterium. In a study that will be the standard treatment of the topic for years to come, Cardinal Dulles takes up such issues as the Magisterium's nature and function, the roots of the Magisterium in the New Testament and its development in the history of the Church, the relationship between the hierarchy of the Church and the theological academy, the scope of the Church's infallibility, the response due to the Magisterium's teachings, and the role of the Church's reception of magisterial teaching. Written for those seeking clarity, wisdom, and erudition about the Church's Magisterium, this book stands head and shoulders above any other presently available. Its accessible style makes it a valuable not only for scholars but for all Catholics.

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“This excellent work is written not just for experts, but for the average Christian who wants to know how his faith has to do with modern cosmological and atomic theories.

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In Glory of the Logos in the Flesh, Michael Waldstein helps readers of Pope John Paul II’s Theology of the Body enter this masterwork with clearer understanding. Part One, designed for entry-level readers, is a map of John Paul’s text, a summary of each paragraph with an explanation of the order of the argument. Part Two reflects on the breadth of reason (logos) in Plato’s Republic, Aristotle’s Physics, and the Gospel of John, in contrast to the narrowing of reason in Luther, Bacon, and Descartes. Part Three shows how this breadth of reason is at work in John Paul’s dialogue with Thomas Aquinas, John of the Cross, Kant, and Scheler.

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The Mystical Theology of Dionysius the Areopagite is one of the greatest classical texts ever written on prayer. The mysterious author, living during the fifth and sixth centuries, most likely in Syria, has been recognized both in the East and the West as a consummate theologian. This volume provides the finest available Greek text along with a facing-page translation as well as an introduction with historical background on Dionysius the Areopagite. Also given is an extended, concise commentary on the text.This will be an essential volume for readers who wish to engage one of the finest writers of Christian Tradition in his classic work on prayer. This would include not only scholars but others who may seek a deeper understanding of and love for God.

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In this book Thomas G. Weinandy, OFM, Cap. examines the Trinity's eternity in relationship to creation's time, particularly in relation to human persons. Because the persons of the Trinity are subsistent-relationsfully-in-act as the one God, they are immutable as to who they are in relationship to one another. Thus they exist in a timeless manner. Moreover, this volume assesses how the eternal Trinity is personally related to human persons over the course of time, and how human persons are personally related to the persons of the eternal Trinity.In the first part of the book Weinandy treats, in an original and innovative manner, an issue that has been addressed throughout the history of theology, while the second part addresses a related topic that rarely, if ever, has been considered: How does the relationship between the persons of the Trinity and humans change through the saving works of the Trinity—the Incarnation, cross, and Resurrection—and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit? Through faith in the incarnated Son of God, and by participating in the sacraments of baptism and the Eucharist, human persons abide in the risen Jesus. The relationship between eternity and time, in the light of salvation, now takes on a whole new perspective, both epistemologically and ontologically. What will be the relationship between the eternal persons of the Trinity and glorified human beings at the end of time? Time will assume a new heavenly and everlasting dimension. But what will this heavenly novelty be like? The Trinity: Eternity in Time answers these questions and more in a thoroughly philosophical, biblical, and theological manner.

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Mother Teresa was one of those rare figures in history who enjoyed a wide and solid reputation of holiness during her lifetime. She became—for Catholics, Christians, and those of other faiths or even of none—a symbol of kindness, compassion, and tender care of the poorest people throughout the world. Known as a joyful and generous soul, Mother Teresa inspired countless persons to experience the “joy of loving,” as she liked to say, through their own acts of love and compassion.It thus came as a total surprise to everyone, including the members of her own religious family, the Missionaries of Charity, that Mother Teresa experienced nearly fifty years of what she called “the darkness.” When a book of her private letters, Come, be My Light, was published in 2007, it caused a sensation. It received worldwide media attention, including as the cover story of Time magazine. People struggled to understand it; many misunderstood it, some entirely!As the president of Ave Maria University, Jim Towey, tells us in the introduction, many questions abound about Mother Teresa’s darkness: “What are we to make of the spiritual darkness that enshrouded Mother Teresa so tightly? Could the words and experiences of this little Albanian woman with no advanced formal education have anything to say to the challenges the twenty-first century presents?”Ave Maria University gathered theologians to begin answering these questions and others. The resulting symposium provided the contents of this book. The first such assembly of scholarly work on the topic, Mother Teresa and the Mystics offers readers the opportunity to enter much more deeply into the interior—even mystical—world of St. Teresa of Calcutta.

