Search results for ""catholic university of america press""

Perfection in Death brings together topics—Christian martyrdom, virtue ethics, the “ethics of the end of life”—that have each seen a flowering of academic interest in the past two decades. Patrick M. Clark shows that these topics are in fact closely connected by examining one of the pre-eminent masters of Christian ethics, Thomas Aquinas.Perfection in Death compares and contrasts the relationship between conceptions of courage and death in the thought of Aquinas and his ancient philosophical sources. At the center of this investigation is Aquinas’ identification of martyrdom as the paradigmatic act of courage as well as “the greatest proof of the perfection of charity.” Such a portrayal of “perfection in death” bears some resemblance to the ancient tradition of “noble death”, but departs from it in decisive ways. Clark argues that this departure can only be fully understood in light of an accompanying transformation of the metaphysical and anthropological framework underlying ancient theories of virtue. Perfection in Death aims to provide a new, theological account of this paradigm shift in light of contemporary Thomistic scholarship.Perfection in Death concludes with the relevance of the change in framework manifested by Aquinas’s thought to recent and future trajectories in Catholic moral theology. In particular, treating Christ as moral exemplar has been proposed by scholars seeking a theological approach to the virtues that is more closely linked to Christology. Clark critically examines the promise and limitations of exemplarist models of virtue for moral theology.

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This important volume investigates the many forms of Catholic activism in Latin America between the 1890s and 1962 (from the publication of the papal encyclical Rerum Novarum to the years just prior to the Second Vatican Council). It argues that this period saw a variety of lay and clerical responses to the social changes wrought by industrialization, political upheavals and mass movements, and increasing secularization. Spurred by these local developments as well as by initiatives from the Vatican, and galvanized by national projects of secular state-building, Catholic activists across Latin America developed new ways of organizing in order to effect social and political change within their communities.Additionally, Catholic responses to the nation-state during this period, as well as producing profound social foment within local and national communities, gave rise to a multitude of transnational movements that connected Latin American actors to counterparts in North America and Europe. The Catholic Church presents a particularly cohesive example of a transnational religious network. In this framework, Catholic organizations at the local, national, and transnational level were linked via pastoral initiatives to the papacy, while maintaining autonomy at the local level.In studies of the nineteenth- and twentieth-century Catholic renewal in Europe and the Americas, scholars have rarely given ample analysis of the translocal and transnational interconnections within the Catholic Church, which became critical to the energy, plurality, and endurance of Latin American Catholic activism leading up to, and moving through, the Second Vatican Council. By studying Latin America as a whole, Local Church, Global Church examines a larger degree of transnational and translocal complexity, and its investigative lens spans regional, hemispheric, transatlantic, and international borders. Furthermore, it sheds new light on the complex and multifarious forms of Catholic activism, introducing a fascinating cast of actors from lay organizations, missionary groups, devotional societies, and student activists.

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Harold Frederic was for a long time known primarily as a writer of New York regional fiction and historical novels. His most outstanding and influential novel, The Damnation of Theron Ware (1896) represents the first extended narrative in US literature of Irish-Catholic entry into American life. In 1995, a year short of that novel’s centenary, Joyce Carol Oates wrote: “WHAT a wonderful novel is The Damnation of Theron Ware.” Though raised in a German-American, Methodist environment in the Mohawk Valley of New York state, Frederic became intrigued with Ireland’s people, politics, and history when post-Famine Irish began arriving in his hometown of Utica in the 1860s and 1870s.The Martyrdom of Mave and other Irish Stories gathers for the first time all of the Irish work Harold Frederic completed in his lifetime. He planned more, but died of a stroke in his early forties, in England, where he was employed as The New York Times London Correspondent. He had earlier written his publisher that he had been “toiling for years” on the archeology of the Iveagha (present Mizen) Peninsula in Cork, and that the projected book of historical fiction underway would be unique. The Martyrdom of Maev and Other Irish Stories brings together the four sixteenth-century stories that Frederic finished and published in magazines in 1895–96, and two of his stories set in the west of Ireland of the second-half of the nineteenth century.Taken together the stories track the ramifications of the Elizabethan invasions as they extend to the famine, evictions, and humiliations still plaguing the country just before the rise of Parnell. The dramatic title story involves young romance caught in the political unrest that begot the Land-League and portrays as well the adamant, menacing, sexual prohibitions prevailing in the rural Ireland of the late nineteenth century. Others portray life within the remote Gaelic clans of late medieval Ireland. All the stories reveal Frederic’s brilliant prose talent—“The Path of Murtogh,” for example, a starkly primitive revenge tale, is as dark and shocking as anything by Edgar Allen Poe.For those who like Harold Frederic’s fiction, or who love dramatic tales set in Ireland, this collection makes for compelling reading.

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Enthusiasm for the operas of composer Richard Wagner (1813-1883) flourished in fin-de-siècle France, fed by fascination for the medieval history and literature that inspired his work. By the 1890s, ""pilgrimages"" to Wagner's burial city of Bayreuth, Germany, home of a regular festival of his work, were a rite of passage for musicians and the upper crust. French admirers promoted Wagner's ideas in journals such as La Revue wagnérienne, launched in 1885. These writings fueled a mystique about Wagner, his music, and his beliefs.Philosopher Marcel Hébert developed his Religious Experience in the Work of Richard Wagner (1895) from this background of sustained popular interest in Wagner, an interest that had intensified with the return of his operas to the Paris stage. Newspaper debates about the impact of Wagner's ideas on French society often stressed the links between Wagner and religion. These debates inspired works like Hébert's, intended to explain the complex myth and allegory in Wagner's work and to elucidate it for a new generation of French spectators.Hébert's discussion of Wagner, written for a popular audience, might seem an anomaly in light of his better-known academic philosophical writings. Yet Wagner's use of myth and symbol, as well as his ability to write musical dramas that evoked emotional as well as cognitive response, resonated with Hébert's symbolist approach to dogma, and the appeal to religious experience characteristic of Modernist thinkers in general. By writing about Wagner to discuss these themes, Hébert caught the interest of the educated readership who shared his concern about the clash of ancient faith and modern thinking, and who were receptive to his argument that both could be reconciled through his revisionist approach. Thus, Hébert turned Wagner and his work into a vehicle for popularizing the Modernist vision of framing religion through experience as well as knowledge.

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How do we understand the notions of the beautiful, the true, and the good, and how do they help us to know, to understand? Philosopher Robert E. Wood considers appeal respectively to the heart, to the intellect, and to the will. In our minds, their interplay beckons each of us to assimilate one’s past, and look forward towards further endeavours. They also set up what Wood calls a ""dialogical imperative"" to speak from where we stand and to stand in place of the Other, the person facing us, as well. The order follows Plato's claim that the love of Beauty is the light of the Good that grounds our pursuit of the True.Human experience, according to Wood, has a ""magnetically bipolar"" character, rooted in organically based desires. Yet that experience is aimed, through the all-encompassing notion of Being, at the absolute totality of what is. The notion of Being affords a distance that grounds both understanding and choice. Culture enters in as well. Its developments, initially empty in relation to the totality, come to occupy the space of meaning between the here-and-now and the totality. Each human being's genetic endowments interplay with one's cultural shaping. Taking them up, each individual sets up a unique field of attractions and repulsions belonging to the heart as one’s radically individual center.Wood proceeds from this phenomenological basis to consider key thinkers from Heraclitus and Parmenides, to Heidegger, Buber, and Marcel. He seeks, in this collection of essays from the past forty years, to develop a ""fusion of horizons"" with them, as part of an on-going broader philosophical dialogue that constitutes the history of thought, now and to come.

