Catholic Matters

In Catholic Matters, Father Neuhaus addresses the many controversies that have marked recent decades of American Catholicism. Looking beyond these troubles to “the splendor of truth” that constitutes the Church, he proposes a forward-thinking way of being Catholic in America. Drawing on his personal encounters with the late John Paul II and Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, Neuhaus describes their hope for a springtime of world evangelization, Christian unity, and Catholic renewal. Catholic Matters reveals a vibrant Church, strengthened and unified by hardship and on the cusp of a great revival in spiritual vitality and an even greater contribution to our common life.

What’s the one thing that defines your life and brings you the most good, the most love? Pat Gohn knows what her one thing is: “More than any single factor in my life, belonging to Jesus Christ and the Catholic Church has had the greatest impact on me. Faith gives meaning to everything in my life.” In this passionate and unapologetic account of why her faith in Christ and the Catholic Church are the source of meaning and joy in her life, Gohn—popular speaker, retreat leader, catechist, and author of Blessed, Beautiful, and Bodacious—invites you to become more confident in the power of the Catholic faith to transform your life as well. Being a cradle Catholic, cancer survivor, wife, and mother are all a part of Gohn’s story. But in this appealing, personal book, she shares why her relationship with Jesus and her confidence in his Church are so much bigger than her medical diagnosis, more powerful than her family history, and more significant than her career path. Gohn ardently shares why belonging to the Church will strengthen and nurture your relationship with God. It will keep you connected with Jesus and the sacraments—conduits of grace, forgiveness, healing, wisdom, and renewal. Belonging to the Church connects you to millions of others around the world, to the saints, and to your loved ones in heaven. These relationships are at the heart of Catholicism. In this time when life and society are so fragmented, the joy of belonging to a community—as imperfect as it can be—easily outweighs the agony of separation or isolation. Gohn’s confidence in her faith emerged despite and even out of a struggle with disillusionment. Working in a parish when news of the sex abuse scandals broke in Boston, she confronted heartbreak and anger within herself and her fellow parishioners. Yet she never left the Church and relates how she found a way to dig deeper and discover reasons to stay faithful. Each of the nine chapters identifies a dimension of the Catholic faith that is a source of Gohn’s confidence, including the Incarnation, God’s plan, the Fatherhood of God, the friendship of the Holy Spirit, and the love of neighbor. Each chapter also features reflection questions to challenge you.

The most visible representative of the Catholic Church in the United States shows how the Church is far from being an ossified carry-over tradition from antiquity. Why Catholicism Matters celebrates the significant contribution the Church makes in many aspects of today's world and applies its wisdom to issues on a personal, national, and global scale. In recent years the Catholic Church has gone through turbulent times with the uncovering of horrible abuse that persisted and could have been prevented by certain bishops for so many years. Yet the many positive aspects of what the Catholic Church teaches and practices are not being overlooked. William Donohue, the outspoken and highly visible president of the Catholic League, shows Church teachings remain the best guide to good living ever adopted. He reminds readers of the great wealth of charity and wisdom that exists in the Catholic tradition and explains hows its best attributes can be applies to solve many of the biggest problems society must confront today and in the future.

Winner of a first-place award for popular presentation of the faith and second-place in pastoral ministry, catechetical resource from the Catholic Media Association. Many Catholics don’t believe that Jesus is really present in the Eucharist. Rather, they see the bread and wine of Holy Communion as mere symbols of Christ’s body and blood. Is that disbelief just a misunderstanding or is it a blatant rejection of one of the central beliefs of the faith? In Real Presence, University of Notre Dame theologian Timothy P. O’Malley clears up the confusion and shows you how to learn to love God and neighbor through a deeper understanding of the doctrine of real presence. A 2019 study by the Pew Research Center found that almost seventy percent of Catholics don’t believe that Jesus is really present in the Eucharist. O’Malley offers a concise introduction to Catholic teaching on real presence and transubstantiation through a biblical, theological, and spiritual account of these doctrines from the early Church to today. He also explores how real presence enables us to see the vulnerability of human life and the dignity of all flesh and blood. O’Malley leads you to a deeper understanding and renewed faith in Catholic teaching about transubstantiation and real presence by helping you learn how the doctrine of real presence is rooted in divine revelation and how the Church’s teaching regarding transubstantiation is spiritually fruitful for the believer today; how to make your own the doctrine of real presence by worshipping Christ in the Eucharist and therefore making a real assent to real presence; how the Eucharist, although not the exclusive presence of Christ in the Church’s liturgy and mission, is crucial in growing our capacity for recognizing those other presences; and the important relationship between Eucharistic communion and adoration.

