Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma


Ludwig Ott - 1952
    A one-volume encyclopedia of Catholic doctrines. Tells exactly what the Church teaches on any particular topic. Tells when the pronouncement was made and gives the sources from Scripture, Church Councils, Papal statements and the Fathers and Doctors of the Church. Essential for priests, seminarians, parents and teachers. Easily one of our most important books. 560 pgs, PB

The Catechism of the Council of Trent


Pope Pius V
    Pius V. was originally commissioned during the Reformation period, in order to explain the Faith clearly and calmly in the face of Protestant objections. It still serves as an excellent compendium of the Church's traditional life and belief.

Catechism of the Catholic Church


The Catholic Church - 1992
    This book is the catechism (the word means "instruction") that will serve as the standarad for all future catechisms.The Catechism draws on the Bible, the Mass, the Sacraments, Church tradition and teaching, and the lives of saints. It comes with a complete index, footnotes and cross-references for a fuller understanding of every subject. Using the tradition of explaining what the Church believes (the Creed), what she celebrates (the Sacraments), what she lives (the Commandments), and what she prays (the Lord's Prayer), the Catechism of the Catholic Church offers challenges for believers and answers for all those interested in learning about the mystery of the Catholic faith. Here is a positive, coherent and contemporary map for our spiritual journey toward transformation.The Catechism of the Catholic Church is, as Pope John Paul II calls it, "a special gift."

The Essential Catholic Survival Guide: Answers to Tough Questions About the Faith


Catholic Answers - 2005
    In fact, it's just gotten harder. With the recent election of our current Pope, a new wave of attacks is under way by the enemies of the Catholic Church. From this point forward, every Catholic will come face-to-face with the vicious anti-Catholic attacks that are being launched against the faith. Here at Catholic Answers, the most effective products for countering attacks and clearing up misunderstandings have been our tracts. They've been around since the beginning of the apostolate and have resulted in many thousands of conversions. These tracts provide a real point of contact for someone in discovering the truths of the Catholic faith. We've decided to compile seventy of the best tracts into one cohesive, comprehensive book that can be used by anyone, anytime, anywhere to defend the Catholic faith. "The Essential Catholic Survival Guide" is indexed according to topic in a unique question-and-answer format that allows the reader to find the right answer to any question instantly. It covers the questions and misconceptions people have about the Catholic faith on a variety of topics, including: * The Church and the papacy * Scripture and Tradition * Mary and the saints * The sacraments * Salvation * Last things * Morality and science * Anti-Catholicism * Non-Catholic churches and movements * Practical apologetics It's the essence of Catholic apologetics - all rolled up into one attractive, easy-to-use manual that is destined to become the most effective tool of its kind.

The Cross and Beatitudes: Lessons on Love and Forgiveness


Fulton J. Sheen - 2000
    Sheen brings together Christ's Sermon on the Mount with his Seven Last Words. From the Mount of the Beatitudes to the Hill of Calvary, Our Lord's public ministry and statements centered on the themes of love and forgiveness, which are explored here with Archbishop Sheen's characteristic insight and passion.

United States Catholic Catechism for Adults


United States Conference of Catholic Bishops - 2006
    His story like the stories at the start of each chapter in the United States Catholic Catechism for Adults give us a glimpse into the lives of Catholics who lived out their faith throughout our country's history. Each chapter in the Catechism for Adults includes stories, doctrine, reflection, quotations, discussion questions, and prayer to lead the reader to a deepening faith. The Catechism for Adults is an excellent resource for preparation of catechumens in the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults and for ongoing catechesis of adults.

The Faith of Our Fathers


James Gibbons - 1876
    Delves into the historical background of virtually everything people find hard to understand about our Religion, such as priestly celibacy, sacred images, the Church and the Bible, the primacy of Peter, Communion under one kind, invocation of the Saints, etc. First published in 1876, when there was much anti-Catholic sentiment in the U.S., it sold 1.4 million copies in 40 years and has been reprinted many times since.

The Real Story of Catholic History: Answering Twenty Centuries of Anti-Catholic Myths


Steve Weidenkopf - 2017
    Catholic apologists fight back with facts and sound arguments. But there’s another area where the Church’s enemies tell their own false story of Catholicism: its history. Whether it’s from the media, in classrooms, or out of the mouths of pastors and politicians, we’ve all heard a version of Catholic history filled with unrelenting violence, ignorance, worldliness, and bigotry. It’s enough to make many believers question whether the Church truly was founded by Christ! This kind of attack requires no less of a response from those who know the truth. In The Real Story of Catholic History, Steve Weidenkopf gives it to you. Weidenkopf (The Glory of the Crusades) collects over fifty of the most common and dangerous lies about Catholic history and, drawing on his experience as a historian and apologist, shows how to answer them simply and powerfully. Whether it’s claims about Catholicism’s supposedly pagan origins, old myths about Galileo or the Inquisition that never seem to go away, or more modern misconceptions that anti-Catholics cynically exploit, The Real Story provides the desperately needed corrective. Packed with research and diligent in pursuit of the truth, while never whitewashing or explaining away the Church’s past faults when they’re found, The Real Story of Catholic History is an essential resource for every Catholic’s bookshelf.

Catholic Catechism of Saint Pius X (1908)


Pope Pius X - 1908
     Unlike other Catechisms addressed to priests and bishops, this compendium -- in question and answer format -- was intended as a brief, authoritative summary for the Catholic layman and the general public by Pope Pius X, later canonized in 1954. A favorite resource of traditional Catholics, this book remains a classic of pre-conciliar catechesis.

The Didache


Anonymous
    Traditionally ascribed to the Twelve Apostles.

