Enlightened Monks investigates the social, cultural, philosophical, and theological challenges the German Benedictines had to face between 1740 and 1803, and how the Enlightenment process influenced the self-understanding and lifestyle of these religious communities. It had an impact on their forms of communication, their transfer of knowledge, their relationships to worldly authorities and to the academic world, and also their theology and philosophy. The multifaceted achievements of enlightened monks, which included a strong belief in individual freedom, tolerance, human rights, and non-violence, show that monasticism was on the way to becoming fully integrated into the Enlightenment. Ulrich L. Lehner refutes the widespread assumption that monks were reactionary enemies of Enlightenment ideas. On the contrary, he demonstrates that many Benedictines implemented the new ideas of the time into their own systems of thought. This revisionist account contributes to a better understanding not only of monastic culture in Central Europe, but also of Catholic religious culture in general.

The complete and unedited edition of Thomas Merton's famous autobiography, one of the greatest works of spiritual pilgrimage ever written. 'The Seven Storey Mountain is a book one reads with a pencil so as to make it one's own.' Graham Greene 'A remarkable book, a classic of its kind, written in a vivid, rich and alert style which ranges from crisp vernacular to passionate eloquence, full of picturesque incident and passing at times into religious ecstasy.' The Times Literary Supplement 'A book which may well prove to be of permanent interest in the history of religious experience.' Evelyn Waugh

This book collects twelve of the papers given at a conference held at the Library of Congress, Washington D.C., on 1-3 April 1993, in conjunction with the exhibition `Rome Reborn: The Vatican Library and Renaissance Culture'. A group of distinguished scholars considered music in medieval and Renaissance Rome. The volume presents a series of wide-ranging and original treatments of music written for and performed in the papal court from the fourteenth to the sixteenth century. New discoveries are offered which force a radical reevaluation of the Italian papal court as a musical centre during the Great Schism. A series of motets for various popes are subject to close analysis. New interpretations and information are offered concerning the repertory of the papal chapel in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the institutional life of the papal singers, and the individual biographies of singers and composers. Thought-provoking, even controversial, evaluations of the music of composers connected with, or thought to be connected with, Rome and the papal court, such as Ninot le Petit, Josquin, and Palestrina round out the volume.

This book presents a range of perspectives on the current state of Catholic education in the opening decades of the twenty-first century. All of the chapters have their origin in an International Conference on Catholic Education, held at Heythrop College (University of London) in September 2016. The book brings together many leading scholars to present a survey of the latest research on Catholic education in areas such as the aims of Catholic education, Catholic schools and Catholic identity, leadership issues in Catholic schools and fresh thinking about the place of Religious Education (RE) in Catholic Education. This book demonstrates how the field of Catholic Education Studies has firmly come of age. Rather than being a subfield of educational or theological discourse, it is now an established field of research and study. As such, the book invites readers to engage with much of the new thinking on Catholic education that has grown rapidly in recent years. It offers a broad range of contemporary perspectives on research in Catholic Education and rich insights into current thinking about Catholic Education.

The Catholic Church still takes an ambivalent stance toward homosexuality, declaring that homosexuals should be respected and not discriminated against while morally condemning their intimate relationships. This volume presents exegetical, theological, and ethical arguments as well as evidence from the human sciences to advocate for the recognition of homosexuality as a natural variant of the human capacities to love and to form relationships.

Philip Schaff's The Creeds of Christendom is a massive set, originally published in three volumes and here reproduced across five volumes, cataloging and explaining the many different creeds from the myriad Christian denominations. The differences in belief between Calvinists, Lutherans, and Presbyterians, for example, can often be subtle, so a thorough examination of the particulars as well as an explanation for how those different beliefs result in a different worldview is necessary. Volume Two covers: . Scripture Confessions . the Anti-Nicene and Nicene Rules of Faith and Baptismal Creeds . Symbola ecumenica . Romans Creeds . Greek and Russian Creeds . Orthodox Confessions of the Eastern Church . the Confession of Dositheus, or the Eighteen Decrees of the Synod of Jerusalem . the Longer Catechism of the Orthodox, Catholic, Eastern Church . and the Old Catholic Union Creeds. Swiss theologian PHILIP SCHAFF (1819-1893) was educated in Germany and eventually came to the United States to teach at the German Reformed Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania. He wrote a number of books and hymnals for children, including History of the Christian Church and The Creeds of the Evangelical Protestant Churches.

An invaluable collection of primary sources for the study of eighteenth-century convent life. Between 1728 and 1744 the Catholic lawyer Mannock Strickland (1673-1744) acted as agent for English nuns living on the Continent, including St Monica's, Louvain, the Brussels Dominicans and the Dunkirk Benedictines. Most convent archives perished at the French Revolution, but Strickland's papers survived in the archives of Mapledurham House, Oxfordshire, offering a unique insight into the workings of English convents. These extraordinary documents reveal the reality of exile for a group of formidable yet vulnerable women, "doubly dead" to English law. Two hundred letters tell stories of hardship, isolation, severe winters, war, starvation, Jacobite intrigue and international finance. They show that convent bursars became skilled at playing international exchange markets yet remained at the mercy of unscrupulous investors. The letters are presented here with full notes; a thorough introduction sets theletters, cash day books, bills of exchange and other documents in context. Richard G. Williams is Librarian and Archivist of Mapledurham House; he has also held senior posts at the University of Warwick, Imperial College London, Birkbeck College London and at Yale University.

Unlike most recent studies of the Catholic Church in Latin America, Philip William's book sets out to analyze the Church in two very dissimilar political contexts - Nicaragua and Costa Rica, focusing especially on the period since Vatican II.;Despite the obvious differences, Williams uses first-hand research to argue that in both cases the Church has responded to social change in a remarkably similar fashion. The efforts of progressive clergy to promote change in both countries has been largely blocked by Church hierarchs, fearful that such change will threaten the Church's influence in society.

This open access book reconstructs and examines a crucial episode of Anglo-Iberian diplomatic rivalry: the clash between the Portuguese-sponsored Jesuit missionaries and the English East India Company (EIC) at the Mughal court between 1580 and 1615. This 35-year period includes the launch of the first Jesuit mission to Akbar's court in 1580 and the preparation of the royal embassy led by Sir Thomas Roe to negotiate the concession of trading privileges to the EIC, and encompasses not only the extension of the conflict between the Iberian crowns and England into Asia, but also the consolidation of the Mughal Empire. The book examines the proselytizing and diplomatic activities of the Jesuit missionaries, the evolution of English diplomatic strategies concerning the Mughal Empire, and how the Mughal authorities instigated and exploited Anglo-Iberian rivalry in the pursuit of specific commercial, geopolitical, and ideological agendas.