A Secret Meeting In Rome

The second volume of riveting memoirs from Hans Kung, the leading - and controversial - theologian. Hans Küng has been a major influence on post-war Christianity by any reckoning. A peritus for the second Vatican council, he then went on to publish a number of controversial books, including Infallible? An Enquiry (1971), which enraged the Vatican and caused him to lose the ecclesiastical approval of his teaching at the university of Tübingen. However, he remains a respected priest in good standing with his bishop. Throughout all the upheavals that the Catholic Church has undergone in recent decades, Küng has been an outspoken observer, turning himself from enfant terrible to béte noire. However his world influence has been great. Whether speaking at the United Nations or consorting with politicians and religious leaders, he is always listened to with respect and enthusiasm. A string of recent books has added to his reputation-notably On Being a Christian (1974) and Does God Exist? An Answer for Today (1980) What is not so well known is that, as a young man, Küng was a close friend and confidant of Joseph Ratzinger (Benedict XVI). Over the years, however, they increasingly came to represent exactly what the other most despised. On being appointed to the Holy See, Ratzinger had a long private meeting with Küng , the consequences of which may resonate within the Catholic Church for many years. In these thrilling memoirs Küng gives his personal account of all these struggles and ambitions. The result is a book of major importance for any student of the church in the 20th century. This second volume covers the period following the close of the Second Vatican Council right up to the present day.

The Catilinarians are a set of four speeches that Cicero, while consul in 63 BC, delivered before the senate and the Roman people against the conspirator Catiline and his followers. Or are they? Cicero did not publish the speeches until three years later, and he substantially revised them before publication, rewriting some passages and adding others, all with the aim of justifying the action he had taken against the conspirators and memorializing his own role in the suppression of the conspiracy. How, then, should we interpret these speeches as literature? Can we treat them as representing what Cicero actually said? Or do we have to read them merely as political pamphlets from a later time? In this, the first book-length discussion of these famous speeches, D. H. Berry clarifies what the speeches actually are and explains how he believes we should approach them. In addition, the book contains a full and up-to-date account of the Catilinarian conspiracy and a survey of the influence that the story of Catiline has had on writers such as Sallust and Virgil, Ben Jonson and Henrik Ibsen, from antiquity to the present day.

The Roman is a superb reconstruction of a time long ago, the Roman world in the time of the Emperors Claudius & Nero. It's the story of Minutus, of noble birth, who serves the government and travels widely through the Empire, from his home in Antioch to the seat of world power, Rome. A historically consistent portrayal of the highest levels of society in ancient Rome. One of Waltari's great historical novels.