Church History

What do you really know about Vatican City?

The Vatican, comprising the Apostolic Palace, St. Peter's Basilica, and various other buildings, serves as the headquarters of the Catholic Church. It has done so for nearly two millennium ever since the first Pope, St. Peter, made it his home.

Thousands of Catholics flock to the Vatican and its iconic basilica each year. But what do you really know about this great basilica and the city that houses it?

Here, Father Jeffrey Kirby takes you on a whirlwind tour of this little country (yes, Vatican City is its own country, Fact # 2) and uncovers the secrets and surprising facts about the city, and its famous church.

Discover what language degree you need to work a Vatican ATM, what archi tectural feature of St. Peter's is a map of the universe, and even what the pope's license plate number is. Along the way, you'll find the deep theological meaning woven into the design and architectural features of St. Peter's Basilica and Vatican.

Whether you've already been to Rome or are still planning your first trip, 101 Surprising Facts About the Vatican will transport you to Basilica and City at the heart of the Catholic Church and enable you to appreciate them like never before.

Absorbing and compelling reading from beginning to end, AA -1025 Memoirs of the Communist Infiltration Into the Church is a must read for every Catholic today and for all who would understand just what has happened to the Catholic Church since the 1960's.

In the 1960's, a French nurse, Marie Carre, attended an auto-crash victim who was brought into her hospital in a city she purposely does not name. The man lingered there near death for a few hours and then died. He had no identification on him, but he had a briefcase in which there was a set of quasi-autobiographical notes. She kept these notes and read them, and because of their extraordinary content, decided to publish them.

The result is this little book, AA-1025 Memoirs of the Communist Infiltration Into the Church, a strange and fascinating account of a Communist who purposely entered the Catholic priesthood along with many others, with the intent to subvert and destroy the Church from within. His strange yet fascinating and illuminating set of biographical notes, tells of his commission to enter the priesthood, his experiences in the seminary, and the means and methods he used and promoted to help effect from within the auto-dissolution of the Catholic Church.

No one will read this book without a profound assent that something just like what is describer here must surely have happened on a wide scale in order to have disrupted the life of the Catholic Church so dramatically.

Relying on the ancient documents, as well as latest archeological findings and scientific research, acclaimed author Mike Aquilina takes you on a journey through the Apostolic Age, bringing to life the ancient streets and crowded marketplaces through which Mary and the Apostles journeyed as they built a Church that lasts even to our day.

2020 The Gospel Coalition Ministry Honorable Mention for Evangelism & Apologetics

Can we all agree on some things about Jesus, regardless of our belief--or unbelief?

Perhaps surprisingly, there is a lot upon which all scholars can agree. When surveying historical scholarship, there are certain truths about Jesus that Christians, agnostics, and skeptics must affirm.

In The Bedrock of Christianity, Justin Bass shows how--regardless of one's feelings about Christianity--there lies a bedrock of truths about Jesus's life and ministry that are held by virtually all scholars of religion. Through an examination of each of these key facts, readers will encounter the unalterable truths upon which everyone can agree. Useful for both Christians and non-Christians alike, this study demonstrates what we can really know about the historical truth of Jesus' death and resurrection.

For Catholics, the question of evolution touches on all the most important topics: the nature of God and his work in the world, the nature of life, and the status of man in the universe. It is also a subject of perennial controversy and confusion. Some see the Darwinian theory of evolution as a major agent in discrediting the Church's doctrine on creation, undermining biblically-based morality and the concept of human exceptionalism. Others regard Darwinian theory as compatible with biblical faith and Catholic tradition. Has the Church itself "evolved"? Or are there certain truths that are permanent and irreplaceable?

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.

In this compelling new work, Father David Meconi tells the exciting story of, as the subtitle says, the first 500 years of Christ's life. How can that be, readers may ask, if Christ lived only 33 years on earth. Therein lies the uniqueness of Meconi's approach to this history. In these pages, he shows how the early Christians understood the Church not as a set of teachings or even as one more religion among many, but as the extension of Christ himself. The Church is ultimately the deifying union between Christ the Head and his sanctified members. Just as the Lord unfurls himself into the Eucharist, Jesus Christ also extends his divinely human presence into his Mystical Body, the Church. By focusing on the development of the early Church and the first 4 ecumenical councils in particular, these pages trace that development over the first 500 years of Jesus' life on earth.

Lourdes and Fatima, war, Vatican I and II, Fulton Sheen, St. John Paul II, and the clerical sex abuse crisis: These are just a few of the people and events that helped define the Catholic Church in the modern era, the period between 1846 and 2005.

The call to live the fullness of our faith has not changed since the time of the first disciples, but in The Church and the Modern Era (1846-2005), author David Wagner explores how the Catholic Church met the challenges of the industrial age, world wars, the sexual revolution, and technological advancement in an increasingly secular world.