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Genesis 16 tells of Abraham conceiving Ishmael with his wife Sarai's servant Hagar. Dominican Friar Richard Fishacre (ca. 1200-1248) used this Biblical narrative to explore the relationship of the natural and Divine sciences. Fishacre believed that the theologian must first study the world, before he could be fruitful as a theologian. How do the natural sciences, in short, help us better understand the Scriptures?Fishacre, like his contemporaries Albert the Great (ca. 1200-1280) and Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) looked at ways that the newly-translated natural philosophy of Aristotle, with its empirical emphasis and a belief that knowledge begins in sense perception, could supplement the more otherworldly Neoplatonic approach to philosophy and the sciences inherited from St. Augustine. Hagar's Vocation is a collection of fifteen essays which focus on the contributions of Richard Fishacre, the first Dominican theologian at Oxford to have left a written legacy.The questions addressed by Fishacre include his arguments for God's existence, the multi-faceted problem of the human soul, the eternity of the world, the nature of light, the free choice of the will, angels and ""spiritual matter,"" interiority and self-knowledge, undoing the past and God's absolute power, the magical arts, and the role of philosophy in a theology of creation.R. James Long, the world's leading authority on Fishacre, in this volume promises to establish this hitherto little studied English friar as a major figure in the development of a learned or philosophically grounded theology that remains the great achievement of High Scholasticism.

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Plague and Pleasure is a lively popular history that introduces a new hypothesis about the impetus behind the cultural change in Renaissance Italy. The Renaissance coincided with a period of chronic, constantly recurring plague, unremitting warfare and pervasive insecurity. Consequently, people felt a need for mental escape to alternative, idealized realities, distant in time or space from the unendurable present but made vivid to the imagination through literature, art, and spectacle.Pope Pius II experienced both plague and war during his reign and he exhibited many escapist behaviors typical of his period: the building of his “Shangri-La” at Pienza, his constant sight-seeing travels, his passion for natural scenery or Roman remains, his public spectacles, andthe humanism that immersed him in an idealized Roman past. This see-saw mentality of the period could plunge into melancholy when facing harsh realities and then propel them into ecstasies of makebelieve to counter their dispair.Plague and Pleasure uses the life and times of Pope Pius II as the framework for presenting a view of the Renaissance that the public can understand and appreciate and which may at least narrow the gap between the past known to scholars and that known to the public they ultimately serve.

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Genesis, the first book of the Bible, tells of the creation of the world and our dominion over it. But is this the whole story? The planet on which we live is ecologically fragile, and all people of good will have a responsibility to take care of this most precious gift. During his papacy, Pope Benedict XVI repeatedly drew attention to the environment, whether in terms of preserving it such as his address concerning Amazonia and his letter regarding the Arctic or distributing its vital resources such as water more equitably. What is more, during Benedict's papacy, the Vatican became the first, and remains the only, carbon-neutral country in the world.This book gathers together the audiences, addresses, letters, and homilies of Benedict on a wide-ranging set of topics that deal with the world about us. The major themes and connections he explores are creation and the natural world; the environment, science, and technology; and hunger, poverty, and the earth's resources.In these pages, Benedict insists that if we truly desire peace, we must be increasingly conscious of and nurture all of creation. Furthermore, he argues convincingly that as our love of God should cause us to protect the environment, so should our heightened sense of appreciation of the natural world draw us closer to God. Benedict speaks out against the spread of nuclear weapons, threats to biodiversity, and in favor of alternative energy. He urges sustainable development, equitable distribution of food and water, and an end to hunger.This book is a valuable resource for all those who seek to understand more fully the relationships among the environment, Catholic social teaching, and theology. Whether speaking to a vast crowd, meeting with a small group of scientists, or writing letters to world leaders, Benedict has shown a clear path towards a theologically cogent concern for the planet on which we live.

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Among the earliest writings in Syriac literature is the collection of 30 memre or discourses entitled the Book of Steps or Liber Graduum, mostly probably written in the late fourth century inside the Persian Empire (modern Iraq). The author, who deliberately withheld his name, wrote extensively on the spiritual life and exploits of two groups of committed Christians - the upright and the perfect- that flourished in a period prior to the development of monasticism. Deeply immersed in the exegesis of the Bible as a means of defining and guiding an ascetical lifestyle, the author defends celibacy, absolute poverty, the vocations of prayer, teaching and conflict resolution, as well as insisting that the perfect should not work. In an unparalleled manner for ascetical literature, by the end of the collection the author encourages the predominantly lay ""upright group"" to keep striving for the status of perfection as he is disappointed in the failings of the senior group he calls ""the perfect"".This collection of sixteen new critical essays offers fresh perspectives on the Book of Steps, adding greater detail and depth to our understanding of the work’s intriguing picture of early Syriac asceticism as practiced within the life of a local church and community. The contributors offer perspectives on the book’s historical context in the midst of the Persian-Roman conflicts, the influence of Manichaeism, dietary images, sexuality and marriage, biblical exegesis and the use of Pauline writings and theology, as well as explorations of the Book of Steps’ distinctive approach to the ascetical life.

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The US Supreme Court’s decisions concerning the first amendment are hotly debated, and the controversy shows no signs of abating as additional cases come before the court. Adding much-needed historical and philosophical background to the discussion, Richard J. Regan reconsiders some of the most important Supreme Court cases regarding the establishment clause and the free exercise of religion.Governmental aid to church-affiliated elementary schools and colleges; state-sponsored prayer and Bible reading; curriculum that includes creationism; tax exemption of church property; publicly sponsored Christmas displays - these and other notable cases are discussed in Regan’s chapters on the religious establishment clause. On the topic of the free-exercise clause, Regan considers such subjects as the value of religious freedom, as well as the place of religious beliefs in public schooling and government affairs. Important cases concerning conscientious objection to war, regulation of religious organisations and personnel, and western traditions of conscience are also examined.This book, written for students of law, political science, and religion, presents the relevant case law in chronological order. The addition of the historical context and Regan’s philosophical discussion enhances our understanding of these influential cases.

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What is the nature of political activity? This question has vexed political thinkers since Plato wrote Statesman and remains challenging today. Contemporary intellectual categories obstruct individuals from understanding politics as a distinct species of activity with its own realm of expertise, modes and ends. Instead politics is poorly directed by notions of achieving a complete or final end of affairs. It tends to be conflated with other types of activities and realms of life, including economics, power-seeking, and law and procedure. As a result, politics often is untethered from morality.Taking as their departure point the political-philosophical analyses of German scholar Tilo Schabert, the philosophical and empirical essays in this volume invite the reader to move beyond the sterile dichotomy of political activity as either pure will or as folded into a more manageable activity. The contributors argue that politics is a highly creative human activity that eludes capture within a final and static analytical framework, concluding that ethical political action is indeed part of the essence of politics.

