Giordano Bruno challenged everything in his pursuit of an all-embracing system of thought. This not only brought him patronage from powerful figures of the day but also put him in direct conflict with the Catholic Church. Arrested by the Inquisition and tried as a heretic, Bruno was imprisoned, tortured, and, after eight years, burned at the stake in 1600. The Vatican "regrets" the burning yet refuses to clear him of heresy. But Bruno's philosophy spread: Galileo, Isaac Newton, Christiaan Huygens, and Gottfried Leibniz all built upon his ideas; his thought experiments predate the work of such twentieth-century luminaries as Karl Popper; his religious thinking inspired such radicals as Baruch Spinoza; and his work on the art of memory had a profound effect on William Shakespeare. Chronicling a genius whose musings helped bring about the modern world, Michael White pieces together the final years -- the capture, trial, and the threat the Catholic Church felt -- that made Bruno a martyr of free thought.
Giordano Bruno (1548-1600) was a mystic, philosopher and scientist whose ideas were decades ahead of their time. A proponent of a unificatory vision of science, he was both a champion of the occult as Newton would be after him, and a torch-bearer for the sort of holistic dreams that Leonardo had cherished before him. As such he is perfect material for the third in Michael White's loose trilogy of science biographies - after Newton, the last sorcerer, and Leonardo, the first scientist, we have Bruno, science's first martyr. THE POPE AND THE HERETIC re-creates not just the vibrancy of intellectual life at the height of the Renaissance but also the horrific cost of pursuing ideas which ran counter to the orthodoxy of the Catholic Church. After almost eight years' imprisonment and torture at the hands of the Inquisition, Bruno was burned at the stake for his beliefs - or rather, his refusal to accept that intellectual investigation was limited by the dictats of Rome. His life and martyrdom are the subjects of this fascinating book.
If you could sit down with St. Thomas Aquinas over a pint of beer and ask him any one question, what would it be? Pints With Aquinas contains over 50 deep thoughts from the Angelic doctor on subjects such as God, virtue, the sacraments, happiness, alcohol, and more. If you've always wanted to read St. Thomas but have been too intimidated to try, this book is for you.So, get your geek on, pull up a bar stool and grab a cold one, here we go!""He alone enlightened the Church more than all other doctors; a man can derive more profit in a year from his books than from pondering all his life the teaching of others." - Pope John XXII
Giordano Bruno is one of the great figures of early modern Europe, and one of the least understood. Ingrid D. Rowland's pathbreaking life of Bruno establishes him once and for all as a peer of Erasmus, Shakespeare, and Galileo, a thinker whose vision of the world prefigures ours. By the time Bruno was burned at the stake as a heretic in 1600 on Rome's Campo dei Fiori, he had taught in Naples, Rome, Venice, Geneva, France, England, Germany, and the "magic Prague" of Emperor Rudolph II. His powers of memory and his provocative ideas about the infinity of the universe had attracted the attention of the pope, Queen Elizabeth—and the Inquisition, which condemned him to death in Rome as part of a yearlong jubilee. Writing with great verve and sympathy for her protagonist, Rowland traces Bruno's wanderings through a sixteenth-century Europe where every certainty of religion and philosophy had been called into question and shows him valiantly defending his ideas (and his right to maintain them) to the very end. An incisive, independent thinker just when natural philosophy was transformed into modern science, he was also a writer of sublime talent. His eloquence and his courage inspired thinkers across Europe, finding expression in the work of Shakespeare and Galileo. Giordano Bruno allows us to encounter a legendary European figure as if for the first time.
In 1600, the Catholic Inquisition condemned the philosopher and cosmologist Giordano Bruno for heresy, and he was then burned alive in the Campo de’ Fiori in Rome. Historians, scientists, and philosophical scholars have traditionally held that Bruno’s theological beliefs led to his execution, denying any link between his study of the nature of the universe and his trial. But in Burned Alive, Alberto A. Martínez draws on new evidence to claim that Bruno’s cosmological beliefs—that the stars are suns surrounded by planetary worlds like our own, and that the Earth moves because it has a soul—were indeed the primary factor in his condemnation. Linking Bruno’s trial to later confrontations between the Inquisition and Galileo in 1616 and 1633, Martínez shows how some of the same Inquisitors who judged Bruno challenged Galileo. In particular, one clergyman who authored the most critical reports used by the Inquisition to condemn Galileo in 1633 immediately thereafter wrote an unpublished manuscript in which he denounced Galileo and other followers of Copernicus for their beliefs about the universe: that many worlds exist and that the Earth moves because it has a soul. Challenging the accepted history of astronomy to reveal Bruno as a true innovator whose contributions to the science predate those of Galileo, this book shows that is was cosmology, not theology, that led Bruno to his death.
