Church History
101 Surprising Facts about Church History
The Catholic Church is the longest-standing and the most universal of all institutions. The contributions made by Catholic men and women over the past 2000 years are most impressive, from a properly functioning calendar to the inventions of many things that we all take for granted today.
In 101 Surprising Facts About Church History, Fr. Meconi, SJ walks readers through the most amazing achievements of Christ's Body on earth. From economic and mercantile developments to scientific and astronomical advances, from the cataloging of zoological and botanical species to the cherishing of beautiful music and fine arts, Fr. Meconi shows you why the Catholic Church stands as the greatest promoter of human culture and knowledge.
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101 Surprising Facts about St. Peter's and the Vatican
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16 Marriages That Made History
When we think of famous persons in history, we usually remember their great deeds in the areas of science, politics, art, etc. But for some, their greatest achievement in life was not played out before the public, but rather took place within the private sphere of their marriage. The world may remember them for their extraordinary gifts and accomplishments, but they, at the end of their lives, were most mindful of their greatest love: their spouse. This book honors the hidden love adventures of several famous persons in history. It offers concrete examples of marriages that transformed these well-known individuals in deep and personal ways. These are not fairy tales of marriages "made in heaven;" they are stories of real people with real struggles, who, through their marriage, were challenged, strengthened, and encouraged to grow in their capacity for love. In this book, you will learn: How marriages can grow stronger through time, how marriage can provide tremendous strength for facing life's difficulties, how people with very different personalities can be completely united in marriage, how one woman's selfless love saved her marriage, how a queen learned to put her husband and her marriage ahead of power, how one couple's united search for truth led them to embrace the Catholic Faith. This book will help to restore your confidence in the power of marriage. It is recommended for those just starting out on their marriage journey, as well as for those already well advanced along the path. Gerard Castillo is a professor of Education at the University of Navarra, Spain, where he teaches courses in education, marriage, and family. He is the author of over thirty books on these subjects.
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Apostasy That Wasn't: The Extraordinary Story of the Unbreakable Early Church
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Apostles and Their Times
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As By a New Pentecost: The Dramatic Beginning of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal
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Bad Shepherds: The Dark Years in Which the Faithful Thrived While the Bishops Did the Devil's Work
Shocked to find corruption widespread in the ranks of their shepherds today, too many good Catholics are tempted to leave the Church, unaware that ever since the days when Jesus' own treasurer, Judas Iscariot, had his hand in the till, the Good Shepherd and His faithful followers have regularly been betrayed by bad shepherds.
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Bearing False Witness: Debunking Centuries of Anti-Catholic History
In this stunning, powerful, and ultimately persuasive book, Rodney Stark, one of the most highly regarded sociologists of religion and bestselling author of The Rise of Christianity (HarperSanFrancisco 1997) argues that some of our most firmly held ideas about history, ideas that paint the Catholic Church in the least positive light are, in fact, fiction. Why have we held these wrongheaded ideas so strongly and for so long? And if our beliefs are wrong, what, in fact, is the truth?
In each chapter, Stark takes on a well-established anti-Catholic myth, gives a fascinating history of how each myth became the conventional wisdom, and presents a startling picture of the real truth. For example,
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Bedrock of Christianity: The Unalterable Facts of Jesus' Death and Resurrection
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Benedict Up Close: The Inside Story of Eight Dramatic Years
Widely recognized as one of the most talented and respected journalists in Rome, Paul Badde offers here a unique glimpse into the drama of Pope Benedict's pontificate. He doesn't simply capture the various reasons for which Benedict XVI will go down in history, Badde chronicles the almost superhuman struggle against overwhelming hostilities that formed against this shy and exceedingly kind man.
With fascinating vignettes back into history, you'll learn how Pope Benedict's experiences in a totalitarian Germany impacted the papacy and the Church, and how this son of a policeman became the "Thomas Aquinas of our time" one of the most brilliant and accomplished minds on the globe.
Leaning on his own personal conversations with Pope Benedict as well as his extensive interviews with those within the Holy Father's inner circle, Badde explains how Pope Benedict dealt with the blows and calumnies that rained down on him during those tempestuous eight years.