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What does it mean when we speak of human dignity? What challenges does human dignity confront in our culture today? What is the relationship between contemporary understandings of human dignity and the ancient Christian doctrine of imago Dei, the view that human beings are created in ""the image and likeness of God""?This book pursues these and related questions in the form of an ecumenical ""trialogue"" by leading scholars from the three major Christian traditions: John Behr from the Eastern Orthodox tradition, Russell Hittinger from the Catholic, and C. Ben Mitchell from the Protestant tradition. The book is the first of its kind to foster an ecumenical conversation around teachings of imago Dei and present-day understandings of human dignity. The three chapter-essays, the editor's introduction, and the afterword by Lutheran theologian Gilbert Meilaender draw from a wide array of sources, including Scripture, patristic works, ancients creeds, medieval and Thomistic writings, papal encyclicals, Protestant confessional statements, the works of modern theologians, and more. Imago Dei will serve as an indispensable resource for those wishing to deepen their grasp of the theological bases for Christian views of human dignity, as well as for those who believe that Christ's words ""that they be one"" (John 17:21) remain a theological imperative today. The combination of ethical inquiry and ecumenical collaboration makes this timely book a unique and compelling contribution to present-day Christian thought.

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The scholarly tradition of the Presocratics is the beginning of the ""Greek Miracle,"" the remarkable flowering of arts and sciences in ancient Greece from the 600s to 400s BC. Greek thought turned from pagan religion and the mytho-poetic work of Hesiod and Homer, to inquiry into the natures of things, to the world and our place in it. This tradition, starting with Thales (b. 624 BC) and proceeding through Democritus (d. 370 BC), is the unifying theme of this volume. The contributors, renowned experts in their various fields of philosophy, provide introductions to the Presocratic philosophers and discuss how this philosophical school was appropriated and treated by later philosophers.Joe McCoy opens the volume with a survey of the historical developments within Presocratic philosophy, as well as its subsequent reception. The essays begin with Charles Kahn's account of the role of Presocractic philosophy in classical philosophy. Individual philosophers are then discussed, namely, Anaximander by Kurt Pritzl, Heraclitus by Kenneth Dorter, and Pythagoreans by Carl A. Huffman. Next are chapters on Xenophanes by James Lesher, Parmenides by Alexander P. D. Mourelatos, Empedocles by Patricia Curd, and Anaxagoras by Daniel Graham. The collection concludes with an examination of the reception of the Presocratics in early modern and late modern philosophy by John C. McCarthy and Richard Velkley, respectively.The philosophy of the Presocratics still governs scholarly discussion today. This important volume grapples with a host of philosophical issues and philological and historical problems inherent in interpreting Presocratic philosophers.

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Pope John Paul II was a great defender of truly vulnerable human beings throughout his life, affirming their personhood consistently and powerfully. In John Paul II on the Vulnerable, Jeffrey Tranzillo provides a lucid introduction to John Paul II’s philosophical and theological understanding of the human person. Unlike other writings on the topic, Tranzillo’s explicit aim is to highlight an aspect of John Paul’s work that has been largely neglected until now. He shows convincingly that John Paul’s seminal reflections on the human being as a personal agent progressed over time to include human beings at even the most vulnerable stages of development or decline. With this advance in thought, the pontiff began to declare eloquently that the vulnerable are capable of contributing to and enriching the human community through their activity. An engaging overview of John Paul II’s life, thought, and work introduces the book and provides readers with helpful background material. It shows that John Paul’s interest in, and lofty regard for, the human person is rooted in his strong Catholic faith and in the extraordinary life experiences that he interpreted in its light. Following this is an examination of his principal works on the human person, emphasizing their implications for vulnerable human beings as persons and actors. Tranzillo considers this theme in the light of selected Christological texts of John Paul II and then reflects on John Paul’s portrayal of the vulnerable in his social encyclicals and Evangelium Vitae. A final chapter develops the anthropological underpinnings of John Paul’s thought on the radically vulnerable and their personal agency.

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Few Western thinkers have been more influential and less known than Peter Damian (1007-1072). After centuries of neglect and misinterpretation, the man who emerges from Patricia Ranft’s exhaustive investigation of his writings will surprise many. Immoderate in rhetoric yet moderate in teachings, Peter Damian is a man for the ages. Damian began his career in the schools of northern Italy, but soon joined a community of hermits at Fonte Avellana. His genius was too brilliant to hide, however, and he was called forth from solitude to fill the roles of religious reformer, theologian, adviser, cardinal, preacher, spiritual director, and papal legate. These roles brought him in contact with the pressing issues of mid-eleventh-century Italy. Fortunately, he recorded much of what he did and thought. In many areas he broke with accepted practices, abandoned old methods, and offered innovative approaches to problems. The previously unrecognized social theology at the core of his thought contributed much to the culture developed during this crucial period of Western history. In the first comprehensive work based wholly on critical editions of Damian’s writings, Ranft explores all 180 letters of Damian and his vita of Romuald. She highlights Damian’s ideas across a range of topics— stewardship, social responsibilities, community, class, gender, ethics, ecology, justice, sexuality, avarice, authority, individualism, clerical behavior, and labor—and shows how his ideas influenced the shape of Western culture.

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The modern world is dominated by sport. The Olympics and the World Cup are seen by billions of television viewers from around the globe. When Pope Benedict travels to foreign countries, typically the only venues large enough to hold the crowds for a papal Mass are sports arenas, such as London’s Wembley Stadium. In response to the call of popes and the Second Vatican Council to read the signs of the times, Sport and Christianity explores the connections between these two seemingly disparate phenomena. It reflects on what the fascination for sport reveals about the human person and to what degree sporting activities are compatible with, and can even advance, the church’s mission. The book discusses the attitude toward sports presented in the Old and New Testaments and in the writings of the church fathers. This leads naturally to a study of Christian anthropology , the relationship between God and man, as well as the connection between the body and the soul. There is an extensive look at sports as viewed by recent popes, including Pope Pius XII—who denounced the use of drugs in sports as early as 1955—as well as Pope John Paul II, and Pope Benedict XVI. The editors pose provocative questions, such as what is Christian about sport, and how can we make sport more Christian? Ideally teamwork, pursuit of a common goal, and trying for excellence are laudable, but winning at all costs or the subjugation of Sundays to football are not. Last, given that some countries send priests as chaplains to the Olympic games and some professional sports teams have chaplains, there is a section on how to give pastoral advice to those who work in the sports professions.

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The Psalms, used as hymns for liturgy, have also been read as guidance for the spiritual life. Composed between 364 and 367, Hilary of Poitiers’ commentary on the Psalms was the last of his writings before his death. In what appears to be a substantial but conventional commentary, Hilary also employs the Psalms to explore three progressive stages of the Christian life—baptism, resurrection, and transformation—then proposes a complex, integrated model for the Christian life. He makes use of cultural and theological resources acquired throughout his education and from his encounters as a Christian bishop in the mid-fourth century. In this examination of Hilary’s treatise, Paul C. Burns discusses the intended audience of Hilary’s text and the use of the Psalms by Christians in the fourth century. He identifies Hilary’s distinctive perspectives; his dependence on Origen; his Latin theological and exegetical tradition; and the creative directions of Hilary’s thought.

