The late historian Marvin O’Connell left a legacy of brilliant prose and pictures of the past, and in this book the reader at long last has access to O’Connell’s own story. Fr. Bill Miscamble, a noted historian and scholar in his own right, attributes to O’Connell the title ‘Master’ above all on account of his ability to know what matters and then write about it “in the way that all great stories are told.” In addition to his status as histor (giver of history), O’Connell was a long-time professor and chair of the history department at the University of Notre Dame. He is author of the masterwork, Sorin, which presents the riveting and dynamic narrative of the founding of Notre Dame on the inspired ambition of Edward Sorin, C.S.C. O’Connell was not a man who “genuflected in hagiography.” Rather, in the manner he lived faithfully yet soberly under the shining shadow of the Golden Dome, O’Connell told stories in the manner they were lived and with all the accompanying faults and triumphs. 

In Miscamble’s thorough introduction of O’Connell, he writes that the latter “utilized his striking talents as a historian as an integral part of his fundamental vocation as a priest. [O’Connell] once described the historian as a veritable ‘midwife to our faith,’ who must capture, as best as evidence will allow, the truth of the past.” This position lends itself to the structure of this work. The first part is the sadly incomplete memoirs of Fr. O’Connell, wherein the reader meets the historian and moves with eagerness and confidence into the essays that follow. Highlights of these collected essays include thoughts on Cardinal Newman, Belloc, the Spanish Inquisition, and the historical perspective of evangelization in the United States and modernism at large. What one reads are stories that might have been lost but are here preserved in what can with all moral certainty be called truthfulness. As his friend Ralph McInerny once qualified him, O’Connell combined compassion and judgment such that his histories were always indeed primarily stories and, as the reader well knows, stories have layers and threads and are not told simply for their conclusions. 

O’Connell succeeds in showing one how human history is written. Above all, he reveals that history is made by humans, but must also be remembered and deciphered by humans who cannot forego leaving their own marks and prints on everything they encounter (in memory or otherwise). The objectivity we seek can be found in one historical account alone, asserts the priest-storyteller, yet a sharp eye to the past is always consonant with a compassionate desire to understand. Bill Schmitt, Fr. Bill Miscamble and David Solomon do posterity a service by giving us this man and his masterful engagement of history. These friends of O’Connell deem the historian’s passion for truth-in-context to be foundational for shaping stories that matter, including his own. 

 "This artful combination of memoir and selected essays reawakens our memory of Father O'Connell in all his immense personal charm, intellectual energy, rich erudition, keen wit, and steadfast dedication to his interlocking callings as priest and historian." —J. Philip Gleason, Emeritus Professor, History Department, University of Notre Dame

"The work of a master historian, these memoirs and essays are reliable in recounting what happened, insightful in judging how and why, and eloquent in presenting it all with a flair and wit rarely equaled in historical writing. Moreover, they come forth from a Catholic faith so deep and secure that it need not be imposed on the reader. Rather, they do what good historical writing does, placing the reader into a past that can be seen and felt, recognized and understood. Whether it be his colorful accounts of the tumultuous life and times of Thomas More, or the valiant struggles of Newman and the Oxford Movement, or his own seminary training and teaching in St. Paul, or his fortunes as a graduate student at Notre Dame under the tutelage of the eminent Monsignor Phillip Hughes—whatever the topic, reading O’Connell’s history gives one the gift of being able to say, I remember that happening and I wasn’t even there!"—Michael J. Baxter, Director of Catholic Studies, Regis University in Denver

"O'Connell was a master story teller. He was not, however, just a story teller. He was painstakingly rigorous in what and how he taught. His stories always perfectly illustrated a point, but they were never a substitution for the truth--rather an illustration of it." —Bradley Birzer, Russell Amos Kirk Chair in American Studies, Hillsdale College

Diverse in topics yet unified in purpose, this volume brings together Schmitz's penetrating and rich insight into being, produced over many years, to offer readers a magisterial study from one of the great Christian philosophers of our time.

A comprehensive historical study of the complete content and overall coherence of two and a half centuries of papal instructions that have variously aroused worldwide interest, scorn, fury, reaction, and consent. It provides the kind of analysis that concerned Roman Catholics, public officials, social ethicists, theologians, and students need. It is a textually inclusive and topically broad-gauged review of Catholic social teaching in its historical development, with a forthright assessment of its regrettable contradictions as well as of its valuable consistencies.

