'Time and again she pierces the veil of complacency and brings the reader face to face with the deepest levels of existence.' - Church Times

'At the twilight of a century whose accelerated history has led to the rise and fall of so many idols, this book increasingly appears like a message from eternity.' - Gustave Thibon

'One of the most profound religious thinkers of modern times.' - The Twentieth Century, 1961

'We must simply expose ourselves to the personality of a woman of genius, of a kind of genius akin to that of the saints.' - T. S. Eliot

'The light Simone shines makes everything seem, at once, reasurringly recognizable and so luminous as to be heavenly.' - Malcom Muggeridge

'In France she is ranked with Pascal by some, condemned as a dangerous heretic by others, and recognized as a genius by all.' - New York Times Book Review

'The best spiritual writer of this century ... she said it was her vocation to stand at the intersection of Christians and non-Christians. She thus becomes the patron saint of all "outsiders".' - André Gide

Catholic polemical works, and their portrayal of Protestants in print in particular, are the central focus of this work. In contrast with Germany, French Catholics used printing effectively and agressively to promote the Catholic cause. In seeking to explain why France remained a Catholic country, the French Catholic response must be taken into account. Rather than confront the Reformation on its own terms, the Catholic reaction concentrated on discrediting the Protestant cause in the eyes of the Catholic majority. This book aims to contribute to the ongoing debate over the nature of the French Wars of Religion, to explain why they were so violent and why they engaged the loyalities of such a large portion of the population. This study also provides an example of the successful defence of catholicism developed independently and in advance of Tridentine reform which is of wider significance for the history of the Reformation in Europe.

In the early 1980s, in a rural village in South India, a Dalit woman miscarried. She hovered on the edge of deathuntil the Virgin Mary led her to a chapel and possessed her. For years, hundreds of ailing Catholics and Hindus came to this woman for healing, and Mary made them well. Two decades later, in the metropolis of Chennai, a boy named Alex lay in his hospital bed sick with fever when the Virgin Mary appeared to him and told him to walk. He didand at home, he felt Mary enter his body. Soon, his older cousin Rosalind also showed signs of Marian possession. Mary told them that her name was "Jecintho." Within three years, another young woman in Chennai also became possessed by Jecintho and began exhibiting signs of stigmata: blood flowing from her hands and eyes. Possessed by the Virgin is an ethnographic account of Marian possession, healing, and exorcism among Catholics and Hindus in southeast India. Following the lives of three Tamil Roman Catholic women for more than a decade, Kristin C. Boomer attends to the women's own descriptions of their experience with Marian possession, as well as to those of the people who came to them for healing. Her book investigates how possession is possible and in what contexts such experiences can be read as authentic. Roman Catholic officials have responded in various ways: banning certain activities while promoting others. Their responses reflect the complicated relationship of the Roman Catholic Church with non-Christian religious practices on the Indian subcontinent, where "possession" (a term introduced by missionaries) involving deities and spirits has long been commonplace and where gods, goddesses and spirits have long inhabited people. This ground sets the stage for Bloomer to explore questions of agency, gender, subjectivity, and power, and the complex interconnection between the ethnographic "Self" and the "Other."

A volume in Research on Religion and Education Series Editors Stephen J. Denig, Niagara University and Lyndon G. Furst, Andrews University Two major real-world problems prompted this study: maintaining the Catholic identity of the Catholic schools, and increasing interest in character education. Traditionally, Catholic schools in the United States were staffed exclusively by priests, sisters, and brothers. Today, they are predominately staffed by laypersons. This change has influenced the essential religious character and culture of Catholic schools. While Religious filter their teachings through their own religious training and emphasize the mission and charisma of Catholic education, lay staff often lack the same intensely religious experiences to bring to the teaching/learning environment. This qualitative interview study explored the influence that a series of spirituality and virtue seminars had on lay teachers' perceptions of the Catholic school and character education

Widely recognized as one of the dominant figures in Western intellectual tradition, Thomas Aquinas has influenced a variety of fields of thought for centuries. This new anthology of his writings, translated from the original Latin by Hood, contains selections from a broad range of his topics and ideas. It includes works of systemic theology, commentaries on the Bible, Aristotle, and other texts of the classical tradition. Divided into eight chapters, the book offers substantial selections from each of Aquinas' areas of interest: Metaphysics, Natural Science, Human Nature, Law and Ethics, Catholic Theology, the Study of the Bible, Art and Beauty, and the Social World. In vivid translations and enlightening introductions to the selections, Hood provides readers with a rich overview of the important work of this unique thinker.

