The Rule of St. Benedictforms the foundation for one of the oldest ongoing institutions in all of Western civilization. The Rule not only defines life for men and women in monasteries but has also become central to the spirituality of lay Christians across the globe. This gender-neutral translation is true to the original text but provides an alternative for individuals and groups who prefer such a version over the masculine language of the original as it was written for St. Benedict's monks. It also offers some background into the context in which it was written, as well as reflections on its meaning for contemporary life, making it a resource for those encountering the Rule for the first time or those who have cherished it for years. See also version with the Rule in inclusive translation only (no commentary) by Judith Sutera, OSB

A Survey of Catholic History in Modern Japan discusses Japanese Catholic history from the Meiji period (1868-1912) to the present. The aim of this highly original book is to consider the relevance of Japanese Catholics to political and cultural circumstances in modern and contemporary Japan.

The Dictionary contains 135 biographical-critical essays on contemporary Catholic American poets, dramatists, and fiction writers. Not since Hoehn's "Catholic Authors: Contemporary Biographical Sketches, 1930-1947" has such an inventory of Catholic American writers appeared. The Works By bibliographies contain all of each author's productions be they fiction, poetry, drama or non-fiction. The Works About bibliographies to each essay cite five critical studies or, where none exists, book reviews, plus references to other biographical sources. The Introduction explores the diversity of belief in contemporary Catholic expression. An essay by Professor Genaro Padilla examines the place of Catholicism in the work of Hispanic writers in the United States today. A partial list of the authors contained here reads like a Who's Who of American literary luminaries and includes such writers as John Gregory Dunne, Mary Gordon, Flannery O'Connor, Walker Percy, Don Delillo, Robert Stone, and Maureen Howard.

As a resource for further research on the authors contained, for continued reflection on the various forms of contemporary Catholic American writing, and for renewed scholarly interest in many excellent and often-neglected literary texts, the "Biographical Dictionary of Contemporary Catholic American Writing" deserves a place in most academic and public libraries. Generalists and English teachers and majors will find its perusal fascinating and rewarding.

Catholic Greg Bourke's profoundly moving memoir about growing up gay and overcoming discrimination in the battle for same-sex marriage in the US. In this compelling and deeply affecting memoir, Greg Bourke recounts growing up in Louisville, Kentucky, and living as a gay Catholic. The book describes Bourke's early struggles for acceptance as an out gay man living in the South during the 1980s and '90s, his unplanned transformation into an outspoken gay rights activist after being dismissed as a troop leader from the Boy Scouts of America in 2012, and his historic role as one of the named plaintiffs in the landmark United States Supreme Court decision Obergefell vs. Hodges, which legalized same-sex marriage nationwide in 2015. After being ousted by the Boy Scouts of America (BSA), former Scoutmaster Bourke became a leader in the movement to amend antigay BSA membership policies. The Archdiocese of Louisville, because of its vigorous opposition to marriage equality, blocked Bourke's return to leadership despite his impeccable long-term record as a distinguished boy scout leader. But while making their home in Louisville, Bourke and his husband, Michael De Leon, have been active members at Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church for more than three decades, and their family includes two adopted children who attended Lourdes school and were brought up in the faith. Over many years and challenges, this couple has managed to navigate the choppy waters of being openly gay while integrating into the fabric of their parish life community. Bourke is unapologetically Catholic, and his faith provides the framework for this inspiring story of how the Bourke De Leon family struggled to overcome antigay discrimination by both the BSA and the Catholic Church and fought to legalize same-sex marriage across the country. Gay, Catholic, and American is an illuminating account that anyone, no matter their ideological orientation, can read for insight. It will appeal to those interested in civil rights, Catholic social justice, and LGBTQ inclusion.

Pray, Hope, and Don't Worry: True Stories of Padre Pio, Book II, written by Diane Allen and published by Padre Pio Press, contains 39 chapters and 480 pages. The author continued to research and study the life and spirituality of Padre Pio for her second book on the saint who has often been referred to as "the greatest mystic of the 20th Century."
Included in the book are a number of interviews the author conducted with those who met Padre Pio personally and had a testimony to share.
One of the personal testimonies in Pray, Hope, and Don't Worry Book II, is the story of the cloistered Carmelite nun, Sister Pia of Jesus Crucified, who found her vocation to religious life on her first visit to San Giovanni Rotondo and made her confession to Padre Pio on many occasions. The testimony of Alex Quinn, popular songwriter and recording artist of Belfast, Northern Ireland is also featured. Alex tells of the miracle his family received through the intercession of Padre Pio.
Additional chapters: Padre Pio - An Extraordinary Confessor, Padre Pio's Love for the Holy Angels, The Clergy Remembers Padre Pio, Padre Pio's Gift of Bilocation, Padre Pio's Prophetic Spirit, More Stories from the War Years, Padre Pio's Healing Touch, Padre Pio and the Children, Padre Pio's Seraphic Father: St. Francis of Assisi and much more. Padre Pio's prayers are also included.
"I wish to thank the Lord for having given us dear Padre Pio, for having given him to our generation in this very tormented century. In his love for God and for his brothers and sisters, he is a sign of great hope."
- Pope John Paul II

John Fisher, 1469-1535 was a figure of European stature during the Tudor age. His many roles included those of bishop, humanist, theologian, cardinal, and ultimately martyr. This study places him in the context of sixteenth-century Christendom, focusing not just on his resistance to Henry VIII, but also on his active engagement with the renaissance and reformation.