Earth is imperiled. Human activities are adversely affecting the land, water, air, and myriad forms of biological life that comprise the ecosystems of our planet. Indicators of global warming and holes in the ozone layer inhibit functions vital to the biosphere. Environmental damage to the planet becomes damaging to human health and well-being now and into the future—and too often that damage affects those who are least able to protect themselves.

Can religion make a positive contribution to preventing further destruction of biological diversity and ecosystems and threats to our earth? Jame Schaefer thinks that it can, and she examines the thought of Christian Church fathers and medieval theologians to reveal and retrieve insights that may speak to our current plight. By reconstructing the teachings of Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, and other classic thinkers to reflect our current scientific understanding of the world, Schaefer shows how to "green" the Catholic faith: to value the goodness of creation, to appreciate the beauty of creation, to respect creation's praise for God, to acknowledge the kinship of all creatures, to use creation with gratitude and restraint, and to live virtuously within the earth community.

What are human rights? Can theology acknowledge human rights discourse? Is theological engagement with human rights justified? What place should this discourse occupy within ethics?

Ethna Regan seeks to answer these questions about human rights, Christian theology, and philosophical ethics. The main purpose of this book is to justify and explore theological engagement with human rights. Regan illustrates how that engagement is both ecumenical and diverse, citing the emerging engagement with human rights discourse by evangelical theologians in response to the War on Terror. The book examines where the themes and concerns of key modern theologians—Karl Rahner, J. B. Metz, Jon Sobrino, and Ignacio Ellacuría—converge with the themes and concerns of those committed to the advancement of human rights. Regan also critically engages with the “disdain” for rights discourse that is found in the postliberal critiques of John Milbank and Stanley Hauerwas.

This interdisciplinary volume will be of interest to students and scholars in the fields of systematic theology, theological ethics, human rights, religion and politics, and political theory.

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A Theology of the Christian Bible is built upon the thesis that divine revelation, the inspiration and canonization of Scripture should be viewed as “sequentially linked movements” of a single process wherein God reveals his Word in history and ensures permanent accessibility of revelation for his People, both of Israel and of the Church. The starting point is the view expressed in the Second Vatican Council’s document Dei Verbum that revelation consists of the “words and realities” of Salvation History. This marks a shift away from the neo-scholastic concept that approached revelation primarily as a set of propositional truths. Farkasfalvy begins with the notion of revelation as a historical process: God reveals his Word in a “salvation history,” which culminates in the Incarnation. The transmission of revelation always involves human mediation by chosen individuals or, in the language of the biblical and patristic tradition, “Prophets and Apostles.” Farkasfalvy then moves on to review some of the major contributors to the theology of inspiration around the time of Vatican II (Bea, Rahner, Alonso-Schökel), the teaching of Dei Verbum proper, and finally the 2014 document of the Pontifical Biblical Commission and biblical inspiration and the truth of the Bible, treating each of these in its individual context. According to Farkasfalvy, the theology of inspiration was greatly handicapped by the neo-scholastic notion of God as a “literary author” of the scriptural texts. Advocating God as true and genuine “author” of Scripture, but in a non-literary sense, Farkasfalvy also reviews afresh the tradition inspiration-incarnation analogy. Scripture should be thought of in light of God progressively revealing himself in limited and located contexts to chosen human beings, through whom revelation is transmitted in verbal and, eventually, written form. God guides the complex compositional processes of the biblical books so that his word becomes accessibly and permanently preserved in writing for his people, the Church. The final chapters of A Theology of the Christian Bible take up the extension of these dynamics into canonization. These largely exegetical and historical chapters focus on the transmission of the revelation in Christ through both Testaments by means of Jesus’ Apostles, embracing the Hebrew Scriptures and setting in motion the formation and, in early patristics, the canonization of the New Testament.

This book offers a new way of looking at Saint Thomas Aquinas-not as a living man, but as a posthumous source of relics. Marika Räsänen delves deep into the strange relationship between Aquinas's physical remains and the devotional moments they enabled-in many cases in situations where the actual relics were not present, but were recreated verbally, pictorially, or allegorically. Both the actual relics and these extended manifestations of them, Räsänen shows, were equally real to the medieval spectator, though the question of the material presence of Aquinas's remains became increasingly important over time amid the political tumult of southern Italy.

