This study examines the ethical character of John Calvin and his Genevan colleagues' evangelizing of France. It reveals that Calvin's plans for proselytizing his homeland involved lying, deception, and obfuscation which were employed as a means of evading detection by the French authorities. Balserak considers important questions about the relationship between godliness and cunning, about Calvin's manufacturing of his image, and about the lengths to which he and his colleagues went to spread their gospel.
Winner of a first-place award for English translation editions from The Catholic Media Association. Teachings for an Unbelieving World is a newly discovered work written by St. John Paul II—then Archbishop Karol Wojtyła of Kraków—in the years just after Vatican II. He uses St. Paul’s sermon to the people of Athens in Acts 17 as a framework for articulating the faith in a culture of skepticism and unbelief. These thirteen brief reflections provide compelling teaching for Catholics in today’s post-Christian world and give fresh insight into JPII’s pontificate. This is the first English-language publication of this important work. St. John Paul II composed these thirteen reflections at a unique point of convergence in history—the closing of Vatican II in 1965 and the 1966 observance of one thousand years of Christianity in Poland. Teachings for an Unbelieving World is an extended meditation on Acts 17 where Paul speaks to the cultural elite of Athens after he observed an altar of an unknown god in the city. Quoting from both the Bible and the documents of Vatican II, John Paul II draws timely wisdom from the apostle’s mission to bring the truth of the Gospel to a worldly culture of sophistication and disbelief, one not unlike our own. The future pope reveals Paul’s memorable encounter as an enduring framework to boldly present the core truths of Catholic faith to those living under Poland’s communist regime. In so doing, JPII demonstrates how relevant Paul’s words are today and equips us to meet the challenges of proclaiming the faith in our times. Teachings for an Unbelieving World affirms the continuity of Catholic faith about: humanity’s place in God’s creation; our search for meaning, truth, and freedom; addressing a culture of unbelief; the gift of redemption in Jesus Christ; the grace of the Holy Spirit; the role of the Church in the world; the power of the Eucharist; the redemptive and self-giving nature of human love; and the importance of prayer.
On the back cover of one of his most groundbreaking solo albums, . . . Nothing like the Sun of 1987, Sting (Gordon Matthew Sumner, b. 1951 in Wallsend, UK) somberly stands close to a statue of Mary, the mother of Jesus. The album was released a few months after his own mother, Audrey, died. The picture was taken on the island of Montserrat, where he was recording the album, apparently on the day of her death. "I said goodbye to my mother, as I had a recording date in Montserrat, and she died a week later." When asked by the author if his mother was particularly connected to Mary, and if this was why he chose this image, he replied "No, but I did." This evocative photograph and Sting's quick answer encapsulate the two pillars of this book: a microhistory of a specific British Catholic parish in the 1950s-60s, and the impact that growing up there had on Sting's artistic output. And beyond that, this book opens a window onto the influence of Catholic education and imagination on millions of less famous people who had similar upbringings.
Sexual revolution, terrorism, student riots, civil rights, Stonewall Riots, feminism, and the publication of Humane vitae. The year 1968 is a milestone in twentieth-century history. The papers presented in this volume mark an interdisciplinary and wide-ranging approach to a year, and indeed a decade, whose movements and events are still very much alive in contemporary society. The fruits of the conference are published in this volume to invite ongoing reflection and a critical discourse to a watershed moment in our history and culture.
Catholic Greg Bourke's profoundly moving memoir about growing up gay and overcoming discrimination in the battle for same-sex marriage in the US. In this compelling and deeply affecting memoir, Greg Bourke recounts growing up in Louisville, Kentucky, and living as a gay Catholic. The book describes Bourke’s early struggles for acceptance as an out gay man living in the South during the 1980s and ’90s, his unplanned transformation into an outspoken gay rights activist after being dismissed as a troop leader from the Boy Scouts of America in 2012, and his historic role as one of the named plaintiffs in the landmark United States Supreme Court decision Obergefell vs. Hodges, which legalized same-sex marriage nationwide in 2015. After being ousted by the Boy Scouts of America (BSA), former Scoutmaster Bourke became a leader in the movement to amend antigay BSA membership policies. The Archdiocese of Louisville, because of its vigorous opposition to marriage equality, blocked Bourke’s return to leadership despite his impeccable long-term record as a distinguished boy scout leader. But while making their home in Louisville, Bourke and his husband, Michael De Leon, have been active members at Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church for more than three decades, and their family includes two adopted children who attended Lourdes school and were brought up in the faith. Over many years and challenges, this couple has managed to navigate the choppy waters of being openly gay while integrating into the fabric of their parish life community. Bourke is unapologetically Catholic, and his faith provides the framework for this inspiring story of how the Bourke De Leon family struggled to overcome antigay discrimination by both the BSA and the Catholic Church and fought to legalize same-sex marriage across the country. Gay, Catholic, and American is an illuminating account that anyone, no matter their ideological orientation, can read for insight. It will appeal to those interested in civil rights, Catholic social justice, and LGBTQ inclusion.
