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Books > Religion & Spirituality > Christianity > Roman Catholicism, Roman Catholic Church > General
On May 17th, 1968, a group of Catholic antiwar activists burst into
a draft board in suburban Baltimore, stole hundreds of Selective
Service records (which they called "death certificates"), and
burned the documents in a fire fueled by homemade napalm. The bold
actions of the ''Catonsville Nine'' quickly became international
news and captured headlines throughout the summer and fall of 1968
when the activists, defended by radical attorney William Kunstler,
were tried in federal court. In The Catonsville Nine, Shawn Francis
Peters, a Catonsville native, offers the first comprehensive
account of this key event in the history of 1960's protest. While
thousands of supporters thronged the streets outside the
courthouse, the Catonsville Nine-whose ranks included activist
priests Philip and Daniel Berrigan-delivered passionate indictments
of the war in Vietnam and the brutality of American foreign policy.
The proceedings reached a stirring climax, as the nine activists
led the entire courtroom (the judge and federal prosecutors
included) in the Lord's Prayer. Peters gives readers vivid,
blow-by-blow accounts of the draft raid, the trial, and the ensuing
manhunt for the Berrigans, George Mische, and Mary Moylan, who went
underground rather than report to prison. He also examines the
impact of Daniel Berrigan's play, The Trial of the Catonsville
Nine, and the larger influence of this remarkable act of civil
disobedience. More than 40 years after they stormed the draft
board, the Catonsville Nine are still invoked by both secular and
religious opponents of militarism. Based on a wealth of sources,
including archival documents, the activists' previously unreleased
FBI files, and a variety of eyewitness accounts, The Catonsville
Nine tells a story as relevant and instructive today as it was in
1968.
A history of Catholic social thought Many Americans assume that the
Catholic Church is inherently conservative, based on its stances on
abortion, contraception, and divorce. Yet there is a longstanding
tradition of progressive Catholic movements in the United States
that have addressed a variety of issues from labor, war,
immigration, and environmental protection, to human rights, women's
rights, exploitive development practices, and bellicose foreign
policies. These Catholic social movements have helped to shift the
Church from an institution that had historically supported
incumbent governments and political elites to a Church that has
increasingly sided with the vulnerable and oppressed. This book
provides a concise history of progressively oriented Catholic
Social Thought, which conveys the Catholic Church's position on a
variety of social justice concerns. Sharon Erickson Nepstad
introduces key papal encyclicals and other church documents,
showing how lay Catholics in the United States have put these ideas
into practice through a creative and sometimes provocative
political engagement. Nepstad also explores how these progressive
movements have pressured the religious hierarchy to respond to
pressing social issues, such as women's ordination, conscription,
and the morality of nuclear deterrence policies. Catholic Social
Activism vividly depicts how these progressive movements have
helped to shape the religious landscape of the United States, and
how they have provoked controversy and debate among Catholics and
non-Catholics alike.
Early Modern English Catholicism: Identity, Memory and
Counter-Reformation brings together leading scholars in the field
to explore the interlocking relationship between the key themes of
identity, memory and Counter-Reformation and to assess the way the
three themes shaped English Catholicism in the early modern period.
The collection takes a long-term view of the historical development
of English Catholicism and encompasses the English Catholic
diaspora to demonstrate the important advances that have been made
in the study of English Catholicism c.1570-1800. The
interdisciplinary collection brings together scholars from history,
literary, and art history backgrounds. Consisting of eleven essays
and an afterword by the late John Bossy, the book underlines the
significance of early modern English Catholicism as a contributor
to national and European Counter-Reformation culture.
