In The Smoke of Satan, veteran Catholic journalist Philip Lawler explains why the crisis is even more severe than when it first commanded headlines in 2002, and how the failure of Church leaders goes all the way to the Vatican. In this unflinching look at the crisis threatening the Church and her members, Lawler: --Shows how the sex-abuse scandal is not a question of pedophilia, but of homosexual activity within the clergy. --Explains how Catholic bishops have developed a habit of covering up serious problems, to avoid the serious divisions that have developed within the faith since Vatican II. --Demonstrates a catastrophic rupture in Church unity, causing a breakdown in morale and discipline among priests, bishops, and laity, paving the way for the current crisis. --Reveals the growth of a faction within the Vatican that is ready to make peace with secularism. --Details the charges in the explosive “Vigano testimony,”— and the efforts by Vatican officials including Pope Francis himself to ward off a thorough investigation. --Concludes with a program for reform, led by faithful lay Catholics, demanding a new policy of candor and a forthright proclamation of Church teaching. This crisis, brought about by the failures of corrupt and cowardly bishops and clerics, has been allowed to fester long enough. It is well past time for serious action to be taken at every level before more lives are ruined, more souls are lost, and more fractures divide the Church. In these pages, Lawler details the problems besetting the Church…and lays out a clear plan to overcome them in order that the Church and Her members may once again thrive and bring souls to Christ.

    Lehner reintroduces Christians to the true God—not the polite, easygoing, divine therapist who doesn’t ask much of us, but the Almighty God who is unpredictable, awe-inspiring, and demands our entire lives.  Stripping away the niceties with a sling blade, Lehner shows that God is more strange and beautiful than we imagine, and wants to know and transform us in the most intimate way. With his iconoclastic new book God Is Not Nice, Lehner, one of the most promising young Catholic theologians in America, challenges the God of popular culture and many of our churches and reintroduces the God of the Bible and traditional Christianity. As Lehner writes in the book’s introduction, "We all need the vaccine of the true transforming and mysterious character of God: The God who shows up in burning bushes, speaks through donkeys, drives demons into pigs, throws Saul from his horse, and appears to St. Francis. It’s only this God who has the power to challenge us, change us, and make our lives dangerous. He sweeps us into a great adventure that will make us into different people." This book is not safe. It may startle and annoy many people—including those who purport to teach and preach the Gospel, but are missing it, according to Lehner. God Is Not Nice intends to overthrow all of our popular misconceptions about God, inviting us to ask deeper questions about the nature of our lives and our relationship with him. When you're finished with God Is Not Nice, you may find the idols you constructed in God’s name smashed, replaced with a God who will ask you to live an entirely different life full of hope and transformation.God Is Not Nice has been translated into several foreign languages.

    The Catholic Church the world over was stunned. Worn out by corruption in the Church and by an endless series of clerical sex scandals, he decided that the resolution of all these problems was outside his power for a man of his age.Last Testament is nearest to an autobiography from the shy and private man who has remained “hidden to the world” in a former convent in the Vatican gardens. He breaks his silence on issues such 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 he 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.

    In the 1960s, a French nurse, Marie Carré, 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.

    With God's Choice, he gives us an extraordinary chronicle of the rise of Pope Benedict XVI as well as an unflinching view of the Catholic Church at the dawn of a new era.When John Paul II lapsed into illness for the last time, people flocked from all over the world to pray outside his apartment. He had become a father figure to millions in a world bereft of strong paternal examples, and those millions now felt orphaned. After more than twenty-six years of John Paul II's guidance, the Catholic Church is entering a new age, with its bedrock traditions intact but with pressing questions to address in a rapidly changing world. Beginning with the story of John Paul's final months, God's Choice offers a remarkable inside account of the conclave that produced Benedict XVI as the next pope, drawing on George Weigel's unrivaled access to this complex event.Weigel also incisively surveys the current state of the Church around the world: its thriving populations in Africa, Latin America, and parts of the post-communist world; its collapse in western Europe; its continued struggles in Asia; and the vibrancy of many aspects of Catholic life in the United States, even as the Church in America struggles to overcome its recent experience of scandal.Reflecting on John Paul II's greatness, drawing on firsthand interviews to paint an intimate portrait of the new Pope, and boldly assessing the Church's current condition, God's Choice is an invaluable book for anyone seeking to understand the Catholic future and the larger human future the Church will help to shape.

    Catholic homeschooler Cari Donaldson here relates how her friend’s newborn baby, a portrait of the Virgin Mary, and the words of the Miraculous Medal called her forth from a selfish, small way of life into the welcoming arms of the Church.

    He emphasized the security of God’s covenant, the call for assurance of salvation, and the place of the heart in the Christian life. In The Affectionate Theology of Richard Sibbes, Dr. Mark Dever gives readers a penetrating look into the life and theology of this fascinating figure.

