The year 2015 marks the fifteenth anniversary of Thomas More's becoming Patron Saint of Statesmen and Politicians. Yet during these years no serious answer has been given by a community of scholars as to why More would be the choice of over 40,000 leaders from ninety-five countries. What were More's guiding principles of leadership and in what ways might they remain applicable? This collection of essays addresses these questions by investigating More through his writings, his political actions, and in recent artistic depictions.

Pope Francis is determined to transform the Catholic Church. The first Pope born in South America, Francis was elected at a time when the world was weary of the Vatican. He has been able to inject new enthusiasm for the Church and win many admirers. Beneath his smile and warm nature, there is a man who wants the Church to go back to its core values of social justice and caring for the poor and vulnerable around the world. Pope Francis - Two Years of Change is a chronicle of just what he has been able to do so far. Follow Pope Francis' story as he becomes one of the most respected figures in the world today.

Religion in Europe is currently undergoing changes that are reconfiguring physical and virtual spaces of practice and belief, and these changes need to be understood with regards to the proliferation of digital media discourses. This book explores religious change in Europe through a comparative approach that analyzes Atheist, Catholic, and Muslim blogs as spaces for articulating narratives about religion that symbolically challenge the power of religious institutions. The book adds theoretical complexity to the study of religion and digital media with the concept of hypermediated religious spaces. The theory of hypermediation helps to critically discuss the theory of secularization and to contextualize religious change as the result of multiple entangled phenomena. It considers religion as being connected with secular and post-secular spaces, and media as embedding material forms, institutions, and technologies. A spatial perspective contextualizes hypermediated religious spaces as existing at the interstice of alternative and mainstream, private and public, imaginary and real venues. By offering the innovative perspective of hypermediated religious spaces, this book will be of significant interest to scholars of religious studies, the sociology of religion, and digital media.

Christian dialogic writings flourished in the Catholic missions in late Ming China. This study focuses on the mission work of the Italian Jesuit Giulio Aleni (Ai Rulue , 1582-1649) in Fujian and the unique text Kouduo richao (Diary of Oral Admonitions, 1630-1640) that records the religious and intellectual conversations among the Jesuits and local converts. By examining the mechanisms of dialogue in Kouduo richao and other Christian works distinguished by a certain dialogue form, the author of the present work aims to reveal the formation of a hybrid Christian-Confucian identity in late Ming Chinese religious experience. By offering the new approach of dialogic hybridization, the book not only treats dialogue as an important yet underestimated genre in late Ming Christian literature, but it also uncovers a self-other identity complex in the dialogic exchanges of the Jesuits and Chinese scholars. Giulio Aleni, Kouduo richao, and Christian-Confucian Dialogism in Late Ming Fujian is a multi-faceted investigation of the religious, philosophical, ethical, scientific, and artistic topics discussed among the Jesuits and late Ming scholars. This comprehensive research echoes what the distinguished Sinologist Erik Zurcher (1928-2008) said about the richness and diversity of Chinese Christian texts produced in the 17th and 18th centuries. Following Zurcher's careful study and annotated full translation of Kouduo richao (Monumenta Serica Monograph Series, LVI/1-2), the present work features a set of new findings beyond the endeavours of Zurcher and other scholars. With the key concept of Christian-Confucian dialogism, it tells the intriguing story of Aleni's mission work and the thriving Christian communities in late Ming Fujian.

The appearance of the Virgin Mary on a hill in Guadalupe, Mexico in 1531 is perhaps the central tradition in Latino Catholicism. The vision, allegedly seen by recent convert Juan Diego, signalled the rise of Catholicism in the New World at a time when Protestantism was spreading throughout the old world. So what could a male, anglo protestant liturgist possibly have to say on the subject? In The Virgin of Guadalupe, Lutheran minister Maxwell Johnson recognizes that this tradition is not only important to Latin American Catholics, but to all Latin American Christians. Acknowledging the significance (if not, necessarily, the historical accuracy) of the appearance of the Virgin is not simply a Roman Catholic need by a necessity for all Christian churches among whom the Hispanic presence is growing. This is shown by the increased commemoration of Juan Diego on December 9, or of the Virgin of Guadalupe herself on December 12, on Protestant calendars. This increased recognition among Protestants coincides with the Pope's canonization of Saint Juan Diego in the summer of 2002. In step with this movement, Johnson considers the Virgin of Guadalupe from a Lutheran perspective and looks at ways in which she might be received into the evangelical or Protestant tradition.

Abraham argues that a theological imagination can expand the contours of postcolonial theory through a reexamination of notions of subjectivity, gender, and violence in a dialogical model with Karl Rahner. She questions of whether postcolonial theory, with its disavowal of religious agency, can provide an invigorating occasion for Catholic theology.

