Papal Books

Pope Francis' words to those seeking to give a firm profession of faith--which has always been the particular effect Catholic tradition has ascribed to confirmation--ring true for all of us. In Anointed, Jayme Stuart Wolfe has compiled the Holy Father's words about wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety, and fear of the Lord as special gifts for those continuing the commitment of their baptism into confirmation and beyond, as well as appropriate Scripture readings and prayers.

You know that in an Apostolic Letter in 2002, Pope John Paul II added five Luminous Mysteries. Did you know that in that same Letter he also called for a new way of praying the Rosary?

St. John Paul II's new way of praying the Rosary was based on the teachings of St. Theresa of Avila and has become known as the Contemplative Rosary because it more perfectly unites vocal prayer and meditation, transforming the prayers of the Rosary into a contemplative meeting with God.

Did you know about these changes? Have you tried them?

In our new book, The Contemplative Rosary, we have not only incorporated the five new Luminous Mysteries, we have included as well the many other changes Pope John Paul made to the Rosary.

Here are his additions to the texts and prayers -- additions small and large -- that, as John Paul intended, unite the Rosary more closely to the official liturgical prayers of the Church as well as to Scripture.

Here are also scores of full-color images for your contemplation that anchor your attention in each Mystery and transform your Rosary from a hasty, habitual recitation into a profound speaking to God and a keen listening to Him.

Following the wise advice of St. Theresa of Avila and the new method proposed by St. John Paul, you'll find here for each mystery:

A lovely, full-color classical painting depicting the events in the Mystery, for help in your contemplation.

A unique announcement of the Mystery.

A statement of the expected fruits of the Mystery.

The Scriptural passage you should consider before embarking on your prayers of the Mystery.

A call for a moment of silence in order to recollect yourself before entering the presence of God.

Each Mystery's own unique Hail Mary, including within each a John Paul II recommended statement of faith "to pull wandering minds back to Christ and center them in the mystery."

Seven meditations tailored to each Mystery, to accompany your recitation of the Hail Marys (but only employ one at a time).

A concluding short prayer asking God for the fruits specific to that Mystery.

Plus much more, so that finally you can begin to pray the Rosary as Saint John Paul wants you to pray it!

The priesthood is going through a dark time, according to Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI and Robert Cardinal Sarah. Wounded by the revelation of so many scandals, disconcerted by the constant questioning of their consecrated celibacy, many priests are tempted by the thought of giving up and abandoning everything.

In this book, the pope emeritus and the prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments give their brother priests, and the whole Church, a message of hope. They honestly address the spiritual challenges faced by priests today, while pointing to deeper conversion to Jesus Christ as the key to faithful and fruitful priestly ministry and genuine reform.

Benedict XVI and Cardinal Sarah fraternally offer these reflections to the people of God and, of course, in a spirit of filial obedience, to Pope Francis, who has said, I think that celibacy is a gift for the Church. . . . I don't agree with allowing optional celibacy, no.

Responding to calls for refashioning the priesthood, including proposals from participants in the Amazonian Synod, two wise, spiritually astute pastors explain the importance of priestly celibacy for the good of the whole Church. Drawing on Vatican II, they present celibacy as not just a mere precept of ecclesiastical law, but as a sharing in Jesus' sacrifice on the Cross and his identity as Bridegroom of the Church.

"The question of human procreation, like every other question which touches human life, involves more than ... biology, psychology, demography or sociology. It is the whole man and the whole mission to which he is called that must be considered: both its natural, earthly aspects and its supernatural, eternal aspects." - Pope Paul VI, Humanae Vitae

Pope Paul VI's prophetic encyclical Humanae Vitae, issued in 1968, presented the Church's consistent teachings on marriage and contraception to the modern world -- a world that demanded then, as it does now, that the Church adapt her teachings to itself. Standing calmly and firmly against a culture that sees contraception and abortion as individual choices, Humanae Vitae shows us what it means to share in the creative work of God. Paul VI lays out God's plan for human sexuality, a plan that invites married couples to celebrate the incredible gifts of human love and human life.

Humanae Vitae is a loving and honest look at the benefits and the challenges of Church teaching, and a call to the Church to provide guidance and support for couples as they strive to live out God's design for human life and marriage.