"Mr. Grant is able to retain the scholastic edge along with the accuracy of the translation while preserving a sense of the author's style." -Fr. Chad Ripperger, PhD For the first time in history, St. Robert Bellarmine's work, De Romano Pontifice, On the Roman Pontiff, has been translated and made available in English! In this Theological treatise St. Robert Bellarmine takes on Protestant as well as Greek Orthodox objections to the Papacy in five books. In the first, he argues that Christ established the Primacy of Peter by means of an Ecclesiastical Monarchy, which takes up subjects as diverse as: What is the best form of government? Why it is fitting that the Church's government should be a monarchy; Exegetical Commentary on the Lord's words in Matthew 16 and John 21, along with copious Patristic testimony. In Book 2 is whether Peter has successors in the Ecclesiastical Monarchy, wherein Bellarmine defends the Church's position on the true history of Peter; that Peter truly went to Rome; that Peter was truly a Bishop there; that upon his death he was succeeded by men in the Ecclesiastical monarchy, as well as its proof from the Fathers, then through all the refutations, Bellarmine asks what would happen if the Pope were a heretic. In book 3, Bellarmine shows the many contradictions and faulty reasoning used by the first Protestants in arguing that the Pope is Antichrist while also giving exposition to the authentic understanding of the passages of Scripture that speak of Antichrist. After presenting the testimony of Scripture and the Fathers on the signs that must precede Antichrist, Bellarmine shows how none of this agrees with the Roman Pontiff. He also refutes the fable of "Pope Joan." In book 4, Bellarmine argues why the Pope is infallible when he defines a doctrine on faith and morals and proceeds to defend Popes whom Protestants and others argued had erred while defining faith. He continues to a discussion of law, and why it is not contrary to the Gospel for the Pope (or a Bishop over his diocese), to make laws that bind the faithful, refuting the teaching of John Calvin. In book 5, Bellarmine takes up the question of the Popes' power in civil affairs. Protestants had argued that the Pope tyrannously usurped the rights of sovereigns and that they meant to rule the world directly in civil affairs, while some canonists overly attached to a more medieval view were of a similar persuasion on the positive side. He then proceeds to demonstrate that the Pope's temporal power is indirect and that he can intervene for the sake of the faith when excommunicating sovereigns, but not for political reasons. The protestants argued that a Bishop could not be a temporal prince and Bishop at the same time, which Bellarmine soundly refutes from Scripture and Tradition. This first ever English translation also has many historical notes on terms, persons, Greek and Latin syntax and other things to aid the reader. The value of the work is not merely apologetic-Bellarmine's treatise also laid down insights into Catholic teaching that were foundational not only for later Theologians but even for Vatican I.
A young man’s fate is tied to the Protestant Reformation—and the violent upheaval that follows—in this prize-winning novel of sixteenth-century Spain. On October 31st, 1517, Martin Luther nails his ninety-five theses to a church door and launches the movement that will divide the Roman Catholic Church. On that same day, a child is born in the Spanish city of Valladolid. The young Cipriano Salcedo's fate is marked by the political and religious upheaval taking root across Europe. Cipriano grows up to become a prosperous merchant and joins the Reformation movement, which is secretly advancing on the Iberian Peninsula, the historical bastion of the Catholic church. But before long, the Spanish Inquisition will drive the Reformers to put their lives at stake. Through Cipriano’s story, Delibes paints a masterful portrait of the time of Spain's Charles V and recreates the social and intellectual atmosphere of Europe at one of history's most pivotal moments. Winner of Spain’s Premio Nacional de Narrativa
A history of the Catholic Church after the French Revolution through the story of the 'Döllinger affair'. Ignaz von Döllinger (1799-1890), was a leading critic of Pope Pius IX and in particular the doctrine of Papal Infallibility defined during the First Vatican Council.
Some of the most portentous events in medieval history—the Cathar crusade, the persecution and mass burnings of heretics, the papal inquisition—fall between 1000 and 1250, when the Catholic Church confronted the threat of heresy with force. Moore’s narrative focuses on the motives and anxieties of elites who waged war on heresy for political gain.
Faithful Catholics are beginning to realize it’s not their imagination. Pope Francis has led them on a journey from joy to unease to alarm and even a sense of betrayal. They can no longer pretend that he represents merely a change of emphasis in papal teaching. Assessing the confusion sown by this pontificate, Lost Shepherd explains what’s at stake, what’s not at stake, and how loyal believers should respond.