Over 3 million copies sold! Essential reading for Catholics of all walks of life. Here it is - the first new Catechism of the Catholic Church in more than 400 years, a complete summary of what Catholics around the world commonly believe. 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. The word catechism means "instruction" - this book will serve as the standard for all future catechisms. 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. The Catechism of the Catholic Church is a positive, coherent and contemporary map for our spiritual journey toward transformation.

Problems characterize every age, sum up the complex life of nations and give them their distinctive features. They form that moral atmosphere which makes one period of history responsible and tributary to another. And indeed, in every human problem there is an ethical element. This imponderable factor, which often baffles our calculations, always remains the true, permanent driving force. For in the last analysis of human things, morality is what reachest furthest and matters most. Problems may vary with the times and the countries, and yet, the moral issues involved never change; for, right is eternal. To detect this ethical element amid the ever restless waves of human activities has ever been the noble and constant effort of true leaders. Like the pilot they are ever watching for the lighted buoy on the tossing waves. This moral element underlying all our national problems is what affects Catholics as such, or rather the medium through which Catholics are called to affect them. No period should prove more interesting to Catholics than our own, for the very principles of Christian Ethics are now being questioned and vindicated in the lives of nations, either by the benefits accruing from their application, or by the evils consequent upon their neglect. Our neo-pagan world is learning by a cruel and sad experience that Religion is the foundation of morality, and morality that of true legality. "For unless certain things antecedent to conscience be granted and firmly held, 'conscience' becomes synonymous with 'sentiment.'" Mr. Lloyd George himself, addressing a religious gathering in Wales on June 9, 1920, recognized Religion as the only bulwark able to resist the rising tide of anarchy. "Bolshevism is spreading throughout the world," said the British Premier, "and the churches can alone save the people from the disaster which will ensue, if this anarchy of will and aim continues to spread." The task of the churches, he continued, was greater than that which came within the compass of any political party. Political parties might provide the lamps, lay the wires and turn the current on to certain machinery, but the churches must be the power stations. If the generating stations were destroyed, whatever the arrangements and plans of the political parties might be, it would not be long before the light was cut off from the homes of the people. The doctrines taught by the churches are the only security against the triumph of human selfishness, and human selfishness unchecked will destroy any plans, however perfect, which politicians may devise. This period of history, to quote Gladstone, is "an agitated and expectant age." The world is travelling fast into a new era. The modern social fabric, built on the shifting sands of selfishness and injustice is rocking on its foundations. Amid accumulated ruins nations are searching for the basic principles of true Reconstruction. This period of unrest is in itself a challenge to Christianity, to the Church. But the vitalizing force of Christianity can solve these problems of a decrepit civilization just as it solved the problem of tottering Rome. Problems therefore must be faced and solved. Every Catholic has his place in this world-wide work. If our religion does not make its influence felt in every phase of our life's activities, it is—as far as our life and its influence on others is concerned—a gigantic fraud. Bishop Kettler understood this pressing obligation when, breaking away from a too conservative programme of action, he was the first in the Church to give an impetus to the study of the modern social problem. His policy and action were said to have prompted the celebrated letter of Leo III, Rerum Novarum. The words of this great democratic Bishop still bear his timely message to Catholics of to-day, "To save the souls of countless workmen entrusted to her by Christ, the Church must enter the field of Social reform, armed with extraordinary remedies. She must exert herself to the utmost to rescue the workmen from a situation which constitutes a real proximate occasion of sin for them, a situation which makes it morally impossible for them to fulfill their duties as Christians."