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St. Thomas Aquinas produced his Commentary on the Romans near the end of his life while working on the Summa theologiae and commenting on Aristotle. The doctrinal richness of Paul’s Letter to the Romans was well known to the church fathers, including Origen and Augustine, on whom Aquinas drew for his commentary. With this rich collection of essays by leading scholars, both Catholic and Protestant, Aquinas’s commentary will become a major resource for ecumenical biblical and theological discussion. Authored by theologians, historians, and biblical scholars, Reading Romans with St. Thomas Aquinas contributes to a historical reconstruction of Aquinas’s exegesis and theology by addressing such topics as: the Holy Spirit, the Church, the faith of Abraham, worship, preaching, justification, sin and grace, predestination, Paul’s apostolic vocation, the Jewish people, human sexuality, the relationship of flesh and spirit in the human person, the literal sense of Scripture, Paul’s use of the Old Testament, and the relationship of Aquinas’s commentary on Romans to his Summa theologiae. This volume fits within the contemporary reappropriation of St. Thomas Aquinas, which emphasises his use of Scripture and the teachings of the church fathers without neglecting his philosophical insight. Contributors are Bernhard Blankenhorn, Markus Bockmuehl, Hans Boersma, John F. Boyle, Edgardo Colón-Emericr, Holly Taylor Coolman, Adam Cooper, Michael Dauphinais, Gilles Emery, Scott W. Hahn, Mary Healy, John A. Kincaid, Matthew Levering, Bruce Marshall, Charles Raith II, Geoffrey Wainwright, Michael Waldstein, and Robert Louis Wilken. In On the Cessation of the Laws, Grosseteste draws out the theological, christological, and soteriological issues implicit in the question of the relationship between the Old and New Covenants.

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The Bible on the Question of Homosexuality addresses the hotly debated topic of whether the Bible condemns homosexuality by a close reading of the biblical texts without taboo or prejudice, without personal or church interpretation. The authors--three Christian exegetes, two Catholic and one Protestant--are interested in discovering what the Bible says about homosexuality. They take seriously the world from which the biblical text emerges, and discuss the hermeneutical challenges raised by scripture. They deal with the full range of issues raised by homosexuality in the Bible including Jesus' own sexual orientation and his relationship with the Beloved Disciple. Their conclusions are modest though their comprehensive overview is significant. Innocent Himbaza begins the work by looking at the entire range of Old Testament texts and examining the often-cited discussions of homosexuality: Sodom and Gomorrah, the outrage at Gibeah (Judges 19), the relationship between Jonathan and David, and the relationship between Saul and David. Next Adrien Schenker addresses the question: Why did the Law of Moses forbid homosexual relations (Leviticus 18 and 20)? Schenker also examines such issues as the death penalty for those caught in homosexual relationships within the proper historical context and the significance of these Levitical passages within the perspective of biblical theology. ,p>The third and final section of the book looks at homosexuality within the New Testament. Jean-Baptiste Edart first examines the Pauline texts (1 Corinthians 6 and 1Timothy 1; Romans 1). He then examines Jesus and the healing of the centurion's slave in Luke 7, Jesus' relationship with the Beloved Disciple, Jesus' attitude toward homosexual acts, and finally the commandment of love. Though many books are available on the topic of homosexuality and the Bible, most advance a particular ideology. This book, while not a moral treatise on homosexuality, intends only to clarify, without a predetermined interpretation, what the Bible actually says on the subject.

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The first English translation of the authoritative Leonine edition of Q. 3 of St. Thomas Aquinas’s De Potentia Dei. It includes a new English translation of Question 3, in which Thomas takes up questions and ideas about divine and human freedom.

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Through their teachings and writings, these seven theologians created a profound scholastic expression of what Christ’s transfiguration was and what it meant for Christians in their day.

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This translation of Erich Meuthen's well-known biography of Nicholas of Cusa presents the foremost summary of Cusanus's life and thought. From its original edition in 1964 through its seventh edition in 1992, Meuthen's sketch has found an appreciative audience. As Meuthen takes readers through Cusanus's life (1401-1464) they will be amazed that, in an age when writers set down every word with quill and ink, and one traversed every mile on land by foot or horse, Cusanus covered thousands of miles, maintained detailed administration of church affairs, rose in rank to cardinal, served as a papal legate, and still found time to write penetrating treatises such as The Catholic Concordance, Learned Ignorance, The Vision of God, and The Peace of Faith. While rendering Meuthen's language into smooth prose that still reflects his style and intent, the translators have added an introduction that describes the historical context for Cusanus. New also is a glossary of terms, as well as an updated bibliography of Cusanus research compiled by Hans Gerhard Senger, and a tribute to Meuthen by Morimichi Watanabe.

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Though the figures associated with the Modernist crisis in Roman Catholicism are normally viewed as looking forward in terms of critical history and philosophy, they also looked back in history to the church's mystical tradition. ""Modernists and Mystics"" is the first book to tell the story of the Modernist turn to the mystical. It focuses on four diverse modernist-era figures - Friedrich von Hugel, Maurice Blondel, Henri Bremond, and Alfred Loisy - and explores their understanding of mysticism and their relationship to mystics. In the six original essays included in this volume, the authors discuss how von Hugel, Blondel, Bremond, and Loisy all found inspiration in the great mystics of the past. These figures drew inspiration from Fenelon, seeing parallels between the Quietist controversy in which he was deeply involved and the crisis affecting Catholicism in their own day. For them, the reaction against Quietism represented the beginning of a definitive narrowing and suffocating of Catholicism as a living religious tradition. This constriction and hyper-intellectualization of the tradition culminated in the established neoscholasticism of late nineteenth and early twentieth-century manuals of theology. These Modernists opposed the marginalization of the 'mystical element' in religion as well as the consequences that followed from it, and they argued for the restoration of the mystical in the Catholicism of their own time. ""Modernists and Mystics"" also locates these theologians in the larger debates within Catholicism and within the secular academy. Albert Houtin's approach to mysticism in his biography of Cecile Bruyere of Solesmes represents a reductive reading of the phenomenon, indebted to the theories of J.M. Charcot. Loisy's debate with Henri Bergson in the 1930s provides a sense of how mysticism was viewed in the French University. Both von Hugel and Bremond contributed to the widening of Catholic horizons regarding the prevalence and nature of mystical experience, while Blondel contributed the perspective of a Catholic philosopher. The contributions of these figures enrich our understanding of debates over mysticism in the early twentieth century as well as our appreciation of the complexity of the Modernist movement.

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Composed of ten original essays written with the goal of exploring the thought of one of the most significant German philosophers of the 20th century, namely, Josef Pieper (1904-1997), this book is the only systematic treatment of his expansive philosophy to date. It brings his philosophy into dialogue with that of other important 20th century philosophers and schools of thought. The breadth of this discussion is itself a tribute to Josef Pieper. Not only do the essays seek to make better known the thought of this significant man, but they also deepen an understanding of some of the philosophical problems and challenges of our time. Some of the subjects discussed are, among others, the notion of totalitarianism and the question of what constitutes authentic culture; the intrinsic value of leisure and its relation to the total world of 'work'; the dimension of virtue in the on-going realization of the human person; the rational foundation of hope in confrontation with incomprehensible violence (such as that of Auschwitz, Burundi, and the events of September 11); the relation between faith and reason in a secular society; and the legitimacy of tradition.

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Around 1147 the bishop of Chartres directed Geoffrey Grossus, a monk of Tiron Abbey, to write the life of its founder Bernard of Abbeville (ca. 1050-1116) in an effort to further his canonization. Although Geoffrey Grossus blithely borrowed from other writings on saints' lives to further his hagiographical purpose, he presented an erudite, action-filled, and sympathetic portrait of the ascetic founder of an increasingly prominent and wealthy congregation. Bernard was a reformed Benedictine monk, abbot of Saint-Cyprien of Poitiers, and claustral prior of its daughter abbey, Saint-Savin-sur-Gartempe. Deposed at the instigation of Abbot Hugh of Cluny shortly after his installation in 1100, Bernard traveled to Rome to make a spirited defense of Saint-Cyprien's independence before the papal curia. He alternated cloistered life with unauthorized retreats with Vital of Savigny's hermit community, supporting himself by woodworking and ironwork, and offshore on the pirate-infested Chausey Island. On tours with Vital and Robert of Arbrissel, he risked his life preaching clerical celibacy in Normandy. In old age he founded Tiron Abbey in Perche near Chartres and became known as a healer and visionary. Although Bernard worked few miracles and was never canonized, he was venerated as a holy man who was deeply involved in many aspects of the religious reformation of the eleventh and twelfth centuries. Tiron expanded into a large congregation under royal patronage with abbeys and priories in modern France and the British Isles, where it preceded the Cistercians by a decade in Wales, Scotland, and on the Southampton Water. Tironian abbeys and priories survived until the English Reformation and the French Revolution. The first English translation of the ""Vita Bernardi"", this book makes accessible to medieval and religious historians one of the more interesting and lively stories of the twelfth century.

