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Controversy about the Catholic priesthood is nothing new. Just like laity, priests (including bishops and popes) have always been sinners. Some priests, like some laity, have caused grave scandal throughout the 2000-year history of the Church. Two questions arise from this reality. Why did Jesus Christ establish a ministerial priesthood for his Church, if the priesthood would sometimes cause scandal--what did he intend for the priesthood? Second, what has the Catholic Church in past times done about scandal in the priesthood--how has the Church corrected its priests and encouraged priests to lead lives of holiness? Amidst the noisy din of talking heads and self-proclaimed experts, this book offers solid warnings and directions about the priesthood from 15 saints of the past two millennia. On the Priesthood serves as a readable guide for priests, seminarians, and educated readers seeking to learn more about the simultaneous unworthiness and dignity of the priesthood. Always challenging and penetrating, the selections unite around one key point; the need for holiness.

Product Description: Is there an art of dying well? If human lives have a meaning―and we experience them as profoundly meaningful―then so must our deaths and the deaths of our loved ones. Too often we are tempted to ignore our own mortality and fill our lives with distracting and strenuous activity...read more

Product Description: This is a rich, informative, and inspiring compendium of the Christian tradition of prayer and contemplation from the earliest days of the Church to the present day. Included are selections from St. Ignatius of Antioch, Justin Martyr, St...read more

Product Description: Marriage as an institution faces many challenges today. This volume presents essential wisdom from the 2000 year-old Christian tradition that is as true and valuable today as it always was. The readings present positive resources for understanding the sacrament of marriage as a beautiful and sacred Christian vocation, a context in which difficult times can be worked through with grace...read more

Written by leading experts on Aquinas's theology, the essays in Reading John with St. Thomas Aquinas bear common witness to a central theological conviction: the tasks of biblical exegesis and speculative theology, though distinct, indwell and inform each other. As the first book-length study of the full breadth of Aquinas's Commentary on the Gospel of John, this work illuminates the way in which thinking systematically or speculatively about revelation flows from questions raised within biblical exegesis itself. Like any medieval biblical commentator, Aquinas attempts to understand a biblical text not only in itself but also by appealing to parallel interpretive texts drawn from throughout the Bible as well as the accumulated insights of the Church Fathers. This method enables him to penetrate deeply into the thought of the Bible, recognizing that the biblical authors - speaking from within the context of Israel and the Church - raise questions that are theological and that belong to coherent speculative theological frameworks. The result is, in large part, a speculative theological commentary that is not imposed on the biblical texts but emerges from it. necessary conjunction of the inspired words of Scripture, exegetical commentary, and theological analysis. The volume is both a study of Aquinas's thought and an attempt to foster contemporary exegetical approaches that emphasize the need to interpret Scripture speculatively, through the historical lens of tradition.

This book explores the character of the Eucharist as communion in and through sacrifice. It will stimulate discussion because of its controversial critique of the dominant paradigm for Eucharistic theology, its reclamation of St Thomas Aquinas’s theology of the Eucharist, and its response to Pope John Paul II’s Ecclesia de Eucharistia. Argues that the Eucharist cannot be separated from sacrifice, and rediscovers the biblical connections between sacrifice and communion. Timed to coincide with the Year of the Eucharist, proclaimed by Pope John Paul II. Reclaims the riches of St Thomas Aquinas’s theology of the Eucharist, which had recently been reduced to a metaphysical defence of transubstantiation.

Product Description: The influence of St. Augustine's thought upon that of St. Thomas Aquinas is well known. With the exception of particular philosophical controversies, however, relatively little research has been done in this area. In summaries of medieval theology, Aquinas is often seen as a follower of Aristotle over the traditional "Augustinians" of his day...read more

Product Description: The twentieth century will forever be marked by the horrific event of the Shoah. As a young man, the future John Paul II witnessed this horror during the Nazi occupation of Poland. His pontificate achieved a number of groundbreaking steps in the Catholic Church's relationship with the Jewish people...read more

Designed to serve readers by demonstrating the continuing intellectual and practical viability of theological interpretation of the Bible. This title enlists figures of the classical church such as Augustine, Calvin, Luther, and Wesley, believing Scripture as a whole witnessed to the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Product Description: 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...read more

Product Description: Faith and Reason: Studies in Catholic Theology and Philosophy SeriesIn the first section, Etienne Fouilloux describes the arc of Henri de Lubac's career up to the publication of his Surnaturel; Georges Chantraine, S.J., describes de Lubac's Surnaturel; Henry Donneaud, O...read more

Product Description: Thomas Aquinas possessed excellent knowledge of the commentaries of Origen, John Chrysostom, and Augustine. On the basis of this foundation, he produced his own commentary on the Gospel of John as part of his task as a Master of the Sacred Page...read more

Product Description: The first English translation of Aquinas's Commentary on the Gospel of John by Fabian Larcher and James Weisheipl, originally published nearly two decades ago and long out of print, is available once again with this edition. Published in three volumes simultaneously, it includes a new introduction and notes pointing readers to the links between Aquinas's biblical commentary and his Summa theologiae...read more

Product Description: The essays in this volume explore three areas in which St. Thomas Aquinas's voice has never fallen silent: sacred doctrine, the relationship of sacraments and metaphysics, and the central role of virtue in moral theology. For Aquinas, sacramental theology studies how Christ Jesus acts in the Church through created instruments, namely, the sacraments and their ministers...read more