Countess Marie of Champagne is primarily known today as the daughter of Louis VII of France and Eleanor of Aquitaine and as a literary patron of Chrétien de Troyes. In this engaging biography, Theodore Evergates offers a more rounded view of Marie as a successful ruler of one of the wealthiest and most vibrant principalities in medieval France. From the age of thirty-four until her death, Marie ruled almost continuously, initially for her husband, Henry the Liberal, during his journey to Jerusalem, then for her underage son, Henry II, and after his majority, during his absence on the Third Crusade and extended residence in the Levant. Presiding at the High Court of Champagne and attending to the many practical duties of governance, Marie acted with the advice of her court officers but without limitation by either the king or a regency council. If Henry the Liberal created the county of Champagne as a dynamic and prosperous state, it was Marie who expertly preserved and sustained it. Evergates mines Marie's letters patent and the literary and religious texts associated with her to glean a fuller picture of her life and work. He situates Marie within the regional institutions and external events that influenced her life as well as within her extended families of royal half-siblings—including King Philip II of France and her Plantagenet brothers—and her many in-laws, including the queen mother Adele and Archbishop William of Reims. Those who knew Marie best describe her as determined, gracious, and pious, as well as an effective ruler in the face of several external threats.
Winner, 2017 Ragsdale Award A timely study that puts current issues—religious intolerance, immigration, the separation of church and state, race relations, and politics—in historical context. The masthead of the Liberator, an anti-Catholic newspaper published in Magnolia, Arkansas, displayed from 1912 to 1915 an image of the Whore of Babylon. She was an immoral woman sitting on a seven-headed beast, holding a golden cup “full of her abominations,” and intended to represent the Catholic Church. Propaganda of this type was common during a nationwide surge in antipathy to Catholicism in the early twentieth century. This hostility was especially intense in largely Protestant Arkansas, where for example a 1915 law required the inspection of convents to ensure that priests could not keep nuns as sexual slaves. Later in the decade, anti-Catholic prejudice attached itself to the campaign against liquor, and when the United States went to war in 1917, suspicion arose against German speakers—most of whom, in Arkansas, were Roman Catholics. In the 1920s the Ku Klux Klan portrayed Catholics as “inauthentic” Americans and claimed that the Roman church was trying to take over the country’s public schools, institutions, and the government itself. In 1928 a Methodist senator from Arkansas, Joe T. Robinson, was chosen as the running mate to balance the ticket in the presidential campaign of Al Smith, a Catholic, which brought further attention. Although public expressions of anti-Catholicism eventually lessened, prejudice was once again visible with the 1960 presidential campaign, won by John F. Kennedy. Anti-Catholicism in Arkansas illustrates how the dominant Protestant majority portrayed Catholics as a feared or despised “other,” a phenomenon that was particularly strong in Arkansas.
The Religious Lives of Older Laywomen draws on ethnographic fieldwork, cross-cultural comparisons, and relevant theories exploring the beliefs, identities, and practices of "Generation A"--Anglican laywomen born in the 1920s and 1930s. Now in their 70s, 80s, and 90s, they are often described as the "backbone" of the Church and likely its final active generation. The prevalence of laywomen in mainstream Christian congregations is a widely accepted phenomenon that will cause little surprise amongst the research community or Christian adherents. What is surprising is that we know so little about them. Generation A laywomen have remained largely invisible in previous work on institutional religion in Euro-American countries, particularly as the focus on religion and gender has turned to youth, sexuality, and priesthood. Female Christian Generation A is on the cusp of a catastrophic decline in mainstream Christianity that accelerated during the 'post-war' (post-1945) age. The age profile of mainstream Christianity represents an increasingly aging pattern, with Generation A not being replaced by their children or grandchildren--the Baby-Boomers and generations X, Y, and Z. Generation A is irreplaceable and unique. "Generation" shares specific values, beliefs, behaviors, and orientations, therefore, when this generation finally disappears within the next five to 10 years, their knowledge, insights, and experiences will be lost forever. Abby Day both documents and interprets their religious lives and what we can learn about them and more widely, about contemporary Christianity and its future.
Postsecular Catholicism examines how secular realities and doctrinal ideas intersect in the lives of American Catholics in the Pope Francis era, and in the Church's articulation of its teachings on sexual and family morality, gender, and economic and social inclusion.
An assessment of how four humanists in the court of Pope Clement VII - Pietro Alcionio, Pietro Corsi, Jacopo Sadoleto, and Pierio Valeriano - interpreted the cataclysmic Sack of Rome (1527), which called into question their earlier images of the Renaissance papacy. Building upon recent discussions in literary criticism and cognitive psychology, the author elucidates how these humanists' narratives gave meaningful shape to their memories and, in so doing, helped to redefine the image of Renaissance Rome as it would be "remembered" by subsequent generations.