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The eucharistic crisis of the eleventh century posed the greatest challenge to the Church's understanding of the Real Presence of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament until the Reformation. The eucharistic symbolism of ""Berengarius of Tours"", which was at the heart of the controversy, was challenged first by Lanfranc of Canterbury and then by his student Guitmund of Aversa. Both authors countered with a vigorous defense of the Church's traditional belief that the body of Christ in the Eucharist is the same body that was born of the Virgin Mary, now risen and in glory. In this first English translation of Lanfranc's ""De corpore et sanguine Domini adversus Berengarium"", the reader learns firsthand both the history of the crisis and the doctrinal issues in question. Lesser known than Lanfranc's work, but of greater doctrinal significance, is Guitmund's ""De corporis et sanguinis Christi veritate in eucharistia"". In Guitmund's work, one finds a treatment of the doctrinal issues involved that is not only more systematic than that of Lanfranc, but far more speculative in character, and one that presents a fascinating vision of the Eucharist as a continuation of Christ's Easter appearances. Such a vision is one that the translator calls the species domini or an 'appearance of the Lord'; for it interprets the doctrine of the Real Presence in a way that identifies it as physical contact with the celestial Christ, of the same genre as the post-Resurrection appearances to his followers. The translations of both Lanfranc's and Guitmund's works, along with extensive commentary and notes, make this volume of the ""Mediaeval Continuation of the Fathers of the Church"" series an important study in the history of the development of eucharistic theology.

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The essays presented in this volume are among the most wide-ranging, intellectually rich, and diverse of Christopher Dawson's reflections on the relations of faith and culture. In them, he explores the contact between the spiritual life of the individual and the social and economic organization of modern culture. His focus ranges from the passing of industrialism to the Catholic understanding of the human person, to Islamic mysticism, to a Christian account of sexuality.Dawson argues that modern Western culture is unique in its tendency to ignore its spiritual roots and its once close contact with nature and tradition, and to substitute for them an impersonal economic and materialist organization of mass society. In these essays, he warns against the increasingly secular preoccupations of modern sociological accounts of European culture and insists that they require the supplement and corrective of theology and philosophy. But he is equally insistent on the dangers of a false spiritualism that ignores emerging sociological insights.Widely praised as one of the most important Catholic historians of the twentieth century, Christopher Dawson, in all of his writings, masterfully brings various disciplinary perspectives and historical sources into a complex unity of expression and applies them to concrete conditions of modern society. ""Enquiries into Religion and Culture"" includes an introduction by Robert Royal.

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Juan Valera's ""The Illusions of Doctor Faustino"" (Las ilusiones del doctor Faustino) came out in 1875, one year after the resounding success of his ""Pepita Jimenez"". One of the author's contemporaries, the critic Manuel de la Revilla, considered it among the most important novels of his time and compared it to Flaubert's ""L'Education"" sentimentale on account of the negative influence of Romanticism on the protagonist's character and life.Don Faustino Lopez de Mendoza, scion of an illustrious but impoverished family of the highest nobility, believes himself destined for great accomplishments in the literary world, sees himself as a poet of the first rank, and immerses himself in grand, if not grandiose, illusions.While living in a provincial Andalusian town and dreaming of triumphing in Madrid's artistic circles, Faustino embarks on a discovery of love, anguishes over his impecunious state, and engages in endless self-analysis. Love - or, at all events, a monetarily advantageous marriage - seems to go hand in glove with turning his illusions and dreams into triumphs and realities.He falls for Costanza and is rejected by her; he falls for Maria and she eludes him; he thinks he falls for Rosita then callously scorns her after meeting up again with Maria, who flees from him after a night of lovemaking. Reduced to financial ruin by a revengeful Rosita, Faustino betakes himself to the Spanish capital. Many years later all three women, as well as his daughter Irene (by Maria), converge in Madrid, and how he extricates himself from each relationship and meets his sad end constitutes the denouement of this searching novel that depicts the deleterious effects of the Romantic malaise that swept through western Europe in the early part of the nineteenth century.

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Theodore of Mopsuestia was hailed in his lifetime as one of the outstanding theologians and bishops in the second half of the fourth and early fifth centuries. He was then and still is respected as the preeminent spokesperson for the School of Antioch's unwavering defense of Christ's full humanity and its exegetical approach to the Scriptures. But within ten years after his death in 428, his enemies began to attack him openly, eventually succeeding in condemning both his works and person at the Second Council of Constantinople in 553. He has since been declared by some as the ""Father of Nestorianism."" In this book, Frederick G. McLeod first establishes the principal influences that shaped Theodore's exegetical outlook. He then draws out the typology that Theodore sees present between Adam and Christ's humanity, exploring three major roles that Christ's humanity plays as the head of all human immortal existence, the bond of the universe, and the perfect image of God. Next McLeod shows how Theodore's customary word for Christ's ""person"" (prosopon) ought to be understood in a functional way. The book concludes by applying these insights to the 71 excerpts that were used to condemn Theodore at the Second Council of Constantinople and proposing that these passages can be interpreted in a different, non-heretical way. This book enables one to judge Theodore's christological statements in the wider context of how he conceives of Christ's roles in salvation. It establishes clearly how Christ can be said to be a true mediator between the Father and all creation. It also makes one aware of the communal dimensions and relationships contained in the notion of ""person."" Finally, it indicates how the body plays an essential role in human and cosmic salvation.

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Outside the New Testament, our earliest complete witness to Christian apologetic against the Jews remains the ""Dialogue with Trypho"", written by Justin Martyr (circa 165), a convert to Christianity from traditional Greek religion. The ""Dialogue"" purports to be a two-day dialogue that took place in Asia Minor between Justin and Trypho, a Hellenized Jew. Justin argues extensively on the basis of lengthy Old Testament quotations that Christ is the Messiah and God incarnate, and that the Christian community is the new Israel. In the beginning of the work Justin recounts how he converted to Christianity. The ""Dialogue"" remains of great, and varying, interest. It has important information on the development of Jewish-Christian relations, on the development of the text of the New Testament, and on the existence and character of the early Jewish Christian community. Justin's story of how he became a Christian is one of our early conversion accounts. The ""Dialogue"" is a useful textbook for classes investigating the development of religion in Late Antiquity since it touches on many aspects of religion in the Roman Empire. This edition of the ""Dialogue with Trypho"" is a revision of Thomas B. Fall's translation, which appeared in ""Fathers of the Church"", volume 6. Thomas P. Halton has amended the translation in light of the 1997 critical edition by Miroslav Marcovich, and has provided extensive annotation to recent scholarship on the ""Dialogue"". Michael Slusser has edited the volume to bring it into conformity with the new selection from the ""Fathers of the Church"" series.

