Encyclicals

Pope Benedict XVI and Pope Francis have each approached the papacy in strikingly different ways, yet they share the same fundamental vision of the world and man. In these pages, Cardinal Muller, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, explores the differences and commonalities of these two popes, showing how the challenge for the Church's hierarchy remains the same, and how these two popes are leading the Church to resist worldly infections and to heal the spiritual diseases of our time.

He also provides a succinct and fascinating look into the universal ministry of the Church, showing how the popes, as successors to Peter, are the visible head of the pilgrim Church and are tasked with carrying out the pastoral ministry of Christ.

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

"Karol Wojtyla, Pope John Paul II, was a man whose life was the expression of a richly textured and multidimensional soul. The many layers of that soul took on their first, mature form in Kraków." - George Weigel

In this beautifully illustrated spiritual travelogue, New York Times bestselling author George Weigel leads readers through the historic streets of Kraków, Poland, introducing one of the world's great cities through the life of one of the most influential Catholic leaders of all time.

"To follow Karol Wojtyla through Kraków is to follow an itinerary of sanctity while learning the story of a city." Weigel writes. "Thus, in what follows, the story of Karol Wojtyla, St. John Paul II, and the story of Kraków are interwoven in a chronological pilgrimage through the life of a saint that reveals, at the same time, the dramatic history and majestic culture of a city where a boy grew into a man, priest, a bishop--and an apostle to the world."

With stunning photographs by Stephen Weigel and notes on the city's remarkable fabric by Carrie Gress, City of Saints offers an in-depth look at a man and a city that made an indelible impression on the life and thought of the Catholic Church and the 21st century world.

He reveals how grace grows in times of illness when:

Christians bring the peace of Christ to the sick through service and care.

Difficult moments become the path to forge stronger relationships with family, communities, and with Christ.

Men and women in science cultivate and apply God's gift of creation for the treatment and cure of diseases, setting free the oppressed.

Christ sets one free, helps one endure, and allows suffering for the sake of a greater joy yet to come.

This easy-to-read book has the best of Pope Francis's reflections on this challenging human experience.

Presented in an elegant design, this small book is easy to take with you and a joy to read!

"This book is . . . my personal search 'for the face of the Lord.'"--Benedict XVI

In this bold, momentous work, the Pope seeks to salvage the person of Jesus from today's "popular" depictions and to restore his true identity as discovered in the Gospels. Through his brilliance as a theologian and his personal conviction as a believer, the Pope incites us to encounter Jesus face to face.

From Jesus of Nazareth ". . . the great question that will be with us throughout this entire book: But what has Jesus really brought, then, if he has not brought world peace, universal prosperity, and a better world? What has he brought? The answer is very simple: God. He has brought God! He has brought the God who once gradually unveiled his countenance first to Abraham, then to Moses and the prophets, and then in the wisdom literature-the God who showed his face only in Israel, even though he was also honored among the pagans in various shadowy guises. It is this God, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, the true God, whom he has brought to the peoples of the earth. He has brought God, and now we know his face, now we can call upon him. Now we know the path that we human beings have to take in this world. Jesus has brought God and with God the truth about where we are going and where we come from: faith, hope, and love."

This Image Books edition features a biographical portrait of Pope John by his personal secretary, Monsignor Loris Capovilla. It also includes several of his most moving prayers, sixty brief thoughts and aphorisms, his "Rules for the Ascetic Life," many of his letters, even his last will and testament. Christians everywhere will welcome the reissue of "one of the most original, interesting, and inspiring revelations of intimate personal experiences ever written," which "ranks well with the classic spiritual autobiographies" (Critic).

Journal of a Soul, the first ever such work from a Roman pontiff, opens new windows onto the soul of the man himself.

The story of the first Pope to resign in over 700 years.

Pope Benedict made history when he became the first Pope in over 700 years to resign from office, stunning the Catholic Church the world over. At last, Last Testament is a stunning and frank autobiography from the shy and private man who has since remained cloistered in a former convent in the Vatican gardens. In interviews with Peter Seewald, the Pope Emeritus breaks his silence on corruption within the Vatican, clerical sex scandals, and the challenge of reforming the Papacy.

In these interviews, Benedict discusses such wide-ranging controversies as:

- The "Vatileaks" case in which his butler leaked some of his personal letters that alleged corruption and scandal in the Vatican
- The presence of a "gay lobby" within the Vatican and how he dismantled it
- His alleged Nazi upbringing
- His attempts at cleaning up the "dirt in the church" (clerical sexual abuse)
- The mysterious private secretary "Gorgeous George"

On a more personal level he writes with great warmth of his successor Pope Francis, who he admits has a popular touch, a star quality which Benedict himself has lacked. Much controversy still surrounds Pope Benedict's Papacy--in this book he addresses these controversies and reveals how at his late age, governing and reforming the Papacy and particularly the Vatican, was beyond him.