"All of us are called to keep striving towards something greater than ourselves and our families, and every family must feel this constant impulse. Let us make this journey as families, let us keep walking together." Pope Francis, Amoris Laetitia

In his groundbreaking work on modern family life, Amoris Laetitia: On Love in the Family, Pope Francis continues to guide and lead the Church, calling us to be a sign of mercy and encouragement for families of all shapes and sizes.

The Our Sunday Visitor edition includes exclusive reflection and discussion questions, to help Catholics grow in our understanding of this call, and act upon it.

In Amoris Laetitia: On Love in the Family the Holy Father expands on the topics and considerations of the two Synods on the family, and adds his own considerations to help us provide pastoral guidance to support and strengthen today's families.

On Love in the Family guides us through:

Scripture - what we can learn from Biblical families and relationships with God and each other

Reality - the experiences and challenges we face in today's world

Tradition - essential aspects of Church teaching on marriage and families

Love - what it means for all our relationships

Ministry - Pope Francis offers pastoral perspectives for helping build strong families

Spirituality - the expression of the Gospel message in our relationships

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.

For over two decades, Eugenio Pacelli, Pope Pius XII, has been blasted in the public square as "Hitler's Pope", accused by bestselling authors of cowardice in the face of the Nazi regime. Some have even said that the pope was complicit in Hitler's grab for power, privately fueled by a hatred for the Jewish people. And if they are right, who would not join in condemning a leader like this, especially one who claims to represent all Christians?

But what if this image of Pius XII is completely backward? Archival and archaeological researcher Michael Hesemann has unearthed thousands of documents--including from the Vatican Secret Archives (or the Vatican Apostolic Archive), only recently opened to scholars--to give a startling picture of Eugenio Pacelli as a shrewd diplomat and a champion of the Jewish people during World War II. Saving thousands upon thousands of lives, Pius demonstrated such courage and compassion in these times that Jewish leaders across the globe praised him, and the ecumenical Pave the Way Foundation has since nominated him for the Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum's Righteous among the Nations award.

The Pope and the Holocaust traces Pacelli's fight for peace in the 1930s and 1940s, including his years as apostolic nuncio in Germany, where he resisted Nazism. Even some of his most controversial moves, such as the 1933 Vatican concordat, were made to protect Jewish and Christian lives. What emerges clearly from Hesemann's evidence is a portrait of a man radically committed to the Jews and the revelation God gave to them. As Pope Pius himself remarked in 1938, "It is not legitimate for Christians to take part in anti-Semitism. Spiritually, we are all Semites."

Well known for his important scholarly contributions to dogmatic theology and biblical commentary, Joseph Ratzinger has also been an insightful, shrewd analyst of political modernity and its discontents. This work reveals Ratzinger's keen insight into the fundamental challenges confronting the twenty-first-century West.

The civilizational project we call "the West" was a cultural achievement with a history. Ratzinger understands that Jerusalem, Athens, and Rome were the three legs of the cultural stool on which "the West" rests. From that under- standing, Ratzinger draws his analysis of the West's post- modern crisis. Nineteenth-century Western culture kicked the Jerusalem leg out from under the stool when its "atheist humanists" declared the God of the Bible the enemy of human maturation and liberation.

When we lose the Jerusalem leg of the West's cultural support system, the Athenian leg gets wobbly. For absent the conviction that the God of the Bible imprinted something of his own "rationality" into a world created by the Logos (the Word or "reason" of God), reason begins to doubt its own ability to get at the truth of anything.

This assault on the capacity of reason to discern truth with certainty connects directly with what Ratzinger famously called the "dictatorship of relativism", the use of coercive state power to impose a relativistic moral order on all of society.

In response to this grave crisis today, Ratzinger says we need to focus on answering such fundamental questions as: How did western culture originate and what are its boundaries? What about the spiritual roots of western culture and the moral foundation she is founded on?

"The witness of Christian lives nobly lived is the beginning of reconversion of the West and that return to the truths taught by the God of the Bible is essential if the great Western civilizational project is not to crumble. Joseph Ratzinger understood that danger long before many others. It would be well to attend to his prescription."
George Weigel, From the Foreword