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Widely renowned as the 1952 Nobel Prize winning author of novels depicting stark yet searing clashes of passion, possession, society, and spirituality within the Catholic bourgeoisie of the Bordeaux region, Francois Mauriac is now gaining long overdue recognition as France's premier editorialist of the 1950s and 1960s. This book, the first English-language study of Mauriac's Bloc-notes, presents these poignant, incisive editorials on social justice, war, and human rights in postwar France as both symptomatic of a culture imbued with the past and emblematic of a Christian humanist's ethical approach to history and memory. Francois Mauriac lived history past and present most intensely. Filtering his perception of decolonization in general and the Algerian war in particular through the tumultuous episodes of the Crusades, the religious wars, the French Revolution, the Dreyfus affair, and the German Occupation, he delivered the earliest and most stinging indictments of torture and oppression in the Algerian war. Through the Past Darkly explains how Mauriac returns to the momentous figures and events of history neither to sacralize France's past nor to justify its present but rather to narrate the ongoing story of history as the universal human drama engaging the political integrity of the French Republic as well as the moral responsibility of each person. At the same time, the Bloc-notes constitutes a ""place of memory,"" a deliberate crystallization of the past aimed at rescuing the pathos of public and private experience from oblivion. Mauriac, argues Nathan Bracher, articulated a distinctive approach to history: in contrast to de Gaulle's nationalist epic and Sartre's commitment to the dialectics of class struggle, its lucid, uncompromising assessments of French society and politics have withstood the test of time.

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Although Blaise Pascal's Penses have occupied a uniquely privileged niche in the literary canon in France for over three centuries, they had long slumbered in America. It is just in the last thirty years that critical theorists in this country have been discovering in them texts rich in modernist and post-modernist readings. Still, critics here have largely ignored the renewal in traditional Pascal studies that has occurred in France over the last four decades. Pascal and Disbelief introduces readers to the recent developments in Pascal scholarship, particularly the return of the Penses to their original status as the working draft of Pascal's never-completed Apology for the Christian Religion. All sources, including critical commentary and little-known seventeenth-century texts, are presented both in their original French and in English translation. The Catholic University Press of America

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Thomas Kinsella began writing in the early 1950s when Irish poets were struggling to emerge from what he identified as the ""double shadow of Yeats and English verse"". Throughout his career, Kinsella has sought to establish his identity as an Irish poet writing in English, and to determine his place within the dual Irish tradition, Gaelic and English. This comprehensive study explores the poet's development within both the Irish and the English contexts, and defines the nature of his poetic achievement. It also offers a new reading of Kinsella's evolving relationship to one of his major literary forebears, W.B. Yeats. What becomes clear is the formidable accomplishment of a poet, now writing at the height of his powers, whose substantial body of work warrants comparison with the grand masters of 20th-century literature in English, Yeats, Joyce and Beckett. Beginning with Kinsella's first volume of poetry in 1956 and concluding with his most recent work, ""From Centre City"" (1994), the book traces the evolution of the poet's style and vision from the formal lyricism of his early volumes, through the long narrative poems of his middle period, to his later sequences of spare, laconic poems that are increasingly rich in polyphony and intertextuality. It finds that the formal structure and mellifluous cadence of Kinsella's early poetry, indebted to the works of past masters, such as Auden, Eliot and Yeats, give way to experimentalism, to a dislocated poetry that is often lacking closure. In his later writing, diverse exemplars, ranging from the early Irish literature and myth and the 18th-century Irish poet Aogan O Rathaille to the psycholoanalysis of Carl Jung and the music of Gustav Mahler and Sean O Riada, aid Kinsella in tracing his personal and poetic inheritance. This book illuminates poetry often regarded as difficult, and offers a useful evaluation of a major poet who continues to contribute to contemporary Irish poetry.

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Reading Job with St. Thomas Aquinas is a scholarly contribution to Thomistic studies, specifically to the study of Aquinas’s biblical exegesis in relation to his philosophy and theology. Each of the thirteen chapters has a different focus, within the shared concentration of the book on Aquinas’s Literal Exposition on Job. The essays are arranged in three Parts: “Job and Sacra Doctrina”; “Providence and Suffering”; and “Job and the Moral Life”. Boyle’s opening essay argues that Aquinas’s commentary seeks to show what is required in the “Magister” (namely, Job and God) for the effective communication of wisdom. Mansini’s essay argues that by speaking, God reveals the virtue of Job and its value in God’s providence; without the personal revelation or speech of God, Job could not have known the value of his suffering. Vijgen’s essay explores the commentary’s use of Aristotle for reflecting upon divine providence, sorrow and anger, resurrection, and the new heavens and new earth. Levering’s essay explores the commentary’s citations of the Gospel of John and argues that these pertain especially to divine speech and to light/darkness. Bonino’s essay explains why divine incomprehensibility does not mean that Job is wrong to seek to understand God’s ways. Te Velde’s essay explores how Aquinas’s commentary draws upon the reasoning of his Summa contra gentiles with regard to the good order of the universe. Goris’s essay reflects upon how, according to Aquinas’s commentary, sin is and is not related to suffering. Knasas’s essay argues that Aquinas does not hold that the resurrection of the body is a necessary philosophical corollary of the human desire for happiness. Wawrykow’s essay explores merit, in relation to the connection between sin and punishment/affliction as well as to the connection between good actions and flourishing. Spezzano’s essay shows that Job’s hope and filial fear transform his suffering, making him an exemplar of the consolation they provide to the just. Mullady’s essay reflects upon the moral problems and opportunities posed by the passions, along with the ordering of the virtues to the reward of human happiness. Flood’s essay shows how Aquinas defends Job’s possession of the qualities needed for true friendship (including friendship with God), such as patience, delight in the presence of the friend, and compassion. Lastly, Kromholtz’s essay argues that although Aquinas’s Literal Exposition on Job never extensively engages eschatology, Aquinas depends throughout upon the reasonableness of hoping for the resurrection of the body and the final judgment.

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Human speech and writing reveal our powers both to generalize and to criticize our own procedures. For this we must use words non-mechanically and with a freedom without definite limits, but still allowing mutual intelligibility. Such powers cannot be simulated by any possible physical mechanism, and this shows that human beings in our acts of judgment and understanding transcend the body.Philosopher, psychologist and linguist are all concerned with natural language. Accordingly, in seeking a unified view, Braine draws on insights from all these fields, sifting through the discordant schools of linguists. He concludes that one extended logic or “integrated semantic syntax” shapes grammar, but without constricting languages to being of one grammatical type.Language as learnt and speech are both essentially public, geared to a community of language-users. Therefore, psycholinguists should imitate Gibson’s treatment of our perceptual system and treat learning and use of language as arising by adaptation to our social and natural environment. Through taking the malleability of the functioning of the brain and its parts to an extreme, grammar has become unrestricted by neurology, limited only by logical and pragmatic constraints.For Braine, a language is a living thing, both in the development of thought and in conversation. Chomsky has entrenched a static, building-block, model of a language as a code, each lexical item with just one meaning. Yet in our learning and use of language each word develops an indefinite spread of uses or senses adapted to the realities and questions which we have to confront. The idea ""one lexical item, one meaning"" applies only to formal languages, not to the natural language which extends beyond social life to embrace mathematics, physics and all the sciences, religion and literature.In rewriting the philosophy of grammar, Braine restores the dynamic conception of language, reuniting structure and communicative function. Grammar, typically through the verb, gives the sentence its ""saying"" function, the verb being what brings the sentence to life, giving the sentence’s other elements their role and force.

