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The Benedictine Beda Mayr, OSB (1742-1794) was one of the main figures of the German Catholic Enlightenment. He was not only the first Cath-olic to wrestle with the challenges of Reimarus and Lessing, but also the first to develop an ecumenical methodology for a reunion of the church-es. The text, translated from the German original for the first time, pres-ents a theologian, who intentionally went to the margins of orthodoxy in order to allow for more interconfessional dialogue. Mayr argued that Catholic theology should follow minority opinions for unsettled dogmat-ic questions, which would allow for easier union agreements with Prot-estant churches. Moreover, he suggested limiting ecclesial infallibility to directly revealed truths, thereby reducing the authoritative truth claims of conciliar or papal decisions. Although the study of Catholic Enlightenment is booming among historians and theologians, too few texts are available in reliable trans-lations. A major strength of this edition is not only that its introduction introduces the reader to the colorful landscape of eighteenth-century theological discussions, but also presents the entire text of Mayr's book (with the exception of its appendix) thereby allowing the reader to see the strengths and weaknesses of Enlightenment ecumenism. Mayr's Limited Infallibility was put on the Index of Forbidden Books, on which it remained until the 20th Century. It invites readers to a modern, non-scholastic way of theologizing for the sake of Christian unity.

Pierre de Bérulle (1575-1629) is one of the foremost personalities of early modern Catholicism. As the founder of the "French school" of spiritual-ity, he has exercised a profound influence on the Church from the sev-enteenth century to the present day. Until now, however, very little of Bérulle's writings have been available in English. This volume provides the first complete English translation of his best-known work, first print-ed in Paris in 1623 and titled Discourses on the State and Grandeurs of Jesus, by the Ineffable Union of the Deity with Humanity, and the Submission and Servitude that Is Due Him and His Most Holy Mother in Response to This Wondrous State. Composed in his maturity, this work expresses Bérulle's theology of the Man-God, whose self-emptying has enabled us to become "capable" of God. In contrast to other spiritual writers who taught that mystical union with God follows the extinction of all sensory and conceptual awareness and all activity of willing, Bérulle's focus is on the faithful soul's partic-ipation in what he calls Jesus' "states," or inner dispositions. The state that Bérulle describes and honors supremely in this text is Jesus' state of self-emptying in the mystery of the Incarnation. In the hypostatic union, our humanity in Christ is lifted up to heaven, and Christ is the first fruit of humanity-made-divine, the "firstborn among many broth-ers." Through him we become children of God by adoption, participants in God's divine being. This is an outstanding translation, conveying not only the meaning but also the beauty and rhetorical features of the original. The Discourses will repay reading as a poignant source of personal devotion, a primary text of the Catholic Reformation, and a classic of spiritual theology.

In his monumental On Justice and Rights, the Jesuit Luis de Molina (1535- 1600) discussed the legal and ethical aspects of the Portuguese trade in African and Asian enslaved persons. Molina surveys, develops, and prob-lematizes the criteria necessary for the legitimate possession, sale, and purchase of human freedom. He insists that, even under legally valid slav-ery, persons who have sold or lost their freedom have inalienable rights as human beings, such as the freedom to make contracts, to marry, and even, under certain circumstances, to sue their owners in court. Molina also devotes attention to the ways in which slavery could be ended and whether and under what circumstances slaves had the right to escape from their owners. Well informed about the political structures and cus-toms of many peoples in Africa, as well as Japan, China, and India, Molina paints a vivid and detailed picture of Portuguese trade. He gives specific accounts of the origins and development of the slave trade, region by re-gion, and of the nature of the relationship between local rulers and the Portuguese kingdom. In doing so, he carefully describes the deception, coercion, and general indifference that pervades this trade regarding the rights to freedom of these people. It also attempts to identify the political, ecclesiastical, and market agents involved in this great injustice and their varying degrees of culpability. While Molina does not condemn slavery as a legal institution, the deeply flawed and even immoral behavior of sellers, buyers, regulators, and political rulers both in Portugal and in the slave-supplying regions that Molina denounces casts a heavy shadow on the morality of the trade.