Without violating the integrity of the original texts, Hood provides his own translations of Aquinas's work and introduces readers to his work in all its diversity. Selections present Aquinas' views on a variety of topics of profound contemporary as well as medieval significance, including politics, economic exchange, war theory, sexual morality, and the role and status of women and religious minorities. Thus, without neglecting subjects such as metaphysics, epistemology, and natural law, which are the focus of other anthologies, Hood offers a broader portrait of Aquinas, his thoughts, and the diversity and richness of the culture that gave rise to both.

The Catholic Reformation provides a comprehensive history of the 'Counter Reformation in early modern Europe. Starting from the middle ages, Michael Mullett clearly traces the continuous transformation of the Catholic religion in its structures, bodies and doctrine. He discusses the gain in momentum of Catholic renewal from the time of the Council of Trent, and considers the profound effect of the Protestant Reformation in accelerating its renovation.
This book explores how and why the Catholic Reformation occurred, stressing that moves towards restoration were underway well before the Protestant Reformation. Michael Mullett also shows the huge impact it had not only on the papacy, Church leaders and religious ritual and practice, but also on the lives of ordinary people - their culture, arts, attitudes and relationships.
Ranging across the continent, The Catholic Reformation is an indispensable new survey which provides a wide-ranging overview of the religious, political and cultural history of the time.

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 Three: Part II covers: . the Anglican Catechism . Modern Protestant Creeds . Recent Confessional Declarations . Terms of Corporate Church Union . the Savoy Declaration of the Congregational Churches . the Confessional of the Waldenses. See Volume Three: Part I for the Table of Contents for this volume. 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.

Adding significantly to our understanding of Southern and American Catholicism, this book provides a detailed history of the Mississippi Church's development in modern times. It focuses on the three bishops of the period--John Gunn, Richard Gerow, and Joseph Brunini--but also considers how the clergy and religious, especially the Irish clergy, facilitated the Church's growth, and how the laity worked to foster the Church in Mississippi's Protestant environment. Examining all facets of Catholic life, particularly the evangelizing roles of Catholic education, Catholic charities, and Catholic hospitals, the author places the Mississippi Church in the context of both its Protestant environment and Southern Catholicism generally. He concludes that the Mississippi Church is in the mainstream of Southern Catholicism, which is distinct from Northern, Midwestern, or Western Catholicism.

Emphasizing the Church's evangelizing activities, he shows that the Mississippi Church has been and remains missionary, that it has a continuing impact on its surroundings, particularly at the local level, and that it is symptomatic of Southern Catholicism. The work is the first scholarly study of the Church in Mississippi in the 20th century. It makes extensive use of primary sources and adds significantly to the growing body of knowledge on Southern and American Catholicism.

The century between the restoration of the Bourbon monarchy in 1875 and the death of Franco in 1975 saw profound social, religious and political changes for the Spanish Catholic church. A turbulent period in Spanish history, the Church endured--and matured--first through the civil war, and then through the Franco dictatorship. Looking at both social and political history as it was recorded in Catholic and ecclesiastical archives, this work examines popular cults, religious communities, the clergy, Catholic social organizations and ecclesiastical politics to present a fully rounded picture of the Catholic life and politics of the time.

John Paul II was the first pope since the early 1600s to view the evil and his minions not only as formidable foes, but as tangible forces which the Catholic church must battle on a daily basis. The priest charged with spearheading this mission is Father Gabriele Amorth and his Office of Exorcism. Revitalising a long-dormant practice, Father Amorth has re-established exorcism as a common rite in the church with a series of seminars and training sessions during which priests from all over the world learn how to fight Satan here on Earth. Tracy Wilkinson gained access to the Vatican's highest authorities,allowing her to cover this story from every angle - both beneficiaries and victims of exorcism, sceptical scientists, devout believers and even those priests within the church who question the revival of the practice.

In this addition to the successful Catholic Commentary on Sacred Scripture, two respected scholars and Bible teachers interpret James and First, Second, and Third John from within the living tradition of the Church. The commentary provides crisp explanations of the text with helpful sidebars and ideas for application to enrich preaching, group Bible study, and personal reflection. This volume presents excellent biblical scholarship in a format accessible to laypeople with no special training in biblical studies.