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In calling for a renewal of moral theology, the Second Vatican Council also charted a course for the Church’s future. The Decree on Priestly Formation specified the need for “livelier contact with the mystery of Christ and the history of salvation” and called for the discipline to be “more thoroughly nourished by scriptural teaching.” To this can be added the teaching of the Pastoral Constitution on the Church, which found the mystery of the human person disclosed in the person of Christ, and the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church’s recovery of the universal call to holiness. The essays in this volume reflect an effort to explore and respond to these hallmarks of renewal indicated by the Council fathers. They therefore treat topics of theological anthropology, the use of Scripture, and growth in holiness through the pursuit of virtue, and also engage the increasingly important question of the role of Scripture in moral theology. These sources of Catholic moral teaching are brought to bear on a variety of pressing contemporary issues: sexual difference, the relationship of sexual expression to marital commitment, methods of family planning, reproductive technologies, and public moral discussion of abortion. Important figures of this postconciliar renewal—such as Alasdair MacIntyre, Servais Pinckaers, OP, Benedict XVI, and particularly John Paul II—figure prominently in this volume. Drawing on these outstanding thinkers, these essays seek to follow the course of renewal illumined by the Council so as, in the words of Optatum totius, no. 16, “to shed light on the loftiness of the calling of the faithful in Christ and the obligation that is theirs of bearing fruit in charity for the life of the world.”

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Acknowledged as one of the leading contemporary Catholic Christologists, Thomas G. Weinandy has collected in one volume his most important contributions to our understanding of Jesus as the incarnate Son of God and Saviour of the world. In four distinct sections he examines some of the biblical revelation concerning Jesus, historical and systematic issues in Christology, contemporary Christological questions and concerns, and the importance of Jesus within our Christian life.These essays manifest Weinandy's considerable biblical knowledge, extensive understanding of the historical and doctrinal Christological tradition, judicious discernment of current Christological debates, and fresh, innovative analysis of today's pressing Christological concerns. All of this is achieved within, and so advances, the beauty and truth of the Catholic faith. Jesus: Essays in Christology confirms Weinandy's prominent place in the Catholic academic community.

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Aquinas for Beginners is a brief and readable primer on the philosophical thought of one of history's greatest thinkers. Selections from Aquinas's Summa Theologiae are presented and then clarified by the author's commentary, helping to dispel the confusion that sometimes arises from the specialized vocabulary of medieval philosophy. This book is simpler and clearer in its content and approach than other books of its type, making it the ideal introduction to Aquinas and philosophy in general for adults and intelligent teenagers, particularly those who might otherwise feel intimidated by reading a great philosopher without assistance.

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Although he wrote sermons, letters, and commentaries on Holy Scripture, Lombard’s Four Books of Sentences (1148–51) established his reputation and subsequent fame, earning him the title of magister sententiarum (“master of the sentences”). The Sentences, a collection of teachings of the Church Fathers and opinions of medieval masters arranged as a systematic treatise, marked the culmination of a long tradition of theological pedagogy, and until the 16th century it was the official textbook in the universities. Hundreds of scholars wrote commentaries on it, including the celebrated philosopher St. Thomas Aquinas.Book I of the Sentences discusses God, the Trinity, divine guidance, evil, predestination. While Lombard showed originality in choosing and arranging his texts, in utilizing different currents of thought, and in avoiding extremes, of special importance to medieval theologians was his clarification of the theology of the sacraments. He asserted that there are seven sacraments and that a sacrament is not merely a “visible sign of invisible grace” (after Augustine of Hippo) but also the “cause of the grace it signifies.” In ethical matters, he decreed that a man’s actions are judged good or bad according to their cause and intention, except those acts that are evil by nature.

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Dr. Welch shows the importance of Christ’s sacramental presence in the Church through the magisterium, the priesthood, marriage, and the moral life.

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This book reveals how through a discourse of truth-telling—calling things by their proper name—Pope John Paul II effectively exposed the corruption of language and thought fueling a death culture that is becoming increasingly embedded in medicine, human experimentation, commerce, law, and ideology. This is an indispensable guide to Pope John Paul’s profound and practical insights, meditations, principles, and actions to protect society’s most defenseless individuals.