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BOCD-Shocking Truth About the Pope and the Church Fathers
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Catholic Church Through the Ages: A History; Second Edition (Revised)
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Catholicism and Evolution: A history from Darwin to Pope Francis
Fr. Michael Chaberek is a Polish Dominican who has studied creation doctrine from Old and New Testament accounts to the Church Fathers, to the Medieval Scholastics (especially St. Thomas Aquinas), to the Vatican's internal and public papers of the 19th and 20th centuries--and on into our own times and the pronouncements of recent popes. His new book gathers all doctrinal statements on evolution and presents the history of the engagement of Catholicism with natural science since Darwin presented his theory in 1859. What he finds is a clear path that gradually became twisted and over-grown. His exploration of that path is both scholarly and engrossing.
"Finally, a book that tells the full story of Catholic reflections and Magisterial statements down through the centuries on issues of creation and evolution. From the meditations of the ancient Church Fathers to the statements of Popes Pelagius I and Leo XIII, there are many hidden treasures to be found here. Fr. Chaberek combines historical, philosophical, and theological scholarship in a book that is both comprehensive and engaging. This book will be an eye-opener for many, and will quickly become the standard and essential work on the subject."--ROBERT STACKPOLE, director, John Paul II Institute of Divine Mercy
"In Catholicism and Evolution, Fr. Michael Chaberek surveys perennial Catholic teaching, plumbs the depths of Catholic philosophy and historical theology, and analyzes the best scientific evidence to date. In the process, he shows that certain elements of Darwinian evolution are not only incompatible with Catholic belief, but largely lacking in evidence. He shows also that despite her clear historical teaching, the contemporary Church lacks an unambiguous statement of how Catholics should understand this question. I expect this to become the definitive book on Catholicism and evolution."--JAY W. RICHARDS, co-author of The Privileged Planet; editor of God and Evolution
"Darwin and his contemporaries thought the cell was a simple blob of jelly, protoplasm. Modern science has discovered the exact opposite, that astoundingly sophisticated technology undergirds life. Father Michael Chaberek probes the implications of this and other surprising developments in his erudite study of Catholicism's collision with Darwinism."--MICHAEL BEHE, author of Darwin's Black Box
"Catholicism and Evolution is a thorough exposition of the history of the debate over evolution, especially the theory's proponents and opponents within the Catholic Church. This book should be on the shelves of any concerned with this subject, or indeed any who would like to fully grasp the controversy's roots in the Church."--ANN GAUGER, Senior Research Scientist, Biologic Institute
"Fr. Chaberek has done Catholics and all Christians a great service by describing the progression of the present controversy over creation, intelligent design, and theistic evolution from the Bible and early days of Christianity until today. His book will open eyes."--BRUCE CHAPMAN, Founding Fellow, Discovery Institute
FR. MICHAEL CHABEREK O.P., S.T.D. is a member of the Polish Dominican Province, with a Doctorate in Fundamental Theology from Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski University in Warsaw.
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Catholics Confronting Hitler: The Catholic Church and the Nazis
Written with economy and in chronological order, this book offers a comprehensive account of the response to the Nazi tyranny by Pope Pius XII, his envoys, and various representatives of the Catholic Church in every country where Nazism existed before and during WWII.
Peter Bartley makes extensive use of primary sources - letters, diaries, memoirs, official government reports, German and British. He manifestly quotes the works of several prominent Nazis, of churchmen, diplomats, members of the Resistance, and ordinary Jews and gentiles who left eye-witness accounts of life under the Nazis, in addition to the wartime correspondence between Pius XII and President Roosevelt.
This book reveals how resistance to Hitler and rescue work engaged many churchmen and laypeople at all levels, and was often undertaken in collaboration with Protestants and Jews. The Church paid a high price in many countries for its resistance, with hundreds of churches closed down, bishops exiled or martyred, and many priests shot or sent to Nazi death camps.