Domestic Devotions in Early Modern Italy illuminates the vibrancy
of spiritual beliefs and practices which profoundly shaped family
life in this era. Scholarship on Catholicism has tended to focus on
institutions, but the home was the site of religious instruction
and reading, prayer and meditation, communal worship, multi-sensory
devotions, contemplation of religious images and the performance of
rituals, as well as extraordinary events such as miracles. Drawing
on a wide range of sources, this volume affirms the central place
of the household to spiritual life and reveals the myriad ways in
which devotion met domestic needs. The seventeen essays encompass
religious history, the histories of art and architecture, material
culture, musicology, literary history, and social and cultural
history. Contributors are Erminia Ardissino, Michele Bacci, Michael
J. Brody, Giorgio Caravale, Maya Corry, Remi Chiu, Sabrina
Corbellini, Stefano Dall'Aglio, Marco Faini, Iain Fenlon, Irene
Galandra Cooper, Jane Garnett, Joanna Kostylo, Alessia Meneghin,
Margaret A. Morse, Elisa Novi Chavarria, Gervase Rosser, Zuzanna
Sarnecka, Katherine Tycz, and Valeria Viola.
The image of the "cafeteria Catholic" -- one who blithely picks and
chooses those doctrines that suit him -- is a staple of American
culture. But are American Catholics really so nonchalant about how
they integrate the ancient devotional practices of Catholicism with
the everyday struggles of the modern world?
For Sense of the Faithful, Jerome Baggett conducted 300 intensive
interviews with members of six parishes to explore all aspects of
this question. The book is an act of listening that allows ordinary
Catholics to speak for themselves about how they understand their
faith and how they draw upon it to find purpose in their lives.
Many American Catholics, Baggett shows, do indeed have an uneasy
relationship with the official teachings of the Church and struggle
to live faithfully amidst the challenges of the modern world. But
Baggett finds that it is a genuine struggle, one that reveals a
dynamic and self-aware relationship to the Church's teachings.
Moving beyond the simplistic categories of national surveys and the
politically motivated pronouncements of pundits, Sense of the
Faithful ultimately paints a more complex -- and more accurate --
portrait of what it is like to be Catholic in America today.
This is a Brand New exact Reprint of the 1930 Revised Edition of
Elinor Tong Dehey's Religious Orders of Women in the United States.
940 Pages. Hardcover, *Religious Orders of Women in the United
States* was written by Elinor Tong Dehey in 1930. In 1913, the same
author had published an earlier edition of this directory and this
is its revision. Dehey's work was the first attempt EVER made to
collect a listing of every religious order of women in the United
States describing their origins, their foundresses, their works,
activities, charism, way of life clothing (habit) and institutions.
Rev. Thomas McCarthy later published his famous *Guides to Catholic
Sisterhoods*, but Elinor Dehey's book was the first and is much
more extensive in its research and presentation. Unlike the
McCarthy Guides which confine each order to one page, some of
Dehey's entries need many pages (orders like the Ursulines have 40
pages, the Sisters of Mercy have 88 pages and the various Charity
orders have 30 pages). Other smaller, lesser known communities can
be described in a single page or two (like the Sisters of Our Lady
of Charity of the Refuge or the Sisters of the Infant Jesus). The
entries are presented in chronological order starting with the
earliest community in America (the Ursulines in 1727) to the most
recent (1930 Missionary Sisters of Our Lady of Africa). This 940
page hardbound book is filled with over 400 illustrations of
sisters, foundresses, Motherhouses, novitiates and institutions
(schools, colleges, hospitals). Along with historical sketches of
the origins of each order and its founders, the story of the
development of each individual mission in the U. S. is related
including naming the pioneer sisters who sacrificed so much to
spread God's Word and to fulfill their vows. These sketches always
conclude with a Summary chart which lists the official name of the
order, the place and date of its original foundation, a description
of the habit worn by the sisters, the approximate membership
numbers and a listing of their institutions. The Directory ends
with a 50 page supplement giving the addresses of the Motherhouse,
Novitiate, College, Hospital and Boarding Home in the United States
conducted by religious orders of women (in 1930, of course). The
book concludes with a 5 page Glossary of words such as: prioress,
grille, cornette, oblate, bandeau, wimple, coif, guimpe, etc.)
*Religious Orders of Women in the United States* by Elinor Tong
Dehey is the definitive Directory of all of the Catholic
Sisterhoods existing at that time and is an extremely difficult
book to locate.Many Photos.
