The Catholic Church has a tradition of bridge-building, one founded on Christ and that began with the Apostle St. John and the convert St. Paul. It helped bridge the Hebrew, Greek, and Roman worlds. Later, it helped civilize the tribes that overran Europe. Limits appeared in the Church's bridge-building ability when Europe was confronted with Islam, and later with the secular mentality that arose in Western Europe, as well as in its encounters with China, India, and Africa. Steps Toward Vatican III examines the present dilemmas facing the Church and humanity in an age of globalization that daily brings people of various backgrounds into close proximity. It offers a "middle-way" to face such issues. It develops a global ethics and a global spirituality that can be incarnated within alert, loving, small Christian communities, as well as in the larger Church structures directed from the Vatican. It builds on Vatican II to find paths that may help bring peace and understanding in the world by a sympathetic evaluation of different world traditions. Such sympathy must be informed by the conversions that Jesus and the Church have demanded of their followers.

In 2008, the authors wrote Steps toward Vatican III which explored developments occurring in the Catholic Church including its teachings on social justice, interreligious dialogue, and Small Christian Communities. This update of Steps explores how Pope Francis has developed such themes in original ways in his encyclicals and in his use of synodal consultations. For example, in his Encyclical Laudato Si, the pope seeks to lead us into the mysteries of the universe, of creatures, and the harmony of creation. It helps us reflect on the universal communion of nature. Calling for a global ecological policy and a cooperative approach, the pope warns us that unless we respect nature, the entire planet and humanity will face drastic consequences. In his meetings with economists and entrepreneurs, the pope has proposed a pact for renewing the economy to counteract the asocial aspects of modern business practices. He has discussed some of the most complex problems in today's world--from safeguarding the environment to courageously committing oneself to rethink the economic paradigms of our time. Young people, in particular, have responded with enthusiasm to Pope Francis' initiatives. The book notes how some "traditional" Catholics have opposed the pope, but it argues that, in fact, the pope is more traditional than his critics for he insists on going back to Jesus' own teachings. The new ongoing crises such as the breakdown and rise of new ideologies, terrorism, massive advances in the sciences and in technology, as well as fundamental shifts in gender relations are further factors considered in the book. Indeed, the world is now radically different from the world of the early 1960's when Vatican II Council was held. Due to these many radical changes, the book suggests the need for a Vatican III which would consolidate the Church's global outreach on every continent.

Why is it that Pope Francis is admired by so many? What gives him the uncanny ability to speak with young people in language familiar to them? In this book, John Raymaker and Gerry Gruzden explore the life and writings of Pope Francis which have a prophetic, visionary ability to speak to important issues of the day. The authors evaluate how Pope Francis' encounters with religious leaders of other faiths have broken new ground to help unite mankind. They reach back into Christian history to explore the teachings of such Catholic mystics as Thomas Merton while also delving into the beliefs of Islamic and Buddhist mystics to demonstrate how well the pope is in touch with a spirituality that can speak to those seeking the truth. In its final chapters, the book examines how the pope endorses the work of Christians who live their faith in small Christian communities and reveals how such communities can strengthen parish life in various parts of the world. Like St. Francis, his namesake, and like Teilhard de Chardin before him, the pope has an appropriate vision to rebuild God's Church in a transitional age. His writings have focused on caring for the earth and preaching the good news of the gospels in a way that and allows him to reach young people in need of joy as they face an uncertain future. He is the Conscience of the World.

In this visionary book, John Raymaker and Gerald Grudzen with Joe Holland - three pioneering scholars of religion, philosophy, and culture - first try to read those contemporary signs of the times which indicate that late modern civilization and our entire planet Earth are "on the brink." They do this primarily in relation to the interrelated global financial-ecological crisis. They frame their reading of the signs of the times within the emerging and authentically postmodern "New Cosmology," which sees evo- lution as a co-creative artistic-mystical process, in contrast to the modern secularist- determinist cosmology which sees the Universe as atomistic and mechanical, and as devoid of spiritual meaning or purpose. Seeking a healing response to the late modern global financial-ecological crisis of modernity, their book next probes classical expressions of the "wisdom of the ages," as found in the spiritual and ethical writings of select mystical thinkers from Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam. This probing searches for an inclusive global spirituality that will resonate with creative ecological-mystical cosmology presently arising within the frontiers of philosophy and science. Their book then tries to link that global spirituality to the search for a healing global ethics. In that application, they criticize certain late modern and hypermodern forms of thought (often falsely claiming to be "postmodern"), which fail to provide true solu- tions for the late modern social-ecological breakdown. A true global ethics, their book argues, needs to be rooted in the deep wisdom of all the great spiritual traditions of the human family, including the rich spiritualities of the natural world found in humanity's ancient "indigenous" traditions. Lastly, their book explores how global spirituality and global ethics need to take expres- sion in a regenerative global civilization. This civilization, the book argues, would re- ject the late modern "free-market" model of globalization, which is uprooting humans from their natural communities and from the entire natural world. Instead, it would network and defend the global spiritual solidarity of rooted communities, and protect workers, families, and bioregions on which they depend.

Spirituality and Science: Greek, Judaeo-Christian and Islamic Perspectives shows that the historical origins of Western science lie in the medieval synthesis of Greek science and philosophy with the faith traditions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. This synthesis is most evident in medieval medicine where the synergies of Greek philosophy and Greek science are most evident. The first such Western synthesis of medieval medicine took place in the eleventh cenury at the monastery of Monte Cassino when Constantine the African translated, for the first time, Arabic medical manuscripts into Latin. These manuscripts became the core of the first medical curriculum in the West called the Articella and formed the foundation for the first Western medical curriculum in Salerno. Other translations of Arabic science continued over the next century forming the basis for the medieval scientific curriculum in Astronomy, Chemistry, Surgery and Pharmacology. In the Golden Age of Islamic culture found in the Eastern and Western Caliphates centered in Baghdad and Cordoba during the ninth and tenth centuries, we find a great flowering of scientic studies. A synthesis occurred of Greek, Syriac and Arabic scientific insights and methods. These scientists and philosophers elaborated the rational implications of both faith and science. This harmony of the three pillars of medieval society, faith, philosophy and science, continued well into the medieval era in both the Islamic and Christian worlds and continued to be the case well into the Renaissance era in Western Europe. This book was written jointly by Christian and Islamic philosophers; it shows that Christianity and Islam played a key role in bridgingthe world of Greek philosophy and science with the Arabic and European intellectual traditions. This collaboration proved vital to the development of sicence in the medieval universities and the Scientific Revolution of the sixteenth and seventeetnth