    Unlike the so-called mainstream Protestant denominations, Southern Baptists have remained stubbornly conservative, refusing to adapt their beliefs and practices to modernity's individualist and populist values. Instead, they have held fast to traditional orthodoxy in such fundamental areas as biblical inspiration, creation, conversion, and miracles. Gregory Wills argues that Southern Baptist Theological Seminary has played a fundamental role in the persistence of conservatism, not entirely intentionally. Tracing the history of the seminary from the beginning to the present, Wills shows how its foundational commitment to preserving orthodoxy was implanted in denominational memory in ways that strengthened the denomination's conservatism and limited the seminary's ability to stray from it. In a set of circumstances in which the seminary played a central part, Southern Baptists' populist values bolstered traditional orthodoxy rather than diminishing it. In the end, says Wills, their populism privileged orthodoxy over individualism. The story of Southern Seminary is fundamental to understanding Southern Baptist controversy and identity. Wills's study sheds important new light on the denomination that has played - and continues to play - such a central role in our national history.

    In fact, he was neither—except by coincidence. Though he was not well-known within the College of Cardinals that elected him, close observers in his native land already recognized him to be a manipulative politician, skilled at self-promotion, and a disciple of the populist dictator Juan Perón.Behind the mask of a genial man of the people is a pope, the author says, who cares shockingly little about theology or the liturgy but is obsessed with his own power. Allying himself with the most corrupt elements in the Vatican, Francis rules by fear. He has obstructed or reversed the very reforms that were expected of him and attempted to alter Catholic teaching by subterfuge. In The Dictator Pope you will learn:Why the head of Francis’s own religious order thought he should not be made a bishopWhy Francis may have diverted Church funds to support Hillary Clinton’s failed presidential campaignHow true Church reformers have been punished by the Pope and his alliesHow Francis himself has mused that he might be the cause of a schism in the ChurchWhy clerics in the Vatican have gone from dismissing Francis as a “clown” to fearing him as a dictator

    Each story is accompanied by scripture, prayer, and discussion exercises designed to remind readers of Mary of Medjugorje's intercession on their behalf and God's personal love for them. Watkins gives nationwide talks and workshops and works as a spiritual director in the Bay Area, in addition to maintaining an active website and e-mail newsletter.

    Ignatius Loyola’s conversion and pilgrimage with the colorful and dangerous history of Spain and Italy in the early sixteenth century. The life of the very human, very great Basque nobleman who founded the Jesuit Order, makes for one of de Wohl’s finest novels.Seriously wounded at the siege of Pamplona in 1521, Don Inigo de Loyola learned that to be a Knight of God was an infinitely greater honor (and infinitely more dangerous) than to be a Knight in the forces of the Emperor. Uli von der Flue, humorous, intelligent and courageous Swiss mercenary, was responsible for the canon shot which incapacitated the worldly and ambitious young nobleman, and Uli became deeply involved in Loyola’s life. With Juanita, disguised as the boy Juan, Uli followed Loyola on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land to protect him, but it was the saint who protected Uli and Juan. Through Uli’s eyes we see the surge and violence of the turbulent period in Jerusalem, Spain and Rome.Louis de Wohl has again created an exciting and spiritually inspiring novel for all readers of historical fiction.

    It investigates literature, culture, history, and religion in an attempt to show that education is increasingly about bureaucratic training and less about scholarly truth. A warning that cultural and artistic treasures of classical and Christian civilizations must be preserved, this provocative analysis diagnoses a cultural and societal malaise facing modern Western societies.

    Joseph, yet his life is full of spiritual treasures. Michel Gasnier O.P., here shows you where to find them and how they can enrich your own relationship with God. In this series of brief meditations he explores St. Joseph's work as a carpenter, his marriage, his character, the flight into Egypt, his return to Nazareth, Simeon's prophecy, and more. He gives you an enlightening portrait of this man who remains one of the Church's most extraordinary saints and intercessors.

    He may have changed his name to become Pope Francis, but it did not change their friendship. Since Jorge Mario Bergoglio became Pope Francis in 2013, countless books have been written to help the world understand this deeply complex yet simple servant of God. What sets Pope Francis: Life and Revolution apart from all other biographies of Pope Francis is the careful research and original investigation behind it, along with the fact that it is written by an internationally respected journalist—Elisabetta Piqué—who has remained close to the Pope since first meeting him back in 2001. Over 75 individuals were interviewed for Pope Francis: Life and Revolution, including lay people, priests, bishops, and cardinals who have known or worked with Francis at various times in his life. Insights from these people, as well as from friends and family members, allow us to see a profoundly personal side of the Pope. His humility and humanity, courage and conviction, and warmth and wisdom are revealed as Piqué shares little-known episodes from Francis’s life. With a foreword by Cardinal Seán O’Malley, O.F.M. Cap., Pope Francis: Life and Revolution is the definitive resource and narrative of a man personally known by few and revered and respected by many.Pope Francis: Life and Revolution reveals a man consistent in his beliefs and actions. He is a spiritual leader unwavering in his love for God, whose inner joy and peace move him—and can inspire us—to serve the least, the last, and the lost.Also available in Spanish! El Papa Francisco: vida y revolución