During World War I, the Catholic church blocked the distribution of government-sponsored V.D. prevention films, initiating an era of attempts by the church to censor the movie industry. This book is an entertaining and engrossing account of those efforts-how they evolved, what effect they had on the movie industry, and why they were eventually abandoned. Frank Walsh tells how the church's influence in Hollywood grew through the 1920s and reached its peak in the 1930s, when the film industry allowed Catholics to dictate the Production Code, which became the industry's self-censorship system, and the Legion of Decency was established by the church to blacklist any films it considered offensive. With the industry's Joe Breen, a Catholic layman, cutting movie scenes during production and the Legion of Decency threatening to ban movies after release, the Catholic church played a major role in determining what Americans saw and didn't see on the screen during Hollywood's Golden Age. Walsh provides fascinating details about the church's efforts to guard against anything it felt might corrupt moviegoers' morals: forcing Gypsy Rose Lee to change her screen name; investigating Frank Sinatra's fitness to play a priest in Miracle of the Bells; altering a dance sequence in Oklahoma; eliminating marital infidelity from Two-Faced Woman; compelling Howard Hughes to make 147 cuts in The Outlaw; blocking the distribution of Birth of a Baby; and attacking Asphalt Jungle for serving the "crooked purposes of the Soviet Union." However, notes Walsh, there were serious divisions within the church over film policy. Bishops feuded with one another over how best to deal with movie moguls, priests differed over whether attending a condemned film constituted a serious sin, and Legion of Decency reviewers disagreed over film evaluations. Walsh shows how the decline of the studio system, the rise of a new generation of better-educated Catholics, and changing social values gradually eroded the Legion's power, forcing the church eventually to terminate its efforts to control the type of film that Hollywood turned out. In an epilogue he relates this history of censorship to current efforts by Christian fundamentalists to end "sex, violence, filth, and profanity" in the media.

Forming Catholic Communities assesses the histories of Irish, English and Scots colleges established abroad in the early-modern period for Catholic students. The contributions provide a co-ordinated series of case studies which reflect the most up-to-date research on the colleges. The essays address interactions with European states, international networking, educational frameworks, financial challenges, print culture and institutional survival into the nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. From these essays, the colleges emerge as unexpectedly complex institutions. With their financial, pastoral, and intellectual networks, they provided an educational infrastructure that, whatever its short-comings, remained crucial to the domestic and international communities they served during more than two centuries.

This study is in its broadest sense an inquiry into the intellectual origins of the Reformed branch of Protestantism generally, but inaccurately, designated Calvinism. More specifically, it concerns one of the early theologians who gave formative shape to Reformed theology, Peter Martyr Vermigli (1499-1562), and focuses on his adoption of the soteriological doctrine of gemina praedestinatio, double predestination: divine election and divine reprobation. One of the most erudite men of his age, Vermigli was also one of the most remarkable, for his religious career spanned the ecclesiastical horizon from prominence as a Roman Catholic theologian to one of the formative theologians of sixteenth century Reformed Protestantism. No other theologian of the early sixteenth century was so distinguished in both camps. James argues that Vermigli derived the doctrine of gemina praedestinatio from the writings of Gregory of Rimini and that it was fully formed before he allied himself with the Protestant cause, thus illustrating an important aspect of soteriological continuity between late medieval and reformation thought.

'These prayers help me to pray... All prayer is talking to God as to a friend, and it is God's closest friends who can teach me how to do that best.' Timothy Radcliffe OPThis treasury of prayers for the Third Christian Millennium offers practical spiritual guidance for an increasingly busy world.The late Cardinal Basil Hume, in his Introduction, writes that the need for us to be people of prayer has never been more urgent. We know that unless we are deeply rooted in a sense of God's presence and able to refer all things to God, then our pilgrimage into the future will be marked more by uncertainty than by the peace which is God's gift.The book's extensive range includes favourite Catholic prayers such as the Rosary and the Stations of the Cross, along with others that may be less familiar, organized under many different themes and topics. Helpful introductions and a pattern of daily prayers make this book nothing less than a course in Christian spirituality.The book is for people approaching Christian prayer for the first time, and also for those who want to begin afresh. It will be especially helpful to young people, and the parents and teachers who want to help them learn to pray in the living tradition of the Church.