This book goes behind the headlines on the Catholic Church in the United States to explore some of the principles and philosophical sources to which Popes, Bishops, Priests, Religious, and laity appeal when they challenge American culture and society on moral and social issues. Rarely do the media discuss the ""dictatorship of relativism” criticized by Pope Benedict XVI, and the reasons he gives for why such relativism undermines the moral foundations of religious freedom, tolerance, and democracy. The distinguished authors in this book offer clear and compelling arguments for taking these concerns seriously. Religious liberty in the United States has enabled Catholic immigrants to build up vast numbers of schools, universities, seminaries, hospitals, clinics, orphanages, and parishes. The authors suggest the responsibility Catholics have to learn and live the resources of wisdom, morality, and holiness in the two millennial history of Catholicism in order to renew and strengthen both the Church and American culture today.

From 1962 to 1965, in perhaps the most important religious event of the twentieth century, the Second Vatican Council met to plot a course for the future of the Roman Catholic Church. After thousands of speeches, resolutions, and votes, the Council issued sixteen official documents on topics ranging from divine revelation to relations with non-Christians. In many ways, though, the real challenges began after the council was over and Catholics began to argue over the interpretation of the documents. Many analysts perceived the Council's far-reaching changes as breaks with Church tradition, and soon this became the dominant bias in the American and other media, which lacked the theological background to approach the documents on their own terms. In Vatican II: Renewal Within Tradition, an international team of theologians offers a different reading of the documents from Vatican II. The Council was indeed putting forth a vision for the future of the Church, but that vision was grounded in two millennia of tradition. Taken together, these essays demonstrate that Vatican II's documents are a development from an established antecedent in the Roman Catholic Church. Each chapter contextualizes Vatican II teachings within that rich tradition. The resulting book is an indispensable and accessible companion to the Council's developments, one that focuses on theology and transcends the mass-media storyline of "liberal" versus "conservative."

Theology Needs Philosophy brings together essays by leading theologians and philosophers on the fundamental importance of human reason and philosophy for Catholic theology and human cultures generally. This edited collection studies the contributions of reason, with its acquired wisdom, science, and scholarship, in five sections. Those sections are: (1) the inevitable presence and service of philosophy in theology; (2) the metaphysics of creation, nature, and the natural knowledge of God; (3) the history of Logos as reason in the fathers, in St. Thomas Aquinas, and Medieval Biblical commentaries; (4) the role of reason in Trinitarian theology, Christology, and Mariology; and finally (5) reason in the theology of Aquinas. The general reader, as well as students and faculty, will be introduced to a constant, but sometimes neglected, element of Catholic intellectual traditions. Pope Francis follows Popes Benedict XVI and John Paul II in emphasizing the light of faith in his first encyclical Lumen Fidei, showing how human reason is healed and elevated by faith. Not to act according to reason is contrary to the nature of God, as Pope Benedict's Regensburg Lecture reminded the world. An abandonment of Catholic faith, and its incorporation of the ancient discoveries of reason, has led to a darkening of reason in secularist modernity. The light of reason is from the Word (Logos) who is God (John 1:9), calling everyone to live attentive to the cultivation of reason. Modern popes have therefore called for a recovery of reason since faith in Jesus Christ heals and intensifies the light of reason so fundamental to the God-given dignity of every human being.

From 1962 to 1965, in perhaps the most important religious event of the twentieth century, the Second Vatican Council met to plot a course for the future of the Roman Catholic Church. After thousands of speeches, resolutions, and votes, the Council issued sixteen official documents on topics ranging from divine revelation to relations with non-Christians. But the meaning of the Second Vatican Council has been fiercely contested since before it was even over, and the years since its completion have seen a battle for the soul of the Church waged through the interpretation of Council documents. The Reception of Vatican II looks at the sixteen conciliar documents through the lens of those battles. Paying close attention to reforms and new developments, the essays in this volume show how the Council has been received and interpreted over the course of the more than fifty years since it concluded. The contributors to this volume represent various schools of thought but are united by a commitment to restoring the view that Vatican II should be interpreted and implemented in line with Church Tradition. The central problem facing Catholic theology today, these essays argue, is a misreading of the Council that posits a sharp break with previous Church teaching. In order to combat this reductive way of interpreting the Council, these essays provide a thorough, instructive overview of the debates it inspired.

From 1962 to 1965, in perhaps the most important religious event of the twentieth century, the Second Vatican Council met to plot a course for the future of the Roman Catholic Church. After thousands of speeches, resolutions, and votes, the Council issued sixteen official documents on topics ranging from divine revelation to relations with non-Christians. In many ways, though, the real challenges began after the council was over and Catholics began to argue over the interpretation of the documents. Many analysts perceived the Council's far-reaching changes as breaks with Church tradition, and soon this became the dominant bias in the American and other media, which lacked the theological background to approach the documents on their own terms. In Vatican II: Renewal Within Tradition, an international team of theologians offers a different reading of the documents from Vatican II. The Council was indeed putting forth a vision for the future of the Church, but that vision was grounded in two millennia of tradition. Taken together, these essays demonstrate that Vatican II's documents are a development from an established antecedent in the Roman Catholic Church. Each chapter contextualizes Vatican II teachings within that rich tradition. The resulting book is an indispensable and accessible companion to the Council's developments, one that focuses on theology and transcends the mass-media storyline of "liberal" versus "conservative."