Peter the Venerable (d. 1156), the powerful abbot of Cluny, left behind not only extensive letter collections, but also polemical treatises intended to refute contemporary challenges to Christianity. Perhaps the most important is Against the Inveterate Obduracy of the Jews (Adversus Judeorum inveteratam duritiem), written between Against the Saracens (ca. 1150) and Against the Petrobrusians (ca. 1139-41). Against the Inveterate Obduracy of the Jews represents a turning point in medieval anti-Jewish polemics. On the one hand, the polemic's intention-to bring about the conversion of the Jews-is predicated on an assumption that Jews are rational agents who may be persuaded of Christian truths by philosophical argument, empirical evidence, and proper biblical exegesis. On the other hand, Peter also introduced the notion that the Jews' enduring ""blindness"" stems from a persistent strain of bestial irrationality, for which they themselves are responsible. Peter traces this irrationality to the medieval Jews' commitment to the Talmud. Peter is the first medieval Christian author to name the Talmud explicitly. The Jewish convert to Christianity, Petrus Alfonsi, had ridiculed Talmudic folklore in his Dialogue Against the Jews. Peter the Venerable borrowed from but also surpassed Alfonsi's critique, as even his use of the name Talmud indicates. By emphasizing the irrationality of the Jews, Peter cast doubt upon their essential humanity and paved the way toward an increasingly violent treatment of the Jewish minority in medieval Christendom. Perhaps for this reason, Peter's Against the Inveterate Obduracy of the Jews has been popular among modern anti-Semites as well. With this translation, Irven M. Resnick makes the complete work available for the first time in English.

\"It\'s almost upon us \" yelled a frantic voice as the ship neared the iceberg. \"God\'s Will be done, \" prayed Mother Marie. If God wanted her to drown in the icy Atlantic Ocean before ever reaching Canada, His Holy Will be done. Yet perhaps . . . This book tells what happened next, plus the many other adventures that met the Sisters who brought the Holy Catholic Faith to Canada. 152 Pp. PB. Impr. 18 Illus.

In this short and penetrating study, Paul McPartlan, a member of the international Roman Catholic-Orthodox theological dialogue, presents a proposal, carefully argued both historically and theologically, for a primacy exercising a service of love in a reconciled church, West and East. McPartlan builds on the substantial foundation already laid in the dialogue for an understanding of the church in terms of the Eucharist.

Contemporary western culture is awash with ideologies that reduce sexuality to an outlet for pleasure, an ecstatic form of release needed for personal fulfillment, or a commodity to be bought and sold. Many Christians living in such a culture find themselves uncertain as to how to respond from within churches torn by controversy, embarrassed by scandal, and thus driven into uneasy silence on sexual matters. Catholic moral theology, itself at the epicentre of this controversy over sexual issues since ""Humanae vitae"", has struggled to respond to the call for renewal issues by the Second Vatican Council. This book provides a theological foundation for consideration of the moral dimensions of human sexuality from a Roman Catholic perspective. Drawing upon key biblical themes such as covenant, discipleship and beatitude, it proposes an understanding of covenant fidelity wedded to the virtue of chastity that provides a suitable framework for a Catholic and Christian approach to issues of sexuality in a contemporary context. What is needed to counter dominant cultural ideologies is a vision of sexuality as integral to the human vocation to communion as well as attention to the specific practices that enable persons to grow in moral goodness. This work represents an original synthesis of biblical categories, the tradition and language of virtue, and a theological understanding of the human person. It is also among the first systematic applications of the renewal of virtue theory in recent decades to issues of sexuality.

This book explores the effect of Catholicism on the imagination and the fiction of Protestant novelists in England during the decades surrounding Catholic Emancipation (1829) and the reestablishment of the Roman Catholic Church in England (1850). This book examines anti-Catholicism in popular and respected novelists such as Scott and Dickens, showing the secret attraction to Catholicism of staunch anti-Catholic Protestants.

A revealing account of contemporary tensions between Jews and Christians, playing out beneath the surface of conciliatory interfaith dialogue. A new chapter in Jewish-Christian relations opened in the second half of the twentieth century when the Second Vatican Council exonerated Jews from the accusation of deicide and declared that the Jewish people had never been rejected by God. In a few carefully phrased statements, two millennia of deep hostility were swept into the trash heap of history. But old animosities die hard. While Catholic and Jewish leaders publicly promoted interfaith dialogue, doubts remained behind closed doors. Catholic officials and theologians soon found that changing their attitude toward Jews could threaten the foundations of Christian tradition. For their part, many Jews perceived the new Catholic line as a Church effort to shore up support amid atheist and secular advances. Drawing on extensive research in contemporary rabbinical literature, Karma Ben-Johanan shows that Jewish leaders welcomed the Catholic condemnation of antisemitism but were less enthusiastic about the Church's sudden urge to claim their friendship. Catholic theologians hoped Vatican II would turn the page on an embarrassing history, hence the assertion that the Church had not reformed but rather had always loved Jews, or at least should have. Orthodox rabbis, in contrast, believed they were finally free to say what they thought of Christianity. Jacob's Younger Brother pulls back the veil of interfaith dialogue to reveal how Orthodox rabbis and Catholic leaders spoke about each other when outsiders were not in the room. There Ben-Johanan finds Jews reluctant to accept the latest whims of a Church that had unilaterally dictated the terms of Jewish-Christian relations for centuries.

From Fr. Michael E. Gaitley, MIC, author of the bestselling book Consoling the Heart of Jesus, comes an extraordinary 33-day journey to Marian consecration with four giants of Marian spirituality: St. Louis de Montfort, St. Maximilian Kolbe, Blessed Teresa of Calcutta, and Blessed John Paul II. Fr. Michael masterfully summarizes their teaching, making it easy to grasp and simple enough to put into practice. More specifically, he weaves their thought into a user-friendly, do-it-yourself retreat that will bless even the busiest of people. So, if you've been thinking about entrusting yourself to Mary for the first time or if you're simply looking to deepen and renew your devotion to her, 33 Days to Morning Glory is the right book to read and the perfect retreat to make.