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Philip Fabian Flynn led a remarkable life, bearing witness to some of the most pivotal events of the twentieth century. Flynn took part in the invasions of Sicily and Normandy, the Battle of Aachen, and the Battle of the Hürtgen Forest. He acted as confessor to Nazi War Criminals during the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg, assisted Hungarian revolutionaries on the streets of Budapest, and the waves of refugees arriving in Austria fleeing the effects of ethnic and political persecution during the Cold War.The Priest Who Put Europe Back Together tells the story of this fascinating life. From solidly middle-class beginnings in Dorchester, Massachusetts, Flynn interacted with and occasionally advised some of the major political, military, and religious leaders of his era. His legacy as a Passionist priest, a chaplain in the US Army, and an official in the Catholic Relief Services was both vast and enormously beneficial. His life and career symbolized the “coming of age” of the United States as a global superpower, and the corresponding growth of the American Catholic Church as an international institution. Both helped liberate half of Europe from Fascist rule, and then helped to rebuild its political, economic, and social foundations, which led to an unprecedented period of peace and prosperity. His efforts on behalf of both his country and his Church to contain Communist influence, and to assist the refugees of its tyranny, contributed to its collapse. Flynn was one of the hundreds of Americans who put Europe back together after a period of horrendous self-destruction. In a twentieth century filled with villains and despots, Flynn played a heroic and vital role in extraordinary times.

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Étienne Gilson (1884-1978) was a French philosopher and historian of philosophy, as well as a scholar of medieval philosophy. In 1946 he attained the distinction of being elected an ""Immortal"" (member) of the Académie française. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1959 and 1964.The appearance of Gilson's Metamorphosis of the City of God, which were originally delivered as lectures at the University of Louvain, Belgium, in the Spring of 1952, coincided with the first steps toward what would become the European Union. The appearance of this English translation coincides with the upheaval of Brexit. Gilson traces the various attempts of thinkers through the centuries to describe Europe's soul and delimit its parts. The Scots, Catalonians, Flemings, and probably others may nod in agreement in Gilson's observation on how odd would be a Europe composed of the political entities that existed two and a half centuries ago. Those who think the European Union has lost its soul may not be comforted by the difficulty thinkers have had over the centuries in defining that soul. Indeed the difficulties that have thus far prevented integrating Turkey into the EU confirm Gilson's description of the conundrum involved even in distinguishing Europe's material components. And yet, the endeavor has succeeded, so that the problem of shared ideals remain inescapable. One wonders which of the thinkers in the succession studied by Gilson might grasp assent and illuminate the EU's path.

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Popes Francis, Benedict XVI, and John Paul II have called the present a time of New Evangelization for the Church and have stressed the importance of catechesis for this mission. John Paul II claimed that this renewal of the Church’s mission is grounded in the teachings of the Second Vatican Council. Nevertheless, approaches to catechesis in the conciliar and postconciliar era have varied greatly, as evidenced by the shifts in catechetical practice effected by the modern catechetical movement. Just as the dominant forms of theology changed from neo-scholastic to anthropological approaches so, too, did catechesis move from catechism-based approaches to more anthropological models based upon human experience. In light of this context, Catechesis for the New Evangelization examines the theological foundations of catechesis in the Church’s understanding of divine revelation and its reception by the human person, especially as found in the conciliar constitutions, Dei Verbum and Gaudium et Spes. After drawing norms on divine revelation from these documents, it traces the history of the modern catechetical movement in order to compare this history with the conciliar norms, highlighting the renewal’s strengths and weaknesses.These steps prepare the way for the main part of the book: an examination of the anthropology of Karol Wojty?a/Pope John Paul II. Ultimately, his anthropology provides an understanding of the person that can unite divine revelation and human experience in a way that takes what is best from the modern catechetical movement, while developing the ministry in a way that can be fruitful for the New Evangelization.Pedraza’s book is not only an incisive look at modern catechetical history and theory. It also touches upon some of the most important theological topics of the past century, including the neo-scholastic crisis, the proper interpretation of the Council, the relationship of nature and grace, and the modern understanding of the imago dei, with the research and competency appropriate for scholarly interest and the accessibility needed for educated practitioners in catechesis.

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Grace, Predestination, and the Permission of Sin seeks to analyze a revi­sionist movement within Thomism in the 20th century over and against the traditional or classical Thomistic commentatorial treatment of phys­ical premotion, grace, and the permission of sin, especially as these re­late to the mysteries of predestination and reprobation.The over-arching critique leveled by the revisionists against the clas­sic treatment is that Bañezian scholasticism had disregarded the dissym­metry between the line of good (God’s causation of salutary acts) and the line of evil (God’s permission of defect and sin).The teaching of St. Thomas is explored via intimate consideration of his texts. The thought of St. Thomas is then compared with the work of Domingo Bañez and the foremost ‘Bañezian’ of the 20th century, Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange. The work then shifts to a consideration of the major players of the revisionist treatment, including Francisco Marín-Sola, Jacques Maritain, and Bernard Lonergan. Jean-Herve Nico­las is also taken up as one who had held both accounts during his life­time. O’Neil analyzes and critiques the revisionist theories according to the fundamental tenets of the classical account. Upon final analysis, it seeks to show that the classical account sufficiently distances God’s causal role in regard to free salutary acts and His non-causal role in re­gard to free sinful acts. Moreover, the revisionist account presents sig­nificant metaphysical problems and challenges major tenets of classical theism, such as the divine omnipotence, simplicity, and the exhaustive nature of divine providence.Finally, the implications of the traditional view are considered in light of the spiritual life. It is argued that the classical account is the only one which provides an adequate theological foundation for the Church’s robust mystical and spiritual tradition, and in particular, the abandon­ment to divine providence.

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St. Thomas Aquinas’s holiness did not flower alongside his endeavour as a theologian or in isolation from it. Rather, it was a fruit of his practice of theology and the asceticism proper to magnanimous souls who dare to examine the mystery of God. Theological affectivity—charity present through a living faith—is necessary for an authentic practice of theology. The experience of God, which is essential to the mystical life, is at the heart of Aquinas’s study and life.The studies in this volume investigate themes of particular spiritual relevance in Aquinas’s theology: friendship, charity, prayer, configuration to Christ, priesthood, preaching. They also reveal Aquinas’s entire approach to theology to be guided by the desire to grow spiritually through theologising. The Angelic Doctor here appears as a Dominican friar whose theology flows from his faith and prayer.Desiring to underscore the Trinitarian character of the Christian life, Aquinas pays careful attention to the human being as created in the image of God. In this light, Aquinas presents Christ as the Exemplar after which we are fashioned and as the model we are to imitate. Christ thus appears in the Summa not only as the way by which the human being must travel toward God but also as the head who leads the rational creature’s return to the Creator.

