'What does it mean to be a human being?' Given this perennial question, Alasdair MacIntyre, one of America's preeminent philosophers, presents a compelling argument on the necessity and importance of philosophy. Because of a need to better understand Catholic philosophical thought, especially in the context of its historical development and realizing that philosophers interact within particular social and cultural situations, MacIntyre offers this brief history of Catholic philosophy. Tracing the idea of God through different philosophers' engagement of God and how this engagement has played out in universities, MacIntyre provides a valuable, lively, and insightful study of the disintegration of academic disciplines with knowledge. MacIntyre then demonstrates the dangerous implications of this happening and how universities can and ought to renew a shared understanding of knowledge in their mission. This engaging work will be a benefit and a delight to all readers.

This is a study of the social construction and the impression management of the public forms of worship of Catholicism and Anglicanism. Interest centres on the dilemmas of the liturgical actors in handling a transaction riddled with ambiguities and potential misunderstandings. Simmel, Berger and Goffman are used in an original manner to understand these rites which pose as much of a problem for sociology as for their practitioners.;These rites are treated as forms of play and hermeneutics is linked to a negative theology to understand their performative basis. The study is an effort to link sociology to theology in a way that serves to focus on an issue of social praxis.

In the early 1900s the Catholic Church appealed, for the first time in its history, directly to women to reassert its religious, political and social relevance in Italian society in a battle against liberalism, socialism and modern society. This book examines the highly successful conservative Catholic women's movements that followed, and how they mobilised women against secular feminism.

Heresy and inquisition in France, 1200-1300 is an invaluable collection of primary sources in translation, aimed at students and academics alike. It provides a wide array of materials on both heresy (Cathars and Waldensians) and the persecution of heresy in medieval France. The book is divided into eight sections, each devoted to a different genre of source material. It contains substantial material pertaining to the setting up and practice of inquisitions into heretical wickedness, and a large number of translations from the registers of inquisition trials. Each source is introduced fully and is accompanied by references to useful modern commentaries. The study of heresy and inquisition has always aroused considerable scholarly debate; with this book, students and scholars can form their own interpretations of the key issues, from the texts written in the period itself. -- .

The Catholic Tradition of the Law of Nations is a well-edited collection of annotated documents illustrating the Church's doctrine regarding war and peace and its opinion of such topics as the League of Nations, nationality and minority rights. Valuable for its insights into the history, doctrine and traditions of Catholic thought on international law, it includes important papal writings that are difficult to locate and otherwise unavailable in English. Published for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace by the Catholic Association for International Peace. Reprint of the sole edition. "Being somewhat familiar with the Catholic tradition and an outspoken advocate of the Catholic conception of international law, the reviewer feels no hesitancy in recommending unreservedly Mr. Eppstein's excellent compendium of The Catholic Tradition of the Law of Nations." --JAMES BROWN SCOTT, Georgetown Law Journal 24 (1935-1936) 1063 JOHN EPPSTEIN 1895-1988] was the author of numerous books on Catholicism and human rights, including Catholics and the Problem of Peace (1925), Code of International Ethics (1953) and The Cult of Revolution of the Church (1974).

According to numerous scholars and pundits, JFK's victory in 1960 symbolized America's evolution from a politically Protestant nation to a pluralistic one. The anti-Catholic prejudice that many blamed for presidential candidate Alfred E. Smith's crushing defeat in 1928 at last seemed to have been overcome. However, if the presidential election of 1960 was indeed a turning point for American Catholics, how do we explain the failure of any Catholic--in over forty years--to repeat Kennedy's accomplishment? In this exhaustively researched study that fuses political, cultural, social, and intellectual history, Thomas Carty challenges the assumption that JFK's successful campaign for the presidency ended decades, if not centuries, of religious and political tensions between American Catholics and Protestants.

Undocumented Saints follows the migration of popular saints from Mexico into the US and the evolution of their meaning. The book explores how Latinx battles for survival are performed in the worlds of faith, religiosity, and the imaginary, and how the socio-political realities of exploitation and racial segregation frame their popular religious expressions. It also tracks the emergence of inter-religious states, transnational ethnic and cultural enclaves unified by faith. The book looks at five vernacular saints that have emerged in Mexico and whose devotions have migrated into the US in the last one hundred years: Jesus Malverde, a popular bandido turned saint caudillo; Santa Olguita, an emerging feminist saint linked to border women's experiences of sexual violence; Juan Soldado, a murder-rapist soldier who is now a patron for undocumented immigrants and the main suspect in the death of an eight-year-old victim known now as Santa Olguita; Toribio Romo, a Catholic priest whose ghost/spirit has been helping people cross the border into the US since the 1990s; and La Santa Muerte, a controversial personification of death who is particularly popular among LGBTQ migrants. Each chapter contextualizes a particular popular saint within broader discourses about the construction of masculinity and the state, the long history of violence against Latina and migrant women, female erasure from history, discrimination against non-normative sexualities, and as US and Mexican investment in the control of religiosity within the discourses of immigration.

Beautifully illustrated in color for young elementary school readers, King of the Shattered Glass is a gentle parable about asking for forgiveness and receiving God's mercy!

Uniquely in the kingdoms of western Christendom, the Scottish bishops obtained authority, in 1225, to hold inter-diocesan meetings without a supervisory archbishop, and continued to meet in this way for nearly 250 years. Donald Watt provides an authoritative study of these church councils from the Latin and English records based on original sources.In addition to creating an original work of considerable historical interest, Professor Watt brings discussion of the councils and their significance into the broader context of Scotland's political, legal, ecclesiastical and social situation over a long period.An important contribution to Scottish church history and to its influence on contemporary affairs.

Escaping from narrative history, this book takes a deep look at the Catholic question in 18th-century Ireland. It asks how people thought about Catholicism, Protestantism and their society, in order to reassess the content and importance of the religious conflict. In doing this, Dr Cadoc Leighton provides a study which offers thought-provoking ways of looking not only at the 18th century, but at modern Irish history in general. It also places Ireland clearly within the mainstream of European historical developments.