Now he describes these intensive encounters in detail for the first time, and draws a portrait of this brilliant theologian who has put his life entirely at the service of the Catholic Church. Above and beyond that, this book is also the story of a long dialogue which changed Seewald's life.

Many people are trying to understand who Benedict XVI really is. On one point they are all agreed: in the person of Joseph Ratzinger, the chair of Peter is occupied by one of the most brilliant minds in the world. Peter Seewald's portrait of Benedict recounts details about the personality and life of Benedict which were hitherto completely unknown.

"A handy reference work stunningly illustrated."—National Catholic Reporter

Author of Pope Pius XII: Architect of Peace, Sister Margherita Marchione uses extensive documentation from the war years themselves to combat the campaign of hatred that has smeared Pius XII's name as anti-Semitic. Firsthand sources reveal the Vatican's efforts for peace, as well as the grateful responses of Jewish leaders of the time.

Must reading for all thinking Catholics, Consensus and Controversy--

· collects primary source material available no where else.

· includes pro-Pius news articles that appeared during and after the war in the London Times, The Tablet, and the New York Times.

· reveals that the Nazis themselves targeted the Pope as their enemy, calling him "a mouthpiece of the Jewish war criminals."

· provides definitive, conclusive, and inspirational proof of Pius XII's efforts to protect the victims of Nazism.

In this most exhaustive and scholarly assessment of John Paul II's Christian anthropology ever written, Mary Shivanandan examines the scientific data and the theological analysis that underlie his teachings on marriage and sexuality. Her book will be an essential text for the study of the development, meaning, and implications of Catholic doctrine in this controversial area. It is both lucid and multi-disciplinary. Its appearance marks a new stage in the debate over sexuality in the modern world.

Throughout the entire book, the author patiently guides the reader through the complexity of Wojtyla’s thought. Kupczak presents analytical commentary of Wojtyla’s key philosophical texts, most of which are still not available in English. Given his access to the original Polish texts, he provides a missing link between the moral teaching of John Paul II and the early stages of his intellectual career.

Kupczak carefully examines the main sources of Wojtyla’s moral theory: the mystical theology of St. John of the Cross, the thought of St. Thomas Aquinas, and modern phenomenology, especially that of Max Scheler. Among the key anthropological concepts presented and analyzed are: ethical values and human freedom, the relation between freedom and truth, the conscience and consciousness, the human body, and the process of human cognition.

Brett Whalen explores the compelling belief that Christendom would spread to every corner of the earth before the end of time. During the High Middle Ages—an era of crusade, mission, and European expansion—the Western followers of Rome imagined the future conversion of Jews, Muslims, pagans, and Eastern Christians into one fold of God’s people, assembled under the authority of the Roman Church.

Starting with the eleventh-century papal reform, Whalen shows how theological readings of history, prophecies, and apocalyptic scenarios enabled medieval churchmen to project the authority of Rome over the world. Looking to Byzantium, the Islamic world, and beyond, Western Christians claimed their special place in the divine plan for salvation, whether they were battling for Jerusalem or preaching to unbelievers. For those who knew how to read the signs, history pointed toward the triumph and spread of Roman Christianity.

Yet this dream of Christendom raised troublesome questions about the problem of sin within the body of the faithful. By the late thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, radical apocalyptic thinkers numbered among the papacy’s most outspoken critics, who associated present-day ecclesiastical institutions with the evil of Antichrist—a subversive reading of the future. For such critics, the conversion of the world would happen only after the purgation of the Roman Church and a time of suffering for the true followers of God.

This engaging and beautifully written book offers an important window onto Western religious views in the past that continue to haunt modern times.

From the bestselling author of Witness to Hope comes an inside account of the election of Pope Benedict XVI and an unflinching view of the Catholic Church at the dawn of a new era.

After 25 years of John Paul II′s guidance, the Catholic Church is entering a new age, with its bedrock traditions intact but pressing questions of its vitality to address in a rapidly changing world. Beginning with a portrait of John Paul′s last months, God′s Choice will then offer an account of the complex conclave process that produced Benedict XVI as the next pope. Drawing on Weigel′s unprecedented access during the post-John Paul II intrerregnum, readers will be offered an inside view of the issues and personalities that shaped the conclave′s deliberations.

Weigel will also survey the current state of the Church around the world: the remarkable vitality of Catholicism in Africa; the new center of the world′s Catholic population -- Latin America; the collapse of Catholic faith and practice in much of western Europe, contrasted with its strength in Poland and other parts of the post-communist world; the continuing struggles of Catholicism in Asia; the vibrancy of some aspects of Catholic life in the United States, even as the Church in America struggles to overcome its recent experience of scandal. God′s Choice will paint a personal portrait of the new pope and analyze the crucial issues facing world Catholicism in the first decades of the 21st century. It will be a major reference point for anyone seeking to understand the Catholic future, and the larger human future the Church will help to shape.