Edith Stein's life and thought intersect with many important movements of life and thought in the twentieth century. Through her life and even-tual martyrdom, she gave witness to the primacy of truth and faith in the face of political totalitarianism, and in her philosophical works, she con-tributed to a synthesis of phenomenological thought with the thought of Aquinas, while also progressively advancing a compelling form of philosophical personalism. As a result, Stein represents one of the most important Catholic thinkers of the twentieth century and is a figure of growing fascination and devotion among believers and nonbelievers alike. The Personalism of Edith Stein is an investigation of Stein's mature phil-osophical anthropology, exploring her engagement with the thought of Aquinas and Thomism while maintaining the phenomenological mode of investigation. Through a careful examination of Stein's later works un-der the themes of human nature, the human individual, and the human being's relation to God, McNamara shows that Stein's mature personal-ism is considerably expanded and substantiated by her assimilation of key anthropological and metaphysical teachings of Aquinas and Thom-ism, and, conversely, that Stein significantly develops and deepens these same teachings through a phenomenological reconsideration of each from a personalist perspective. As a whole, the study reveals the profound accord between Stein's mature thought and the received teachings of Aquinas, while yet care-fully attending to the remaining differences between them. Ultimately, the author proposes that Stein imbues the teachings of Aquinas with a fundamental personalization such that her mature anthropology can be understood as a Thomistically informed personalism which represents a significant, original contribution to the anthropological dimension of the philosophia perennis.

"Being Human is the fruit of many years teaching Philosophical Anthropology, conducting Phenomenological Workshops, and reading classic texts in the light of a reflective awareness of the field of experience. Being Human is intended to look to what is typically assumed but not examined in much of current philosophical literature"--

The Catholic University of America Press is pleased to continue to present new volumes in our Catholic Women Writers series, which will shed new light on prose work of Catholic women writers from the 19th and 20th centuries. Josephine Ward is one of Catholicism's greatest literary treasures and a foremost contributor to English literary history--except that she has all but completely fallen from the historical record. She spent her life in close companionship with the most active minds working in the late 19th century to restore to the Catholic Church in England the intellectual, sacramental and theological integrity it had once enjoyed before three hundred years of persecution. All seven of her novels are out of print, despite their once high acclaim in the fin de siècle literary world. First published in 1899, One Poor Scruple follows the recusant Riversdale family who have survived the long penal years by observing a quiet aristocratic life of sport and agriculture, never stepping into the public sphere from which Catholics in Britain had been barred for so long. But at the start of the twentieth century, a new generation has emerged. The novel's younger characters are now legally able to go to Oxford and Cambridge and to enter the public life of letters. Emboldened by the confident work of John Henry Newman, this younger generation of Catholics are nonetheless cautioned not to trust the Protestant establishment. One Poor Scruple is a coming-of-age story in which the new generation of more worldly Catholics search for love, friendship and intellectual emancipation in the decadent social world of Edwardian London. Decades before Evelyn Waugh examined in Brideshead Revisitedthe human struggle to distinguish between true and false beauty, Ward's novel examined the challenge of discerning between conflicting desires and of living a life that is as truthful and good as it is beautiful.