This book explores the contribution of the Rev Dr Thomas Shields (1862-1921) to Catholic education in the United States of America in the late 19th and early 20th century. Fr Shields was a pioneer in combining a career as an academic in Catholic University of America with the publication of many resources for schools. Given his pioneering role in aligning Catholic educational thought with emerging insights in the sciences, and his multi-layered commitment to Catholic education as scholar, author of textbooks and founder of initiatives in the field of Teacher Education, it seems fitting that his considerable body of work should be the subject of fresh scholarly investigation. The book is in five parts. Part 1, “Catholicism as an Educational Movement”, sets out the contours of the intellectual climate in which Shields operated and presents Catholicism as a dynamic educational movement. Part 2, “Responding to Progressive Thought”, explores the relationship between Progressivism and Catholic Education, showing how the Catholic Church responded to the challenges presented by Progressive thought. Part 3, “Shields and the Reform of Pedagogy”, examines both Shields’ general pedagogical principles and how they relate to Catholic education. Part 4, “Forming Teachers in Heart and Mind”, considers Shields’ ideas on Catholic Teacher Formation, exploring issues such as culture, vocation, method and curriculum. Part 5, “The Catholic Education Series”, explores selected examples from Shields’ Catholic Education Series to identify how his material for schools reflected, to a greater or lesser extent, his wider educational ideas. As the present age is also witness to considerable and deep-rooted challenges to Catholic education and, indeed to the Catholic understanding of the human person, Shields’ work will inspire contemporary reform-minded Catholic educators to reassess and develop the mission of Catholic education in light of the traditions of the Church.

Saint Thomas Aquinas famously held the opinion that, in God’s actual plan for the world, the Word would not have become flesh except to redeem us from sin. Conversely, Blessed John Duns Scotus argued that God intended Christ first, such that Christ would have come even if there had been no sin. While Aquinas and Scotus were far from the first to consider this question, they became emblematic of two seemingly irreconcilable approaches. In this book, Father Dylan Schrader recovers the thought of the Salmanticenses, the Discalced Carmelites writing at the University of Salamanca in the seventeenth century. The Salmanticenses argue that Christ is primary in God’s intention precisely as redeemer, so that it is true both that God has made everything else for the sake of Christ and that Christ’s coming is essentially redemptive, connected with sin. In this way, the Salmanticenses offer a Thomistic Christocentrism. This book summarizes the historical background to the Salmanticenses, from the time of Anselm up through the early-modern period. Next, it presents and defends the Salmanticenses’ argument for the primacy of Christ the redeemer. A Thomistic Christocentrism then turns to two key post-conciliar figures, Karl Rahner and Hans Urs von Balthasar. Rahner sees Christ as the culmination of the world’s opening up to God. Balthasar sees Christ as the reconciler of divine and human freedom through his cross, descent, and resurrection. Both Christocentric approaches have good aspirations but suffer from serious flaws. In its final chapters, this book applies the Salamanca theory to Rahner and Balthasar, showing its enduring value for post-conciliar Christocentrism.

Is the faith journey a matter of reflection, of emotion, or of obedience? Is there valid and convincing evidence that does enable human beings to assent to Jesus Christ and his message? What is the influence of cognitive assumptions and of affective tende

This collection presents a representative sample of the writings of three of the six Jesuits who were slain in El Salvador on November 16, 1989. Although little known in the United States, these men were significant scholars who possessed an original conception of the university. They affirmed in difficult circumstances, the pursuit and teaching of truth as a collaborative, collegial process that transcends international boundaries.

A revealing account of the lives and work of Ethiopian Orthodox pilgrims in sixteenth-century Rome, examining how this African diasporic community navigated the challenges of religious pluralism in the capital of Latin Christianity.

Tucked behind the apse of Saint Peter’s Basilica in Rome is the ancient church of Santo Stefano. During the sixteenth century, Santo Stefano hosted an unusual community: a group of Ethiopian Orthodox pilgrims whose faith and culture were both like and unlike those of Latin Europe. The pilgrims of Santo Stefano were the only African community in premodern Europe to leave extensive documents in their own language (Gǝʿǝz). They also frequently collaborated with Latin Christians to disseminate their expert knowledge of Ethiopia and Ethiopian Christianity, negotiating the era’s heated debates over the boundaries of religious belonging.