Catholic Bible Dictionary


Scott Hahn - 2009
    It has been a fertile generation for biblical scholarship, an eventful time for biblical archaeology, and a fruitful time for the Church’s interpretation of the Bible. It is time for a new resource.Scott Hahn, internationally renowned theologian and biblical scholar, has inspired millions with his insight into the Catholic faith. Now he brings us this important reference guide, written specifically for Catholics, which contains more than five thousand clear and accessible entries and covers a wide range of people, places, and topics. From Genesis to Revelation, the whole of salvation history is presented and explained in smart, easy-to-understand prose.Catholic Bible Dictionary is an invaluable source of information, insight, and guidance for Catholics and others who are interested in enriching their understanding of Sacred Scripture. Scott Hahn draws from two millennia of scholarship to create an accessible and comprehensive tool for deeper and more rewarding biblical study.

The Apostasy That Wasn't: The Extraordinary Story of the Unbreakable Early Church


Rod Bennett - 2015
    The simple truths of the gospel became so obscured by worldliness and pagan idolatry—kicking off the Dark Ages of Catholicism—that Christianity required a complete reboot. This theory is popular… but it’s also fiction. This idea of a “Great Apostasy” is one of the cornerstones of American Protestantism, along with Mormonism, the Jehovah’s Witnesses, and even Islam. Countless millions today profess a faith built on the assumption that the early Church quickly became broken beyond repair, requiring some new prophet or reformer to restore the “pure” teaching of Jesus and the apostles. In The Apostasy that Wasn’t, Rod Bennett follows up his bestseller Four Witnesses with an account of the historical events that led him out of his own belief in apostasy theory and into the Catholic Church. With the touch of a master storyteller, he narrates the drama of the early Church’s fight to preserve Christian orthodoxy intact even as powerful forces try to smash it to pieces. Amid imperial intrigue, military menace, and bitter theological debate, a hero arises in the form of a homely little monk named Athanasius, who stands against the world to prove that there could never be a Great Apostasy—because Jesus promised his Church would never be broken.

The Case for Jesus: The Biblical and Historical Evidence for Christ


Brant Pitre - 2016
    In The Case for Jesus, Brant Pitre taps into the wells of Christian scripture, history, and tradition to ask and answer a number of different questions, including: If we don't know who wrote the Gospels, how can we trust them? How are the four Gospels different from other gospels, such as the lost gospel of "Q" and the Gospel of Thomas? How can the four Gospels be historically true when there are differences between them? How much faith should be put into these writings? As The Case for Jesus will show, recent discoveries in New Testament scholarship, as well as neglected evidence from ancient manuscripts and the early church fathers, together have the potential to pull the rug out from under a century of skepticism toward the apostolic authorship and historical truth of the traditional Gospels.

Seven Lies About Catholic History: Infamous Myths about the Church's Past and How to Answer Them


Diane Moczar - 2010
    It reviles her doctrines, mocks her moral teachings and invents lies about her history. In every age, but especially in our modern day, historians and political powers have distorted the facts about her past (or just made up novel falsehoods from scratch) to make the Church, and the civilization it fostered, seem corrupt, backward, or simply evil. In Seven Lies about Catholic History, Diane Moczar (Islam at the Gates) tackles the most infamous and prevalent historical myths about the Church popular legends that you encounter everywhere from textbooks to T.V. and reveals the real truth about them. She explains how they got started and why they're still around, and best of all, she gives you the facts and the arguments you need to set the record straight about The Inquisition: how it was not a bloodthirsty institution but a merciful (and necessary) one, Galileo's trial: why moderns invented a myth around it to make science appear incompatible with the Catholic faith (it's not), The Reformation: why the 16th-century Church was not totally corrupt (as even some Catholics wrongly believe), and how the reformers made things worse for everybody and other lies that the world uses to attack and discredit the Faith. Written in a brisk style that's fun and easy to read, Seven Lies about Catholic History provides the lessons that every Catholic needs in order to defend and explain not just apologize for the Church's rich and complex history.

Charity in Truth: Caritas in Veritate


Benedict XVI - 2009
    However, he also insists on discernment and the purification of our ideas by faith and reason, in order to temper any immoderate and one-sided enthusiasms.Charity and Truth was expected to be—and is—the Pope's encyclical on "social justice." And indeed "justice" and "rights" find their proper place. But "charity" and truth are shown to be the fundamental principles. Charity is at the heart of the Church's social doctrine, he writes. "Without truth, without trust and love for what is true, there is no social conscience and responsibility, and social action ends up serving private interests and the logic of power".Benedict calls for "integral human development," which promotes "the good of every man and of the whole man", including the spiritual dimension, "the perspective of eternal life". Without this, "human progress in this world is denied breathing-space."What's more, true development requires "openness to life". ""If there is lack of respect for the right to life and a natural death," he writes, "if human conception, gestation and birth are made artificial, if human embryos are sacrificed to research, the conscience of society ends up losing the concept of human ecology and, along with it, that of environmental ecology. It is contradictory to insist that future generations respect the natural environment when our educational system and laws do not help them to respect themselves."With respect to economics, the Pope insists every economic decision has a moral consequence. He avoids the extremes of an unbridled capitalism and socialism. Instead, he holds that "the logic of the market and the logic of the State"—free economic exchange with political oversight and restraint—are not enough to secure human flourishing. There must be a generosity and gratuitousness among citizens and nations that goes beyond economic and political systems. "Charity" is necessary for "justice" to be "justice".Benedict also argues that technology must not be seen as automatically providing solutions to problems, without the need for morality. Nor must man seek to avoid responsibility for overcoming social problems by rejecting technological development as inevitably evil. Benedict insists that man must be humble yet confident that he can, through faith and reason, make true progress in human development.