Bartley also explores the supposed inaction of the German bishops over Hitler's oppression of the Jews, showing that the Reich Concordat did not deter the hierarchy and clergy from protesting the regime's iniquities or from rescuing its victims. While giving clear evidence for Papal condemnation of the Jewish persecution, he also explains why Pius XII could not completely set aside the language of diplomacy and be more openly vocal in his rebuke of the Nazis.
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Christian Symbols Pamphlet
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Church and the Roman Empire (301-490): Constantine, Councils, and the Fall of Rome
Winner of a 2020 Catholic Press Association book award (first place, best new religious book series).
Suspense, politics, sin, death, sex, and redemption: Not the plot of the latest crime novel, but elements of the true history of the Catholic Church.
Larger-than-life saints such as Athanasius of Alexandria, Jerome, Augustine, and political figures such as Emperor Constantine played an important part in the history of the Christianity. In The Church and the Roman Empire (301-490): Constantine, Councils, and the Fall of Rome, popular Catholic author Mike Aquilina gives readers a vivid and engaging account of how Christianity developed and expanded as the Roman Empire declined.
In The Church and the Roman Empire (301-490), Mike Aquilina explores the dramatic backstory of the Council of Nicaea and why Christian unity and belief are still expressed by the Nicene Creed. He also sets the record straight about commonly held misconceptions about the Catholic Church. Readers may be surprised to learn:
Aquilina brings Church history to life in The Church and the Roman Empire, enabling Catholics to more deeply consider the true origins of the creed that unites us, the Bible we read, and the liturgy we celebrate.
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Church Fathers and Teachers: from Saint Leo the Great to Peter Lombard
After meditating on the Apostles and then on the Fathers of the early Church, as seen in his earlier works Jesus, the Apostles and the Early Church and Church Fathers, Pope Benedict XVI devoted his attention to the most influential Christian men from the fifth through the twelfth centuries. In his first book, Church Fathers, Benedict began with Clement of Rome and ended with Saint Augustine. In this volume, the Holy Father reflects on some of the greatest theologians of the Middle Ages: Benedict, Anselm, Bernard, and Gregory the Great, to name just a few. By exploring both the lives and the ideas of the great popes, abbots, scholars and missionaries who lived during the fall of the Roman Empire and the rise of Christendom, Pope Benedict XVI highlights the key elements of Catholic dogma and practice that remain the foundation stones not only of the Roman Catholic Church but of Christian society itself. This book is a wonderful way to get to know these later Church Fathers and Teachers and the tremendous spiritually rich patrimony they have bequeathed to us.
"Without this vital sap, man is exposed to the danger of succumbing to the ancient temptation of seeking to redeem himself by himself."
-- Pope Benedict XVI
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Church Under Attack
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Columbus and the Crisis of the West
But is this a legitimate assessment of Europe's inevitable western expansion?
In Columbus and the Crisis of the West, Dr. Robert Royal carefully examines the mind and motives of Christopher Columbus, distinguishing him as the greatest explorer of his age, whose courage and vision extended Christian Europe and inspired the American spirit.
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Compact HIstory of the Catholic Church revised
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Conciliar Octet: A Concise Commentary on the Eight Key Texts of the Second Vatican Council
A lively debate continues in the Roman Catholic Church about the character of the teaching provided by the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965). Did it represent a decisive rupture with previous doctrine, or the continuation of its earlier message under new conditions? Much depends on whether the Council texts are read in the light of subsequent events, which shook and sometimes smashed the life, worship and devotion of traditional Catholicism - rather than considered for themselves, in their own right as documents with a pre-history that historians can know.
In this work Dominican scholar and writer Aidan Nichols maintains that the Council texts must be interpreted in the light of their genesis, not their aftermath. They must be seen in the light of the public debates in the Council chamber, not the hopes (or fears) of individuals behind the scenes. On this basis, he provides a concise commentary on the eight most significant documents produced by the Council, documents which cover pretty comprehensively all the major aspects of the Church's life.
Nichols describes the Council as a gathering where the Conciliar minority - guarded, prudent, and concerned for explicit continuity at all points with the preceding tradition - played a beneficial role in steadying the Conciliar majority, enthused as the latter was by the movements of biblical, patristic and liturgical 'return to the sources' and a desire to reach out to the world of the (then) present-day in generosity of heart. The texts that emerged from this often impassioned debate remain susceptible to a reading of a classically Christian kind. That is precisely what Nichols offers in this book.