Translating Faith is the first book-length study of this community in nearly a century. Drawing on Gǝʿǝz and European-language sources, Samantha Kelly documents how pilgrims maintained Ethiopian Orthodox practices while adapting to a society increasingly committed to Catholic conformity. Focusing especially on the pilgrims’ scholarly collaborations, Kelly shows how they came to produce and share Ethiopian knowledge—as well as how Latin Christian assumptions and priorities transformed that knowledge in unexpected ways. The ambivalent legacies of these exchanges linger today in the European tradition of Ethiopian Studies, which Santo Stefano is credited with founding.

Kelly’s account of the Santo Stefano pilgrim community is a rich tale about the possibilities and pitfalls of ecumenical dialogue, as well as a timely history in our own age marked by intensive and often violent negotiations of religious and racial difference.

A Treasure to Be Shared is intended to promote a more widespread knowledge of the Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum coetibus, promulgated by Pope Benedict XVI in 2009. The Apostolic Constitution provided for Personal Ordinariates for Anglicans entering into full communion with the Catholic Church. On the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the Apostolic Constitution, an academic symposium in the year 2019 sponsored by the Pontifical Gregorian University and the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, provided historical, liturgical, canonical and ecumenical perspectives on the fruits of the Apostolic Constitution for the wider Church. The hope is that the reader will see the Personal Ordinariates of The Chair of Saint Peter in the United States and Canada, Our Lady of Walsingham in Great Britain and Our Lady of the Southern Cross in Australia as a gift to the Church, and a treasure to be shared by all.

In this magisterial work, Michele M. Schumacher seeks to promote dialogue between disciples of the Swiss theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar (d. 1988) and those of the church's common doctor, St. Thomas Aquinas (d. 1274) on a critical theological question. How are analogies and metaphors from the philosophy and theology of the person (anthropology) rightly used to address the mystery of the Trinity? She does so by considering the specific setting of Balthasar's theology: the inseparability of his work from that of the Swiss physician and mystic Adrienne von Speyr (d. 1967).

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The Trinity is the central mystery of the Christian faith. What can we say about the divine nature, and what does it mean to say that God is Father, Son, Holy Spirit, three persons who are one in being? In this book, best selling author Thomas Joseph White, OP, examines the development of early Christian reflection on the Trinity, arguing that essential contributions of Patristic theology are preserved and expanded in the thought of Thomas Aquinas. By focusing on Aquinas’ theology of the divine nature as well as his treatment of divine personhood, White explores in depth the mystery of Trinitarian monotheism. The Trinity: On the Nature and Mystery of the One God also engages with influential proposals of modern theologians on major topics such as Trinitarian creation, Incarnation and crucifixion, and presents creative engagements with these topics. Ultimately any theology of the cross is also a theology of the Trinity, and this book seeks to illustrate how the human life, death, and resurrection of Jesus reveal the inner life of God as Trinity.

The first comprehensive history of the Vatican’s agenda to defeat the forces of secular liberalism and communism through international law, cultural diplomacy, and a marriage of convenience with authoritarian and right-wing rulers.

After the United States entered World War I and the Russian Revolution exploded, the Vatican felt threatened by forces eager to reorganize the European international order and cast the Church out of the public sphere. In response, the papacy partnered with fascist and right-wing states as part of a broader crusade that made use of international law and cultural diplomacy to protect European countries from both liberal and socialist taint.

A Twentieth-Century Crusade reveals that papal officials opposed Woodrow Wilson’s international liberal agenda by pressing governments to sign concordats assuring state protection of the Church in exchange for support from the masses of Catholic citizens. These agreements were implemented in Mussolini’s Italy and Hitler’s Germany, as well as in countries like Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland. In tandem, the papacy forged a Catholic International—a political and diplomatic foil to the Communist International—which spread a militant anticommunist message through grassroots organizations and new media outlets. It also suppressed Catholic antifascist tendencies, even within the Holy See itself.

Following World War II, the Church attempted to mute its role in strengthening fascist states, as it worked to advance its agenda in partnership with Christian Democratic parties and a generation of Cold War warriors. The papal mission came under fire after Vatican II, as Church-state ties weakened and antiliberalism and anticommunism lost their appeal. But—as Giuliana Chamedes shows in her groundbreaking exploration—by this point, the Vatican had already made a lasting mark on Eastern and Western European law, culture, and society.

The purpose of this volume is to deepen the appreciation for the stereophonic approach to truth that the Holy Father recommends.