Anton Strukelj, in this English edition of his book Kneeling Theology, which was published in German, Italian, Polish, Russian and Slovenian, based his theme on the concept first developed by Hans Urs von Balthasar. This Swiss intellectual is considered one of the most important theologians of the 20th century. Strukelj sees as his task, through a synthetic survey of questions, to seek from his subjects a holistic perspective regarding the role of the theologian, without doing a critical analysis of all their work. Kneeling Theology analyzes the process and its consequences that gave rise to the religious and cultural developments of the past and the present. It is his thesis that the essence of theology should flow from holiness. He relies for his evidence on the life and work of Hans Urs von Balthasar (which included the insights of Adrienne von Speyr, physician and mystic), Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI), the Slovenian theologian Anton Strle (now servant of God) and Anton Vovk, former Archbishop of Ljubljana, fearless witness of Christ and his Church, also servant of God. Strukelj's purpose with this book is to point out that Catholic theology is best served, not only by competent research and a thorough knowledge of Church tradition, but by theologians who approach their work prayerfully and on their knees. The rich theological and pastoral heritage that has been bequeathed to us by a small group of special people in this book has come about because of their scholarship and their holiness. They have, each in their own way, demonstrated what it means to do theology on their knees, and they have shared their scholarship and insights with us.

Intended to promote a more widespread knowledge of the Apostolic constitution Anglicanorum coetibus, promulgated by Pope Benedict XVI in 2009. The Apostolic Constitution provided for Personal Ordinariates for Anglicans entering into full communion with the Catholic Church.

Presents a philosophical portrait of human persons on which we are entirely irreducible to anything non-personal, by synthesizing claims from many strands of the Catholic tradition. These include Thomism, Scotism, phenomenology, personalism, nouvelle theologie, analytic philosophy, Greek and Russian thought, and several others.

Bruno composed one of the most important historical works treating the tumultuous period in the history of the German kingdom in the second half of the eleventh century. Bruno's main focus in his Saxon War is the civil wars that engulfed the German kingdom from the mid 1060s through the end of the 1080s.

Regarding Mary's status as Mother of God, Rene Laurentin's discussion of the Theotokos exhibits his deep ecumenical commitments, as much as his specific attention to Mary's soteriological role as a sticking point for Protestantism.

Often cited as a source of biographical information on ancient Christian authors, On Illustrious Men provides St. Jerome's personal evaluations of his forebears and contemporaries, as well as catalogs of patristic writings known to him. Heterodox writers and certain respected non-Christians (Seneca, Josephus, and Philo) are included in this parade of luminaries, which begins with the apostles and concludes with St. Jerome himself and a list of his own works prior to 393, the year in which On Illustrious Men was composed. St. Jerome produced this work in his monastery at Bethlehem, to which he had retreated after his precipitous exit from Roman ecclesiastical politics. He had, however, maintained correspondences with several of his former associates, such as Dexter (the son of Pacian, bishop of Barcelona), to whom he addressed the work. Relying heavily on Eusebius's Ecclesiastical History, St. Jerome attempts to demonstrate the erudition and nobility of character which render Christianity immune to the criticisms of its cultured despisers. Since this work can be regarded as the patrology textbook of its day, its translator, Thomas P. Halton, has continued St. Jerome's mission by compiling bibliographical data on recent editions, translations, and studies of ancient writings mentioned in On Illustrious Men. Extensive footnote material and appendices furnish a wealth of information useful for patristic research. In addition, an index to all of the Fathers of the Church volumes published to date, listed by individual authors, appears in this, the hundredth volume of the series.

"Caryll Houselander (deceased) is a woman author featured in the Catholic Women Series, which re-publishes books by previously well-known Catholic women writers that have fallen out of print. The Dry Wood is a novel set in a post-war London Docklands parish. A story about a motley group of souls mourning the loss of their parish priest. This novel is a profound meditation on the purpose of human suffering"--

Attempts to develop a wisdom about human life that takes the form of a theory of selfhood and to reflect on what is called for in the ethical practice of human existence. The ethical implications of this theory of selfhood are explored, looking at conscience, prudential reasoning, justice, friendship, the law, temperance, courage, and religion.

Shows that the paradox at the heart of St Peter Damian's life and everything he cared about was rooted in the remarkable theology of love which finds expression across the whole of his work and gives it both coherence and dynamism.