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This Sourcebook is intended for students of liberal arts and great books. It treats such books as primary sources for inquiring into the nature of human speech because they clarify the terms and stakes of perennial questions thinking human beings ask themselves about persuasive speaking. By crystallizing viable claims about the nature of what we confront in politics and society--live claims for us to confront in our own, with the stakes of that confrontation being live as well--they originate a dialectic with one another and with us their readers.Cicero called rhetoric a liberal art necessary for every citizen of a free republic. In the polities of ancient Greece and Rome, rhetoric was politically potent because oratory was the regular means of political decision. Words were decisive, often a matter of life and death, not merely for individuals but for peoples. In human milieux where human speech is so politically decisive, reflection upon its nature became keen.The selections of this sourcebook have been arranged in three sequences. The first two sequences comprise philosophical dialogues on the ends of rhetoric. Selections from Plato's Gorgias, Phaedrus, and Apology examine the rhetorician or teacher of rhetoric, and then Cicero's De oratore offers us a dialectic among practitioners about its practice. The philosophical dialogues on the art's intended ends and causative effects provide the theoretical and ethical context for examining its means. These philosophical dialogues are thus propaedeutic to the third sequence, which focusses on the art itself with selections from Aristotle's treatise On Rhetoric, paired with orations from Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War.

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Rafael Merry del Val (1865-1930) was a cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church who had one of the most dazzling careers in ecclesiastical history: he was a secret supernumerary chamberlain at the age of 21, a secret participating chamberlain at the age of 26, an apostolic delegate to Canada at age 31, president of the Academy of Ecclesiastical Nobles and archbishop at age 34, secretary of state for Pius X (1903-1914) and cardinal at age 38, archpriest of St. Peter’s Basilica and prefect of the Fabric of St. Peter at age 48, secretary of the Congregation of the Holy Office at age 49. In 1953, his beatification process was introduced to the Congregation for Rites.In this study, Philippe Roy-Lysencourt presents the life of this personage, his curial charges, his relations with the popes he served (Leo XIII, Pius X, Benedict XV, and Pius XI), his apostolate, his unexpected death and the furor it caused.The book includes an inventory of sources for understanding Cardinal Merry del Val’s life, a list of his published writings, as well as a bibliography of the works written about him.

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In recent years, our constitutional order has increasingly come under attack as irredeemably undemocratic, racist, and oppressive. At the same time, it is increasingly obvious that political practices in the United States have strayed very far from the founders' designs and become deeply dysfunctional. The time is thus ripe for renewed reflection about the American political tradition.This volume reintroduces readers to the conservative tradition of political and constitutional discourse. It brings together prominent political scientists and legal scholars, all of whom were deeply influenced by the life and work of the eminent constitutional scholar George W. Carey. For over 40 years, Carey strove mightily to explain the nature and requirements of our political tradition. How it fostered meaningful, virtuous self-government, and how our constitutional tradition has been derailed by progressivist ideology. He is perhaps best known for his concept of "constitutional morality," the understanding that our republican constitutional order can be sustained only by a combination of formal mechanisms (e.g., separation of powers) and unwritten norms ("standards of behavior") that act to foster deliberation and consensus, as well as keep political actors within the boundaries of their constitutional offices.

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This collection of essays revisits Jacques Maritain's book, Man and the State - the University of Chicago Walgreen lectures of 1949 - and critically engages its greatest themes and arguments: the character of the modern state and its relation to the body politic, the state's functions and claims, the basis of authority, the foundation of human rights and natural law, structural pluralism, Church and State relations, national sovereignty, and the prospects for world government. The contributors address whether Maritain has successfully accomplished his project of engaging modernity from the perspective of a 20th century disciple of Thomas Aquinas; whether his reformulations and revisions of the modern state are philosophically sound and prudent; and whether his developments of Aristotle and Aquinas are faithful to the sources. Maritain, drawing upon the philosophy of Aquinas, represents a significant achievement: he provides a viable reassessment of the liberal state, uniting Thomistic and Aristotelian traditions with the human rights thrust of modern political philosophy. The contributors to this collection find Maritain has achieved much in the accomplishment of this project. Some continue this project by applying Maritain's philosophy to contemporary issues. Other contributors find it helpful, however, to compare Maritain to other contemporary political philosophers, and to question his use of the philosophy of Aquinas. Maritain's political philosophy, and Man and the State in particular, is worth continued study. His work shows a remarkable resilience and relevance to the issues of the day, offering a deeper philosophical foundation and more flexible set of tools for analysis than currently provided.

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Drawing on the writings of Jacques Maritain - and by extension those of Thomas Aquinas - the essays in this volume examine the effects of theories of knowledge on individuals, culture and entire schools of philosophical thought. The contributors challenge contemporary epistemologies, which are largely based on writings of Descartes, Locke and Kant. They critique these theories internally and demonstrate their incompatibiltiy with other goods, such as liberty, human dignity and access to the transcendent. In stark contrast to modernity's dubious and fragmented opinions and belief systems, Maritain - in works like ""The Degrees of Knowledge"" and ""Creative Intuition in Art and Poetry"" - proposed a theory of knowledge that permits real, if limited, knowledge of substances, wholes. Some contributors use these works as a springboard from which to examine aspects or applications of knowledge that Maritain left unexplored. Others challenge or question aspects of Maritain's analysis, seeking to improve upon his work. Still others compare Maritain with other neo-Thomistic philosophers, most notably Etienne Gilson, Alasdair MacIntyre and Pope John Paul II. Maritain's works on human knowledge and the implicit critique of modernity contained within provide an alternative for those seeking to engage the various deficiencies of the ""culture of death"". These essays aim to demonstrate the continuing relevance - and timeliness - of Maritain's thought.

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The Benedictine Beda Mayr, OSB, (1742-1794) was one of the main figures of the German Catholic Enlightenment. He was not only the first Catholic to wrestle with the challenges of Reimarus and Lessing, but also the first to develop an ecumenical methodology for a reunion of the churches. The text, translated from the German original for the first time, presents a theologian who intentionally went to the margins of orthodoxy in order to allow for more interconfessional dialogue. Mayr argued that Catholic theology should follow minority opinions for unsettled dogmatic questions, which would allow for easier union agreements with Protestant churches. Moreover, he suggested limiting ecclesial infallibility to directly revealed truths, thereby reducing the authoritative truth claims of conciliar or papal decisions.Although the study of Catholic Enlightenment is booming among historians and theologians, too few texts are available in reliable translations. A major strength of this edition is not only that its introduction introduces the reader to the colorful landscape of eighteenth-century theological discussions, but also presents the entire text of Mayr's book (with the exception of its appendix) thereby allowing the reader to see the strengths and weaknesses of Enlightenment ecumenism.Mayr's Limited Infallibility was put on the Index of Forbidden Books, on which it remained until the 20th Century. It invites readers to a modern, non-scholastic way of theologizing for the sake of Christian unity.

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Can a philosopher defend the rational warrant for belief in Christianity? Is it reasonable to be religious? Is it philosophically responsible to be a Christian who believes in the mystery of the Trinity? Principles of Catholic Theology explores these questions in a systematic way by considering questions of ultimate explanation. Why not hold that modern atheistic naturalism provides the best explanation of reality? Or, if there is a transcendent first principle that explains all of reality, is it impersonal rather than personal? Contrastingly, if monotheism constitutes the best explanation for created being, how can we reasonably believe in any particular revelation concerning God? What are the criteria for rational belief in revelation?Thomas Joseph White, OP, considers these questions by exploring a series of topics: the transcendentals (existence, oneness, truth, goodness, beauty); rational argument for the existence of God; the immateriality and subsistence after death of the personal soul of the human being; the historical and conceptual coherence of Trinitarian doctrine; and the reasonableness of the natural desire to see God. The aim of Principles of Catholic Theology, Book 2 is to place contemporary natural reason in profound dialogue with the Catholic faith and to think about ways that we can consent to the profound mystery of the Holy Trinity that are in robust concord with the knowledge obtained from philosophical, scientific, and historical sources.

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