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Continental Achievement, Volume 2: Roman Catholics in the United States-- Revolution and the Early Republic
In this second volume of acclaimed historian Kevin Starr's masterful work on Catholics in America, he picks up where he left off in his Continental Ambitions, which traced the stirrings of independence among the colonists of New England.
Starr shows how Catholics participated in the American Revolution and the founding of the United States. He then traces the establishment of the first Catholic dioceses in the new republic. In his captivating style, Starr dramatizes the representative personalities in this formative period.
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Continental Ambitions: Roman Catholics in North America: The Colonial Experience
Kevin Starr has achieved a fast-paced evocation of three Roman Catholic civilizations--Spain, France, and Recusant England--as they explored, evangelized, and settled the North American continent. This book represents the first time this story has been told in one volume. Showing the same narrative verve of Starr's award-winning Americans and the California Dream series, this riveting--but sometimes painful--history should reach a wide readership.
Starr begins this work with the exploration and temporary settlement of North America by recently Christianized Scandinavians. He continues with the destruction of Caribbean peoples by New Spain, the struggle against this tragedy by the great Dominican Bartolomé de Las Casas, the Jesuit and Franciscan exploration and settlement of the Spanish Borderlands (Florida, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Baja, and Alta California), and the strengths and weaknesses of the mission system.
He then turns his attention to New France with its highly developed Catholic and Counter-Reformational cultures of Quebec and Montreal, its encounters with Native American peoples, and its advance southward to New Orleans and the Gulf of Mexico. The volume ends with the founding of Maryland as a proprietary colony for Roman Catholic Recusants and Anglicans alike, the rise of Philadelphia and southern Pennsylvania as centers of Catholic life, the Suppression of the Jesuits in 1773, and the return of John Carroll to Maryland the following year.
Starr dramatizes the representative personalities and events that illustrate the triumphs and the tragedies, the achievements and the failures, of each of these societies in their explorations, treatment of Native Americans, and translations of religious and social value to new and challenging environments. His history is notable for its honesty and its synoptic success in comparing and contrasting three disparate civilizations, albeit each of them Catholic, with three similar and differing approaches to expansion in the New World.
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Coup at Catholic University: The 1968 Revolution in American Catholic Education
1968 witnessed perhaps the greatest revolution in the history of the Catholic Church in the United States. It was led by Fr. Charles Curran, professor of Theology at the Catholic University of America in Washington, with more than 500 theologians who signed a "Statement of Dissent" that declared Catholics were not bound in conscience to follow the Church's teaching in the encyclical of Pope Paul VI, Humanae Vitae, that said artificial contraception is morally wrong because it is destructive of the good of Christian marriage.
The battle at Catholic University centered on the major question in Catholic higher education during the turbulent years after the Second Vatican Council, "What is the meaning of academic freedom at a Catholic university?" Curran and the dissenting theologians maintained they needed to be free to teach without constraint by any outside authority, including the bishops. The bishops maintained that the American tradition of religious freedom guaranteed the right of religiously-affiliated schools to require their professors to teach in accord with the authority of their church.
This book uses never-before published material from the personal papers of the key players at CUA to tell the inside story of the dramatic events that unfolded there. Beginning with the 1967 faculty-led strike in support of Curran, this book reveals the content of the internal discussions between the key bishops on the CUA Board of Trustees.
This work attempts to disprove both the standard "liberal" and "conservative" interpretation of the events of 1968, suggesting that the culture of dissent was a direct fruit of the excessive legalism and authoritarianism which marked the Church in the years preceding Vatican II. Because the polarization in 1968 has continued to define the experience of many American Catholics and has had an ongoing effect on Catholic education, this work should be extremely interesting to those who want to understand the past so as to move forward with a greater awareness of the strengths and weaknesses of Catholic education in the United States.
