What Catholic social thought can teach thinkers of all faiths and backgrounds about equitable economics Inequality is skyrocketing. In a world of vast riches, millions of people live in extreme poverty, barely surviving from day to day. All over the world, the wealthy's increasing political power is biasing policy away from the public interest toward the financial interests of the rich. At the same time, many countries are facing financial fragility and diminished well-being. On top of it all, a global economy driven by fossil fuels has proven to be a collective act of self-sabotage with the poor on the front lines. A growing chorus of economists and politicians is demanding a new paradigm to create a global economy for the common good. In Cathonomics, Anthony M. Annett unites insights in economics with those from theology, philosophy, climate science, and psychology, exposing the failures of neoliberalism while offering us a new model rooted in the wisdom of Catholic social teaching and classical ethical traditions. Drawing from the work of Pope Leo XIII, Pope Francis, Thomas Aquinas, and Aristotle, Annett applies these teachings to discuss current economic challenges such as inequality, unemployment and underemployment, climate change, and the roles of business and finance. Cathonomics is an ethical and practical guide to readers of all faiths and backgrounds seeking to create a world economy that is more prosperous, inclusive, and sustainable for all.

"Priest and Parish in Vienna, 1780 to 1880 is a bold, new social and cultural history of religion in modern Europe. By establishing some of the most important parameter of religious life, such as parish demographics, the economics of parish life, the social and national background of priests, and the world of Catholic sacrament and feastdays, this book contextualizes for the first time the contentious social and cultural relationship between religion and society in nineteenth-century Vienna.
In the nineteenth century, parish priests confronted tumultuous social changes such as industrialization and urbanization, which eroded clerical influence in Austria. Priests did not react well to this development and by the 1880s turned to party political activity in defense of their position within Austrian society. Eventually, many of the parish priests were mobilized into Karl Lueger's Christian Social movement. Parish priests, a very important and influential group in Austria, were therefore changed from servants of the state into political activists.

Abraham argues that a theological imagination can expand the contours of postcolonial theory through a reexamination of notions of subjectivity, gender, and violence in a dialogical model with Karl Rahner. She questions of whether postcolonial theory, with its disavowal of religious agency, can provide an invigorating occasion for Catholic theology.

This is a fresh look at the impact of the English Reformation at parish level. It provides a perceptive exploration of the role of the Catholic priesthood in the church and in the life of the community. Using a wide range of contemporary sources, Dr Marshall demonstrates how the practical consequences of the Reformation undermined the fragile modus vivendi that had sustained the late medieval system.

This ambitious survey launches a major new five-volume series. It explores the response of the papacy, one of the world's longest-enduring institutions, to the multiplying challenges of the modern age. It runs from the French Revolution to the fall of the Soviet Union, ending with the pontificate of John Paul II, the first non-Italian pope since 1522. Frank Coppa examines the impact of major events like the Napoleonic conquests, Italian unification, two World Wars and the Cold War; he explores the attitudes of the papacy to such issues as liberalism, nationalism, fascism, communism and the modern, secular age; he examines the growing concern of the popes for the Catholic world beyond its traditional European home; and he tackles, objectively and judiciously, contentious topics like the "silence" of Pius XII. Engrossingly readable, the book offers a fresh and invigorating perspective on international relations across the past two centuries, and on the political and ideological emergence of the modern world, as well as its specifically papal concerns.

Based on a fresh reading of primary sources, Lindy Grant's comprehensive biography of Abbot Suger (1081-1151) provides a reassessment of a key figure of the twelfth century. Active in secular and religious affairs alike - Suger was Regent of France and also abbot of one of the most important abbeys in Europe during the time of the Gregorian reforms. But he is primarily remembered as a great artistic patron whose commissions included buildings in the new Gothic style. Lindy Grant reviews him in all these roles - and offers a corrective to the current tendency to exaggerate his role as architect of both French royal power and the new gothic form.

Religion in Europe is currently undergoing changes that are reconfiguring physical and virtual spaces of practice and belief, and these changes need to be understood with regards to the proliferation of digital media discourses. This book explores religious change in Europe through a comparative approach that analyzes Atheist, Catholic, and Muslim blogs as spaces for articulating narratives about religion that symbolically challenge the power of religious institutions. The book adds theoretical complexity to the study of religion and digital media with the concept of hypermediated religious spaces. The theory of hypermediation helps to critically discuss the theory of secularization and to contextualize religious change as the result of multiple entangled phenomena. It considers religion as being connected with secular and post-secular spaces, and media as embedding material forms, institutions, and technologies. A spatial perspective contextualizes hypermediated religious spaces as existing at the interstice of alternative and mainstream, private and public, imaginary and real venues. By offering the innovative perspective of hypermediated religious spaces, this book will be of significant interest to scholars of religious studies, the sociology of religion, and digital media.

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.

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.