The Deposit of Faith: What the Catholic Church Really Believes, by Monsignor Eugene Kevane, is a treasure of information for teachers of catechetical instruction. In the wake of the Heresy of Modernism, Catholics everywhere, especially parents of Catholic children, have experienced the proliferation of new opinions, the exclusion of the Deposit of Faith, and the suppression of the Catechism by religious educators. This book portrays what Jesus Christ, as God, wanted the Apostles and through them the future members of His Church to know and teach. He made it very clear: Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away (Mk. 13, 31). An earlier volume, Jesus the Divine Teacher, explains how Jesus taught; this second one presents what he taught. This book provides an opportunity for all Catholics and all religious people to review their own convictions and explore the depth of their spiritual lives. In a special way, the author presents in this volume the knowledge and information, which can help bishops, priests, religious, catechists, parents and all the laity regain their equilibrium and rebuild their faith and spiritual lives. Deposit of Faith.

Since the Second Vatican Council (1962-5), the Catholic Church has formally declared the possibility of salvation for atheists: 'those who, without fault, have not yet arrived at an express recognition of God' (Lumen Gentium 16). However, in the very same document, the Council also reiterates the traditional doctrine of the necessity of faith, baptism, and the mediation of Church in order for someone to be saved (Lumen Gentium 14). This monograph explores how these two seemingly contradictory claims may satisfactorily be reconciled. Specifically, it asks - and ultimately answers - the question: How, within the parameters of Catholic dogmatic theology, is it possible for an atheist to be saved? As the first full-length study of this topic since Vatican II, the book discusses crucial foundational issues - the understanding of 'atheist' in Catholic theology; the developing views on both unbelief, and the salvation of non-Christians, in the decades preceding the Council - before tackling the conciliar teaching itself. Considerable attention is then given to the classic solution of imputing an 'implicit' faith to righteous atheists, best known from Karl Rahner's theory of 'anonymous Christians' (though the basic idea was advocated by many other major figures, including Ratzinger, Schillebeeckx, de Lubac, Balthasar, and Kung). After discussing Rahner's specific proposals in detail, this kind of approach is however shown to be untenable. In its place, a new way of understanding Vatican II's optimism for atheists is developed in detail, in light of scripture, tradition, and magisterium. This draws principally on Christ's descent into Hell, a renewed understanding of invincible ignorance, and a literal interpretation of Matthew 25.

"Catholic Culture in the USA" articulates how theological teachings trickle down from the Vatican and influence decisions about food, marriage, sex, community celebrations, and medical care. This study of American Catholicism summarizes a widespread contemporary tendency to adapt traditional spirituality to a world of moral diversity, to hold onto some essential portions of religious experience in an increasingly secular world. "Catholic Culture in the USA" articulates what is perhaps only implicit in other scholarship with regard to how theological teachings trickle down from the Vatican and influence decisions about food, marriage, sex, community celebrations, and medical care. John Portmann defends these Catholic dissidents and explores alternative expressions of Catholic devotion. Taking a holistical approach, the author indicates cultural change as resulting from interaction among individual rights assertions, grassroots mobilization, scholarly production and legislative innovation. Finally, the book ties contemporary Catholicism into the broad 'I'm spiritual but not religious' trend sweeping through the United States. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of Religion, Christianity, Catholic Studies, and Religion in America.

Based on a decade of field research, Crossing Swords is the first book-length, scholarly examination in English of the role of Catholicism in Mexican society from the 1970s to 1995, and the increasing political activism of the Catholic church and clergy. The book provides the first analysis of church-state relations in Latin America that incorporates detailed interviews with numerous bishops and clergy and leading politicians about how they see each other and how religion influences their values. Camp offers an inside look at the decision-making process of bishops at the diocesan level and draws on national survey research to examine prevailing Mexican attitudes toward religion, Christianity, and Catholicism both before, during, and after Mexico's constitutional changes on church-state relations. Incorporating comparative literature from the United States and Europe, Crossing Swords reaches a number of challenging conclusions about the interlocking relationship between religion and politics, casting light on both general theoretical arguments and on the peculiarities of the Mexican case. A comprehensive and original look at a topic of importance well beyond Mexico, this book will be essential reading for scholars and students of religion generally as well as those involved with Latin America.