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Crucifixion of Jesus: a Forensic Inquiry
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Crucifixion: Understanding the Death of Jesus Christ
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Crusades: The World's Debate
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Desert Fathers Vintage Spiritual Classics
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Divine Plan: John Paul II, Ronald Reagan, and the Dramatic End of the Cold War
"John Paul II and Ronald Reagan both understood that they were preserved through this suffering for a high purpose.
And I don't think you'll understand either one of them without understanding that."
--Bishop Robert Barron in The Divine Plan
Just six weeks apart in the spring of 1981, Pope John Paul II and President -Ronald Reagan took bullets from would-be assassins.
Few realized at the time how close both men came to dying.
Surviving these near-death experiences created a singular bond between the pope and the president that -historians have failed to appreciate.
When John Paul II and Reagan met only a year later, they confided to each other a shared conviction: that God had spared their lives for a -reason.
That reason? To defeat Communism.
In private, Reagan had a name for this: "The DP"--the Divine Plan.
* * *
It has become fashionable to see the collapse of the Soviet empire as inevitable.
Hardly.
In this riveting book, bestselling author Paul Kengor and writer--director Robert Orlando show what it took to end the Cold War: leaders who refused to accept that hundreds of -millions must suffer under totalitarian -Communism.
And no leaders proved more important than the pope and the president.
Two men who seemed to have little in common developed an extraordinary bond--including a spiritual bond between the Catholic pope and Protestant president. And their shared core convictions drove them to confront Communism.
To tell the full story of the dramatic closing act of the Cold War, Kengor and Orlando draw on their exhaustive research and exclusive interviews with more than a dozen experts, including well-known historians Douglas Brinkley, H. W. Brands, Anne Applebaum, Stephen Kotkin, John O'Sullivan, and Craig Shirley; the leading biographer of John Paul II, George Weigel; close Reagan advisers Richard V. Allen and James Rosebush; and Cardinal Timothy Dolan and Bishop Robert Barron.
You can't understand Pope John Paul II and President Ronald Reagan--or how the Cold War came to such a swift and peaceful end--without understanding how much faith they put in the Divine Plan.
Don't miss the Divine Plan motion picture!
thedivineplanmovie.com
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Dominion: How the Christian Revolution Remade the World
Crucifixion, the Romans believed, was the worst fate imaginable, a punishment reserved for slaves. How astonishing it was, then, that people should have come to believe that one particular victim of crucifixion-an obscure provincial by the name of Jesus-was to be worshipped as a god. Dominion explores the implications of this shocking conviction as they have reverberated throughout history. Today, the West remains utterly saturated by Christian assumptions. As Tom Holland demonstrates, our morals and ethics are not universal but are instead the fruits of a very distinctive civilization. Concepts such as secularism, liberalism, science, and homosexuality are deeply rooted in a Christian seedbed. From Babylon to the Beatles, Saint Michael to #MeToo, Dominion tells the story of how Christianity transformed the modern world.
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Early Christian Writings: The Apostolic Fathers
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Early Church (33-313): St. Peter, the Apostles, and Martyrs
Winner of a 2020 Catholic Press Association book award (first place, best new religious book series).
The first three centuries of the Christian faith were a period of missionary zeal, deep thought, and tribulation. In The Early Church (33-313): St. Peter, the Apostles, and Martyrs, Catholic historian and biblical expert James Papandrea dispels what he calls common "mythconceptions" about the early years of Christianity. Tracking the challenges of heresy and persecution throughout the period, Papandrea shines a spotlight on the earliest saints and explores the growth and development of the new Church.
The first Apostles spread the message of Jesus Christ and were willing to suffer and die for their faith. The next generations of believers followed their example, producing inspiring martyrs including Polycarp, Justin, Perpetua, and Sebastian, and great thinkers such as Irenaeus, Tertullian, and Eusebius. In The Early Church (33-313), author and historian James Papandrea presents a clear account of the Church's first three centuries and provides evidence to refute fourteen commonly held beliefs about the Catholic Church. You will learn:
With clear explanation and inspiring stories, Papandrea sorts through what we do and don't know about the early Church and enables Catholics and fellow Christians to make sense of the Church's beginnings.
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