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In his Foreword to this Festschrift presented to Father Matthew L. Lamb on the occasion of his seventieth birthday, Archbishop Charles Chaput comments, ""It is a privilege to call him my friend, and to wish on the bishops of the century ahead the good counsel of men like Father Lamb."" The fifteen contributors to this volume include Don Briel, Romanus Cessario, OP, Michael Dauphinais, Avery Cardinal Dulles, SJ, Paul Gondreau, Jeremy Holmes, Matthew Levering, Guy Mansini, OSB, Francis Martin, Charles Morerod, OP, Edward T. Oakes, SJ, Giovanni B. Sala, SJ, Michele M. Schumacher, Lawrence J. Welch, and Jeremy D. Wilkins. These eminent contributors, among whom are long-time friends, colleagues, and students of Father Lamb, offer fascinating scholarly treatments of a variety of themes, from ""The Idea of a University"" to ""The Coming Middle Ages.

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The contemporary reader of Chaucer's poems is often surprised to discover how bawdy they are. A superficial veneer of Christian culture seems to give way easily in Chaucer to the celebration of a light-hearted hedonism. In this readable study, written for students and experts alike, the eminent literary scholar David Williams guides the reader carefully through Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde and Canterbury Tales. He shows that below the surface Chaucer's narrative reveals an author attuned to the Christian story of creation, fall, and redemption. His characters expose the sophistries, spiritual and intellectual, that Chaucer seeks to mend.

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Ecumenism is generally done by theologians, but as Charles Morerod, OP makes clear in this groundbreaking book the divisions between Christians often have at their roots different philosophical pre-understandings. Furthermore, ecumenical dialogue itself is often conceived along lines similar to the progress one might hope to make in reconciling divergent scientific paradigms. Morerod sheds much needed light on the ecumenical issues and approaches that offer a path toward Christian unity.

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Shakespeare, who wrote at the beginning of the long period in which the Catholic faith as violently suppressed in the British Isles, has long enjoyed an iconic status. Some readers have interpreted him as an early agnostic, expressing modern angst about whether anything exists besides ""this mortal coil"" that seems to be merely ""full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."" In recent years, however, thanks largely to the work of Peter Milward, close study of Shakespeare's plays has raised the question: Was Shakespeare in fact a believing Catholic? To this question, which radically changes the way that Shakespeare's plays should be read, Milward here offers, in his definitive study of the topic, a resounding ""Yes.

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But who do you say that I am?"" asks Jesus at the decisive turning point in the Gospel. Simon Peter answers correctly at first but is soon corrected when he protests the revelation of the Cross. Christians in every age are called to confess the right faith in Jesus, who suffered, died, and rose for our salvation. Our own period is beset by a crisis of faith in Jesus, which has had manifold deleterious effects on our lives, our Christian communities, and our world.For the sake of addressing this crisis, the Aquinas Center for Theological Renewal at Ave Maria University and the Thomistic Institute of the Pontifical Faculty at the Dominican House of Studies cosponsored an international conference that took place at Ave Maria University under the title Thomas Aquinas and the Crisis of Christology. Beginning with a gripping foreword by Archbishop J. Augustine Di Noia, OP, of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, this volume gathers together several of the excellent conference presentations given by scholars working in North America, South America, Europe, and Western Asia. These studies consider both formulations of who Christ is and of how we are under his judgement. With help from Thomas Aquinas and the Thomistic tradition, this work engages today's crisis of Christology as seen in multiple theological topics and offers models of faith to answer Jesus' question for ourselves, ""But who do you say that I am?

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St. Thomas Aquinas preaches in his sermon Puer Iesus, "Just as your father begot you bodily, your teacher begot you spiritually." St. Thomas himself has been blessed with prodigious fecundity through the centuries for his teaching in the Holy Spirit. Always, he leads us to think of the Blessed Trinity and all things from God's own view.With new insights into St. Thomas's spiritual teaching in its sources, context, breadth, wisdom, and influences, Thomas Aquinas as Spiritual Teacher presents chapters inspired by an international conference cosponsored by the Aquinas Center for Theological Renewal at Ave Maria University and the Thomistic Institute of the Dominican House of Studies. The volume, like its conference, honors Archbishop J. Augustine Di Noia, OP, adjunct secretary of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, for his dedication to the spiritual teaching of St. Thomas in several decades of service to the Church and the academy. Luis F. Cardinal Ladaria, SJ, prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, contributed the volume's foreword.