Ever since its appearance in Europe five centuries ago, the
rosary has been a widespread, highly visible devotion among Roman
Catholics. Its popularity has persisted despite centuries of often
seismic social upheaval, cultural change, and institutional reform.
In form, the rosary consists of a ritually repeated sequence of
prayers accompanied by meditations on episodes in the lives of
Christ and Mary. As a devotional object of round beads strung on
cord or wire, the rosary has changed very little since its
introduction centuries ago. Today, the rosary can be found on
virtually every continent, and in the hands of hard-line
traditionalists as well as progressive Catholics. It is beloved by
popes, professors, protesters, commuters on their way to work,
children learning their "first prayers," and homeless persons
seeking shelter and safety.
Why has this particular devotional object been so ubiquitous and
resilient, especially in the face of Catholicism's reinvention in
the Early Modern, or "Counter-Reformation," Era? Nathan D. Mitchell
argues in lyric prose that to understand the rosary's adaptability,
it is essential to consider the changes Catholicism itself began to
experience in the aftermath of the Reformation.
Unlike many other scholars of this period, Mitchell argues that
after the Reformation Catholicism actually became more innovative
and diversified rather than retrenched and monolithic. This
innovation was especially evident in the sometimes "subversive";
visual representations of sacred subjects, such as in the paintings
of Caravaggio, and in new ways of perceiving the relation between
Catholic devotion and the liturgy's ritual symbols. The rosary was
thus involved not only in how Catholics gave flesh to their faith,
but in new ways of constructing their personal and collective
identity. Ultimately, Mitchell employs the history of the rosary,
and the concomitant devotion to the Virgin Mary with which it is
associated, as a lens through which to better understand early
modern Catholic history.
Leo the Great was the beneficiary of the consolidation of the power
of the papacy in Rome and the Christianization of the city over the
course of the preceding century. In this carefully nuanced study,
Bernard Green demonstrates the influences at work on this
celebrated pope's development as a theological thinker, including
two of the most renowned theological names of the period, Ambrose
of Milan and Augustine of Hippo.
Green charts Leo's theological journey from his first encounters
with the Pelagian and Nestorian controversies, where he engaged
Cassian as an advisor. Leo took an admiring though limited view of
Cyril of Alexandria but misunderstood the weaknesses in Nestorius'
thought. As pope, Leo preached a civic Christianity, accessible to
all citizens, baptising the virtues of the classical and civic
past.
The study then examines Leo's recently dated sermons and reveals
the evolution of his thought as he worked out a soteriology that
gave full value to both the divinity and humanity of Christ,
especially in reaction to Manichaeism. In the crisis that led to
Chalcedon, Leo's earlier misunderstanding of Nestorius affected the
content of his Tome, which was atypical of the Christology and
soteriology he had developed in his earlier preaching. Green
persuasively concludes that its emphasis on the distinction of the
two natures was an uncharacteristic attempt to respond to both
Eutyches and Nestorius, as this pope understood them. In the light
of Chalcedon, Leo produced a revised statement of Christology, the
Letter to the Palestinian monks, which is both more accomplished
and better aligned with his characteristic thought.
There is currently no shared language of vocation among Catholics
in the developed, post-modern world of Europe and North America.
The decline in practice of the faith and a weakened understanding
of Church teaching has led to reduced numbers of people entering
into marriage, religious life and priesthood. Uniquely, this book
traces the development of vocation from scriptural, patristic roots
through Thomism and the Reformation to engage with the modern
vocational crisis. How are these two approaches compatible? The
universal call to holiness is expressed in Lumen Gentium has been
read by some as meaning that any vocational choice has the same
value as any other such choice; is some sense of a higher calling
part of the Catholic theology of vocation or not? Some claim that
the single life is a vocation on a par with marriage and religious
life; what kind of a theology of vocation leads to that conclusion?
And is the secular use of the word 'vocation' to describe certain
profession helpful or misleading in the context of Catholic
theology?
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