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.

Jerry L. Walls, the author of books on hell and heaven, completes his tour of the afterlife with a philosophical and theological exploration and defense of purgatory, the traditional teaching that most Christians require a period of postmortem cleansing and purging of their sinful dispositions and imperfections before they will be fully made ready for heaven. He examines Protestant objections to the doctrine and shows that the doctrine of purgatory has been construed in different ways, some of which are fully compatible with Protestant theology. In particular, while purgatory has often been understood as matter of punishment in order to make satisfaction for sins that have not been fully remitted, it can also be seen as the completion of the sanctification process, an account of the doctrine that is fully consistent with the Protestant doctrine of justification by faith. Purgatory assumes not only continuity of personal identity but also gradual moral and spiritual growth between death and resurrection. Different theories of personal identity are examined and assessed in light of these assumptions. Walls also shows that the traditional doctrine of purgatory is not understood as a second chance for salvation, but goes on to argue that it should be modified to allow for postmortem repentance. He concludes with an examination of C.S. Lewis's writings on purgatory, and suggests that Lewis can be a model for evangelicals and other Protestants to engage the doctrine of purgatory in a way that is true to their 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.

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.

This new series, Research on Religion and Education, will examine the important role that religion continues to play in education at all levels, elementary, secondary and tertiary and in all venues, public, private, and parochial schools. A central focus of the series will identify the place of religious schools in maintaining the identity of sponsoring faith communities and the impact these communities have on the school. Other topics will examine differing educational philosophies of religious schools including the non-Christian schools, the appropriate role of religion in public schools, and the impact of religion on the lives of students in higher education. This series will study the impact that religion has on education and education has on religion.

This book features an exploration of the interaction between Darwinian ideas and Catholic doctrine. This coherent collection of original papers marks the 150 year anniversary since the publication of Charles Darwin's "Origin of Species" (1859). Although the area of evolution-related publications is vast, the area of interaction between Darwinian ideas and specifically Catholic doctrine has received limited attention. This interaction is quite distinct from the one between Darwinism and the Christian tradition in general. Interest in Darwin from the Catholic viewpoint has recently been rekindled. The major causes of this include: John Paul II's "Message to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences on Evolution" in 1996; (2) the document "Communion and Stewardship: Human Persons Created in the Image of God" issued in 2002; by the International Theological Commission under the supervision of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the present Pope Benedict XVI; Cardinal Christoph Schonborn apparent endorsement of Intelligent Design in his "New York Times" article "Finding Design in Nature" of July 7, 2005; and, Pope Benedict XVI's contributions in the recent collection of papers "Schopfung und Evolution" ("Creation and Evolution"), published in Germany in April, 2007. Responding to this heightened interest, the book offers a valuable collection of work from outstanding Catholic scholars in various fields.

Hans Urs von Balthasar is emerging as a colossus of twentieth-century theology. More and more of his works are being translated. But as yet he is mainly known only through his great multi-volume trilogy 'Glory', 'Theo-Drama' and Theo-Logic'.Aidan Nichols has treated each part of the trilogy and theearly worksin his widely acclaimed 'Introduction to Hans Urs von Balthasar'.In this final volume he explores all von Balthasar'slater works. Many of these works are extremely important, although several are as yet untranslated and several as yet almost unknown. Nichols ranges widely and comprehensively, from journal articles to his major works, such as 'Apokalypse der deutschen Seele', to his final short works. The result is a wholly new perspective on von Balthasar, a contextualising of his trilogy and an illumination of his whole life and work.