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There is perhaps no aspect of traditional Thomistic thought so contested in modern Catholic theology as the notion of predestination as presented by the classical Thomist school. What is that doctrine, and why is it so controversial? Has it been rightly understood in the context of modern debates? At the same time, the Church’s traditional affirmation of a mystery of predestination is largely ignored in modern Catholic theology more generally. Why is this the case? Can a theology that emphasizes the Augustinian notion of the primacy of salvation by grace alone also forego a theology of predestination?Thomism and Predestination: Principles and Disputations considers these topics from various angles: the principles of the classical Thomistic treatment of predestination, their contested interpretation among modern theologians, examples of the doctrine as illustrated by the spiritual writings of the saints, and the challenges to Catholic theology that the Thomistic tradition continues to pose. This volume initiates readers— especially future theologians and Catholic intellectuals—to a central theme of theology that is speculatively challenging and deeply interconnected to many other elements of the faith.

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The Glory of God's Grace offers the first full-length comprehensive study of Thomas's teaching on deification in its scriptural, patristic, philosophical, developmental, and systematic context. Daria Spezzano traces Thomas's theology of deification throughout the Summa, exploring in depth how the notion of deification links his treatments of the divine missions and image, the journey to beatitude through the moral life, adopted sonship through Christ and his sacraments, and the deiform worship of the beatific vision.Also examined are Thomas's other works, in particular his Scripture commentaries, as well as the evolution of his thought. Spezzano argues that Thomas's theology of deification in the Summa theologiae demonstrates his mature vision of God's loving and sapiential ordering of predestined human persons to communion with himself by a progressive participation in the divine likeness and activity, accounting for both the primacy of divine causality in all its modes and the fullness of graced human freedom.The fruit of this theology is ultimately doxological: the deification of adopted sons gives praise to God's glory by fully manifesting God's gracious plan to share the divine life with rational creatures.

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On the occasion of his eightieth birthday, friends and colleagues of Michael Novak assembled at Ave Maria University for a conference honouring his life's work. The essays in this collection are the fruits of that event, and together they demonstrate the unity of Novak's career. As Novak expounds in his masterpiece The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism (1982), the free society requires robust interplay of three systems: political, economic, and moral/cultural.The political system is the democratic republic that guards the liberties of citizens and upholds the rule of law. The economic system of markets and free enterprise is one fuelled by the ""human capital"" of ideas, creativity, and hard work. Finally, the moral/cultural system instils crucial virtues such as courage, honesty, and nobility of soul. An American and Catholic Life reflects on a variety of issues and themes germane to these three systems, which constitute the life of the free society.

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In the first section, Etienne Fouilloux describes the arc of Henri de Lubac's career up to the publication of his Surnaturel; Georges Chantraine, S.J., describes de Lubac's Surnaturel; Henry Donneaud, O.P., describes the early Thomistic response to the book; and Rene Mougel depicts Jacques Maritain's position on the topic. In the second section, focusing on Thomas Aquinas and the medieval period, Michel Bastit inquires into the relationship of Thomism to Aristotle; Jean-Miguel Garrigues explores the grace of Christ; Serge-Thomas Bonino, O.P., describes the variety of medieval positions on nature and grace as seen in theological accounts of limbo; and Jean-Pierre Torrell, O.P., masterfully summarises nature and grace according to Aquinas. The third section engages late-scholastic developments: Laurence Renault treats William of Ockham; Jacob Schmutz explores the shifting expositions of concurrence (divine and human causality) between the thirteenth and the seventeenth centuries; and Marie-Bruno Borde, O.C.D., presents the position of the Salmanticenses. Lastly, section four inquires into contemporary developments: Georges Cardinal Cottier, O.P., discusses natural mysticism and the theology of the religions; Gilbert Narcisse, O.P., traces the theme of grace in contemporary theology; Benoit-Dominique de La Soujeole, O.P., explores the situation of contemporary ecclesiology; and Bishop Andre-Mutien Leonard notes the value of the concept of; pure nature; within theological discussions.

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Father Matthew Lamb has devoted his life to recalling students and believers to the reality that there is a ""life of wisdom,"" a way of living in the light of eternity, living in accord with what is highest in the human person. In our busy lives we often get distracted by the daily difficulties that we face, until it seems that we are simply living in order to work, pay taxes, and go shopping. In the midst of this environment, Father Lamb powerfully reminds us that our true identity is known only in light of Christ's Resurrection; we can find ourselves only through knowing and loving God the Father in Christ and his Spirit. With rigorous theological erudition, Father Lamb explores the Christian life of wisdom in the context of Enlightenment cultures.

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The writings of John Paul II display contemporary relevence of truths set forth by Aquinas in the thirteenth century. This should not surprise because Aquinas's theology possesses an extraordinary appreciation of biblical revelation and the patristic witness, as well as keen metaphysical penetration. In John Paul II's creative mind, the key insights of Aquinas are extended and developed.