For most of modern history, Roman Catholics in Britain were a rejected

Explores eight mysteries of the Lord's prayer in light of the early Church's wisdom: How can human beings call God ""Father""? Where is God the Father? How can God grow in holiness? Was there ever a time when God did not rule? Are there limitations to God's will? Why should we seek bread? Can we make a deal with God? Does God tempt us?

In the Christian world of the fourth century, the family of St. Gregory of Nyssa was distinguished for its leadership in civic and religious affairs in the region of the Roman Empire known as Pontus. Cardinal Newman, in an essay on the trials of St. Basil, refers to the family circle which produced these two eminent Fathers as 'a sort of nursery of bishops and saints.' From St. Gregory's life of his sister, St. Macrina, a work included in this volume, we learn of the fortitude of the three preceding generations. On her death-bed, St. Macrina, recalling details of their family history, speaks of a great-grandfather martyred and all his property confiscated, and grandparents deprived of their possessions at the time of the Dioceltian persecutions. Their father, Basil of Caesarea, a successful rhetorician, outstanding for his judgment and well known for the dignity of his life, died leaving to his wife, Emmelia, the care of four sons and five daughters. St. Gregory praises his mother for her virtue and for her eagerness to have her children educated in Holy Scripture. After managing their estate and arranging for the future of her children, she was persuaded by St. Macrina to retire from the world and to enter a life common with her maids as sisters and equals. This community of women would have been a counterpart of the monastery founded nearby by St. Basil on the banks of the Iris River. In a moving scene, St. Gregory tells of his mother's death at a rich old age in the arms of her oldest and youngest children, Macrina and Peter. Blessing all of her children, she prays in particular for the sanctification of these two who were, indeed, later canonized as saints. Newman notes the strong influence of the women in the family, and in one of his letters, St. Basil gives credit to his mother and his grandmother, the elder Macrina, for his clear and steadfast idea of God.

Provides essential passages from Thomas's treatment of the cardinal virtues in the Summa theologiae. The book contains passages from the Summa of great historical import, contemporary relevance, or intrinsic interest combined with abundant footnotes aiding the modern reader.

Because research in psychology helps us assess the feasibility of cultivating virtue in ourselves and those we influence, Ethical Excellence focuses on combining sound philosophical analysis of ethical virtue and related concepts with relevant empirical research on how these concepts are manifested and developed in everyday practice.

For more than a century, the teaching authority of the Catholic Church has attempted to walk along with the modern world, criticizing what is bad and praising what is good. Counsels of Imperfection describes the current state of that fairly bumpy journey.

In a time of discouragement, how can the Church renew itself and its outreach to all people? Bishop Robert Barron insists that a "dumbed down" Catholicism cannot succeed in today's highly educated society - instead, the Church needs to draw upon its great theological heritage in order to renew its hope in Christ.

Interprets satisfaction within the context of the divine mercy and not the divine justice. This unique contribution to satisfaction studies owes a great deal to the achievement of Saint Thomas Aquinas. In this sense, the book enacts a retrieval of the theology of the high classical period.

The neurological criteria for the determination of death remain controversial within secular and Catholic circles, even though they are widely accepted within the medical community. In Determining Death by Neurological Criteria, Matthew Hanley offers both a practical and a philosophical defense.

Places Flannery O'Connor's work in constructive and collaborative dialogue with Spanish literature and literary aesthetics. Contributors explore the ways in which O'Connor's literary and religious vision continues to work in the imaginations of both American and European - mostly Spanish - authors.

Provides a scholarly contribution to Thomistic studies, specifically to the study of Aquinas's biblical exegesis in relation to his philosophy and theology. Each of the thirteen chapters has a different focus, within the shared concentration of the book on Aquinas's Literal Exposition on Job.

Examines the reasons behind the Church's failure to recreate the Catholic Spain of a vanished golden age and the consequences of that failure, particularly during the Second Republic, the Civil War of the 1930s and the regime of Francisco Franco.