With about one billion members, the Catholic Church is one of the world's largest religious bodies, and its history is crucially linked to global events. In the Historical Dictionary of Catholicism, author William J. Collinge provides the reader with a comprehensive introduction to the theology, doctrines, and worship of the religion. He covers the entire Catholic tradition from the time of Jesus to the present, including the periods before the present division of Christianity into Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Protestant. Collinge has also included entries on heretical, schismatic, and dissident movements within Catholicism, and he covers the relation of Catholicism to other Christian traditions, to the major non-Christian religions, and to Western cultural and philosophical traditions. The second edition of the Historical Dictionary of Catholicism has been updated to reflect recent developments in the Catholic Church, most notably the death of Pope John Paul II and his succession by Pope Benedict XVI. An updated introduction precedes the main body of the dictionary, which contains more than 500 alphabetical, cross-referenced entries covering persons, organizations, places, events, titles, and concepts. The entries are followed by several appendixes on popes, ecumenical councils, the documents of Vatican Council II, major papal encyclicals, and Catholic prayers, and a comprehensive bibliography provides the researcher with further readings. The second edition of the Historical Dictionary of Catholicism is an ideal access point for students, researchers, or anyone interested in the history of the Catholic Church.

Even if youve never heard of Consoling the Heart of Jesus, this companion guide will explain to you in a clear, step-by-step way what consoling the Heart of Jesus is all about. Youll find all the main ideas, prayers, and meditations compiled for easy reference.

This is a fresh look at the impact of the English Reformation at parish level. It provides a perceptive exploration of the role of the Catholic priesthood in the church and in the life of the community. Using a wide range of contemporary sources, Dr Marshall demonstrates how the practical consequences of the Reformation undermined the fragile modus vivendi that had sustained the late medieval system.

Spanning from the birth of Christianity through the Crusades and the Protestant Reformation to John XXIII and the Second Vatican Council, Key Moments in Church History is a brief and accessible guide to the origins and evolution of the Catholic Church. In this insightful and informative look at eleven of the most significant periods in church history, Finley not only helps readers understand the context and characters of the past, but sheds light on the current and future Church. The result is a hopeful and inspirational reading experience that is ideal for personal reflection or group use.

Amoris Laetitia, Pope Francis' post-synodal exhortation on love in the family, turned out to be one of the most controversial documents of the Magisterium of the Catholic Church in recent decades. It was published in April 2016 following the two "Synods of Bishops on the Family" held in 2014 and 2015. The document brought division amongst the Catholic hierarchy, theologians and pastors and nearly two years after its publication the exact meaning of the document and its implications for the Church are still a matter of dispute. A number of prelates present at the Synods indicated that these gatherings were animated by "the spirit of Vatican II." This work links the notion of "the spirit of Vatican II" with Amoris Laetitia and it argues that a hermeneutics of interpretation of the Second Vatican Council which focuses on following "the spirit of the Council" is the hermeneutics which can be, and in the future most likely will be, the predominant way of interpreting and implementing Amoris Laetitia. This book aims to provide a contribution to this hotly debated topic in the field of Catholic theology.

This is the first full study of English Catholic spirituality in the modern period. Mary Heimann reassesses Roman Catholic piety as practised in Victorian England, stressing the importance of devotion in shaping the characteristics of the Catholic community. Prayers, devotions, catechisms, confraternities, and missionary work enabled traditional English Catholicism not only to survive but to emerge as the most resilient Christian community in twentieth-century England. Dr Heimann's scholarly and original study offers a controversial analysis of the influence of long-established recusant devotions and attitudes in the new context of the re-establishment of Roman Catholicism in England from the mid-nineteenth century. Challenging widely held assumptions that Irish influences, government legislation, or directives from Rome can account for English developments in this period, this book offers important new insights into religion and culture in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

This book offers a thorough and accessible analysis of Catholic teaching on war and warmaking from its earliest stages to the present. Moral theologians Thomas Massaro and Thomas A. Shannon begin with a survey of the teachings on war in various religions and denominations and then trace the development of Just War theory and application, review the perspective of several Catholic bishops, comment on the bishops' pastoral letter The Challenge of Peace, address contemporary developments in light of 9-11 and the United States war with Iraq, and conclude with theological reflections. Complete with recommended readings, Catholic Perspectives on Peace and War offers an informative and thoughtful moral analysis that helps readers navigate the rapidly changing terrain of war, warmaking, and peace initiatives.

During the three decades from 1945 to 1975, the Catholic Church in West Germany employed a broad range of methods from empirical social research. Statistics, opinion polling, and organizational sociology, as well as psychoanalysis and other approaches from the "psy sciences," were debated and introduced in pastoral care. In adopting these methods for their own work, bishops, parish clergy, and pastoral sociologists tried to open the church up to modernity in a rapidly changing society. In the process, they contributed to the reform agenda of the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965). Through its analysis of the intersections between organized religion and applied social sciences, this award-winning book offers fascinating insights into the trajectory of the Catholic Church in postwar Germany.

The unifying centre of Nicholas J. Healy's book is an analysis, in dialogue with the metaphysics of Thomas Aquinas, of Balthasar's understanding of the analogy of being. This discussion of analogy is framed by an interpretation of Balthasar's trinitarian eschatology. Healy shows that the ultimate form of the end, and thus the measure of all that is meant by eschatology, is given in Christ's eucharistic and pneumatic gift of himself - a gift that simultaneously lays bare the mystery of God's trinitarian life and enables Christ to 'return' to the Father in communion with the whole of creation.