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When historians adhere to a Christian worldview, should that worldview have an influence on their understanding of the history that they write about? On the one hand, the answers to this question sometimes seem to be ""a God of the gaps,” in which God fills any explanatory gaps that the historian might find, or even a presumption to know the full historical course, down to the details of modern history, of God’s providential plan. Yet, on the other hand, achieving a ""neutral” historiography is not possible either, since every historian brings to the study of the words and deeds of the past a certain framework as to what kinds of meaning are possible. This collection of studies by eminent Catholic historians moves the discussion to a new level.

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That ours is a time of intellectual, cultural, moral, and religious turmoil does not need to be argued. What does need to be argued, and what Glendon argues with force and freshness, is that our response to turmoil requires a greater honesty in coming to terms with tradition, and with traditions in conflict. That is little understood by many on both the political left and right. Quoting one of her favourite thinkers, theologian Bernard Lonergan, she urges us to be “big enough to be at home in the both and old and new; and painstaking enough to work out one at a time the transitions to be made.” Working within the capacious structure of the Christian intellectual tradition, most reflectively and generously articulated in Catholic teaching, Glendon constructively engages alternative ways of thinking about what it means to be human and what is required to nurture a society worthy of human beings. As the reader will see, her work ranges far and wide, and it goes deep. There is hardly a subject she addresses that does not change the way we think about it.

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In follow-up to her acclaimed Privilege of Being a Woman, Dr. von Hildebrand expands the discussion to explore how the fullness of human nature is found in the perfect union between man and woman. God chose to create man doubly complex. He made man of both soul and body a spiritual reality and a material reality. To crown this complexity, He created them male and female. Dr. von Hildebrand elucidates the tragic separation that happened with original sin and the consequences of this brokenness in the world today: the distortion of the male and female genius, supernatural blindness, and the triumph of secularism. She explores how this brokenness can be healed by following God's Divine plan for man and woman. We see this first and foremost in our Blessed Mother, exemplar of the path to holiness. This is also seen in the characteristics of saintly male / female relationships between husbands and wives, fathers and daughters, mothers and sons, brothers and sisters, and holy friendships. It is only by coming to more fully understand the Divine plan for man and woman, and submitting ourselves to His plan, that true complementarity harmony of body and soul, male and female can be accomplished.

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This book goes behind the headlines on the Catholic Church in the United States to explore some of the principles and philosophical sources to which Popes, Bishops, Priests, Religious, and laity appeal when they challenge American culture and society on moral and social issues. Rarely do the media discuss the ""dictatorship of relativism” criticized by Pope Benedict XVI, and the reasons he gives for why such relativism undermines the moral foundations of religious freedom, tolerance, and democracy. The distinguished authors in this book offer clear and compelling arguments for taking these concerns seriously. Religious liberty in the United States has enabled Catholic immigrants to build up vast numbers of schools, universities, seminaries, hospitals, clinics, orphanages, and parishes. The authors suggest the responsibility Catholics have to learn and live the resources of wisdom, morality, and holiness in the two millennial history of Catholicism in order to renew and strengthen both the Church and American culture today.

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This book considers the merits of Thomas Aquinas's arguments for the existence of God. Aquinas portrays philosophical reason as a form of wisdom that can attain to true knowledge of God. Should his views matter for contemporary Christian theology? What are the Aristotelian presuppositions required for these arguments to make sense, and are such presuppositions rationally defensible today? Particularly, should the modern Kantian and Heideggerian objections to any possible philosophical approach to God (as onto-theology) apply to the arguments of Aquinas? The author argues robustly in favor of the recovery of a sapiential conception of Thomistic philosophy.

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Fr. Martin R. Tripole, S.J. explains how the present crisis in the Catholic Church in America has its roots in the Enlightenment, specifically in the Enlightenment's presumption that human reason could stand alone in its pursuit of truth, thereby excluding or marginalising the role of faith and revelation. He articulates how we can overcome present divisions and more effectively fulfill Christ's saving mission for the world.

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What kind of natural desire is this? How can there be a natural desire for what can only be supernaturally obtained? How can such a desire be reconciled with the gratuitousness of grace and glory? What are its implications for apologetics? These and similar questions have caused a debate to rage for centuries over the proper interpretation of the natural desire to see God. This work seeks to determine the nature of this desire and its relationship with the supernatural order through an examination of the thought of St. Thomas and some of his most prominent interpreters, including Scotus, Cajetan, Suárez, and Henri de Lubac.

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