This is a true story of my past which has allowed me to view change by faith. This text concentrates on the growth of mutual respect and awareness of a changing environment to the world we live in. Understanding the knowledge to which it's presented systematically. I advocate the voices in the teaching I've received and refuse to allow myself to become a victim without options.

This collection of mostly original essays by scholars and Catholic Worker activists provides a systematic, analytical study of the emergence and nature of pacifism in the largest single denomination in the United States: Roman Catholicism. The collection underscores the pivotal role of Dorothy Day's Catholic Worker movement in challenging the conventional understanding of just-war principles and the American Catholic Church's identification with uncritical militarism. Also included are a study of Dorothy Day's preconversion pacifism, previously unpublished letters from Dorothy Day to Thomas Merton, Eileen Egan's account of the birth and early years of Pax, the Catholic Worker-inspired peace organization, and in-depth coverage of how the contemporary Plowshares movement emerged from the Catholic Worker movement.

Contemporary scholarship recognizes in Maximus the Confessor a theologian of towering intellectual importance. In this book Adam G. Cooper puts to him a question which from the origins of Christian thought has constituted an interpretative crux for catholic Christianity: what is the place of the material order and, specifically, of the human body, in God's creative, redemptive, and perfective economies? While the study builds upon the insights of other efforts in Maximian scholarship, it primarily presents an engagement with the full vista of Maximus's own writings, providing a unique contribution towards an intelligent apprehension of this erudite but often impenetrable theological mind.

Jan Karski's Story of a Secret State stands as one of the most poignant and inspiring memoirs of World War II and the Holocaust. With elements of a spy thriller, documenting his experiences in the Polish Underground, and as one of the first accounts of the systematic slaughter of the Jews by the German Nazis, this volume is a remarkable testimony of one man's courage and a nation's struggle for resistance against overwhelming oppression. Karski was a brilliant young diplomat when war broke out in 1939 with Hitler's invasion of Poland. Taken prisoner by the Soviet Red Army, which had simultaneously invaded from the East, Karski narrowly escaped the subsequent Katyn Forest Massacre. He became a member of the Polish Underground, the most significant resistance movement in occupied Europe, acting as a liaison and courier between the Underground and the Polish government-in-exile. He was twice smuggled into the Warsaw Ghetto, and entered the Nazi's Izbica transit camp disguised as a guard, witnessing first-hand the horrors of the Holocaust. Karski's courage and testimony, conveyed in a breathtaking manner in Story of a Secret State, offer the narrative of one of the world's greatest eyewitnesses and an inspiration for all of humanity, emboldening each of us to rise to the challenge of standing up against evil and for human rights. This definitive edition-which includes a foreword by Madeleine Albright, a biographical essay by Yale historian Timothy Snyder, an afterword by Zbigniew Brzezinski, previously unpublished photos, notes, further reading, and a glossary-is an apt legacy for this hero of conscience during the most fraught and fragile moment in modern history.

The latest book from veteran O'Neillian Edward L. Shaughnessy, Down the Nights and Down the Days: Eugene O'Neill's Catholic Sensibility examines a major aspect of the playwright's vision: the influence of his Catholic heritage upon his moral imagination. Critics, aware of O'Neill's early renunciation of faith at the age of fifteen, have been inclined to overlook this presence in his work.

However, Shaughnessy does uncover evidence that O'Neill retained the impress of his Irish Catholic upbringing and acculturation. Shaughnessy advances this analysis with examples from the O'Neill canon, including several of the key plays (Long Day's Journey into Night, The Iceman Cometh, Mourning Becomes Electra), as well as some of the lesser-known works (Welded and Days Without end).

Down the Nights and Down the Days: Eugene O'Neill's Catholic Sensibility offers a fresh and thought-provoking look at the life and work of this nation's most internationally honored playwright.