The "modern era" of the Catholic Church began with the election of Blessed Pius IX in 1846 and ends with the death of St. John Paul II in 2005, the last pope to have served as a council father at Vatican II. With monarchies falling, nation-states rising, and industrialization and mass migration underway, the world in which we live changed more during this period than any other, David Wagner contends. While the Church may feel more user-friendly and less formal than ever before, what we believe has been handed down from the beginning.

Wagner will reintroduce you to some of the era's most powerful examples of virtue and faith such as St. John Henry Newman, St. Thérèse of Lisieux, St. Josephine Bakhita, St. Faustina, and St. Maximillian Kolbe. He will also dispel some of the long-held misconceptions about the Church that span the 160-year period.

In The Church and the Modern Era, you will learn:

The Catholic Church is the world's most powerful advocate for workers, the poor, and human rights.

The Church's social teaching does not endorse any economic or political systems.

The Second Vatican Council did not change Catholic teaching on faith or morals.

The Church's teaching on human sexuality is the real sexual revolution.

The Church has been an advocate for raising the status of women, championing women's rights to education, to work, and to equal pay.

The Church and the Modern Era includes a map and chronology.

Books in the Reclaiming Catholic History series, edited by Mike Aquilina and written by leading authors and historians, bring Church history to life, debunking the myths one era at a time. This volume includes a series epilogue by Aquilina that examines the decades since the death of St. John Paul II and provides a look ahead.

The Church of God in Jesus Christ consists of three parts: the first provides a concise historical survey of ecclesiology elucidating the most salient teachings and insights from the Old and New Testaments, the writings of the fathers, the medievals, moderns, up to the present day. It integrates a standard historical overview with a recovery of oft ignored or forgotten insights from the tradition (e.g., beginnings of the Church in prehistoric times and in Israel, Irenaeus's Trinitarian ecclesiology and St. Bernard's nuptial vison of the Church.

The second part is a systematic ecclesiology ordered around the four marks of the Church, then proceeding to treat the participation of all the faithful in the threefold office of Christ, the ongoing renewal and reform of the Church by the Holy Spirit working through her members, and finishing with a hitherto neglected study of the eschatological consummation of the Church in heavenly glory.

The third part consists of five essays on particular themes of special importance in ecclesiology. Of the five, most notable is the chapter on the relationship between the Church's infallibility and Mary.

Fr. Roch Kereszty intends to integrate theological insights with nourishing the reader's spiritual life by emphasizing the essentially Trinitarian, nuptial and Marian dimensions of the Church.

The book fills a genuine need in that it offers a rich synthesis of the ecclesiological renewal in an accessible and clear language. It will enrich not only students of theology but all those college educated adults who are interested to delve beyond the clichés of the media into the contemplation of the manifold mystery of the Church.

Here's an unabashedly Catholic history that documents scores of sustained and unprecedented assaults on our Catholic Faith these past five centuries and delineates our Church's brave response to each one.

A must-have guide to the Church through the ages. Maybe you've wondered just what the Church has to offer. Or maybe you've been tempted to give up on it as you realize its weaknesses. The Compact History of the Catholic Church sweeps through the centuries offering a clear-eyed view of the Church's development and contributions to world history. God's faithfulness and mercy are evident, too, as he continually renews the Church and raises it "again and again from the pit of trouble to new heights of faith, charity and peace." Now including a handy timeline highlighting major developments and figures from the time of Christ into the twenty-first century.

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.

In a language that is both precise and easy to understand, Dr. Zugibe presents his discoveries culled from years of exhaustive research. Documented with 95 illustrations that explore the impact of crucifixion on the body, he demonstrates the realities behind the crucifixion on the body, providing a virtual autopsy on Christ from across the centuries.

Belloc shows that the Crusades were a titanic struggle between Christian civilization and "the Turk," savage Mongols who had embraced Islam. He explains the practical reasons why the Crusaders initially succeeded and why they ultimately failed then he predicts the re-emergence of Islam, since Christendom failed to destroy it in the 12th century. Makes history come alive and gives a rare, true appreciation of Christendom and of our Catholic forefathers!

"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

Doors to the Sacred has endured as an indispensable account of the sacraments of the Catholic Church. Used in hundreds of university and seminary courses and full of critical acclaim, it details their historical and cultural evolution and the rituals and practices associated with them. This Vatican II Golden Anniversary Edition explains the liturgical changes found in The Roman Missal, Third Edition, and provides extensive resources for students and seekers alike, including:

A visual timeline of people, events, and sacramental changes in Church history,

A glossary of philosophical and theological terms

An updated annotated bibliography for further reading

An improved design for easier reading and reference.