The Popes Guest

Endorsements: "Thirty years after the close of Vatican II, we have this fresh revelation of the 'strange Roman experience' of the twenty-three women from fourteen different countries invited to be auditors at the previously all male Council. You will not want to stop before the end." -- Marie Augusta Neal, SND de Namur, Professor of Sociology, Emerita, Emmanuel College, Boston "An important and necessary history that will find great interest for a long time." --Bernard Haring, Moral Theologian "Facts buried in archives come alive in the living voices of these women who now share the 'dangerous memory' of their presence at Vatican II. Carmel McEnroy tells this story with keen insight into women's oppression in the Church, an eye for the humorous detail, and great narrative flair. Thank goodness she rescued this piece of history before it disappeared over the horizon like so much else." --Elizabeth A. Johnson, CSJ, Professor of Theology, Fordham University "This interesting historical investigation of the exclusion and participation of women at the Vatican Council reveals the dynamics of communication within the Church, including its systematic distortions and the forgiving fidelity of dedicated women. I am glad that this book has been written." --Gregory Baum, Professor of Theology, McGill University Author Biography: Carmel McEnroy, a Sister of Mercy and distinguished professor of theology, was fired in 1995 from St. Meinard Seminary for her public dissent from church teaching on women's ordination. Her name had appeared with hundreds of others in an advertisement questioning the issue in the National Catholic Reporter.

Ilya is the uncouth, uneducated son of ardent Communist workers who becomes a war hero in the Red Army. After the war, however, he experiences a radical conversion to Christianity and becomes a priest, but also eventually a KGB general and Metropolitan of Leningrad. Captivated by the prophecy of Russia's return to Christianity contained in the appearance of the Virgin Mary to a few simple shepherds in Portugal, Ilya decides he must make overtures to the new pontiff in an effort toward ecumenical collaboration that will facilitate the fulfilment of the prophecy. When he leaves for Rome, his KGB superiors plot to have him assassinated, and the Mafia contacts involved also plot the assassination of John Paul. Dostoevsky meets Le Carr� in this rich tapestry of intrigue, betrayal, heroism, and faith. L'h�te du Pape (2004) is Vladimir Volkoff's next-to-last novel and is, perhaps, his best. It combines Cold War strategizing and hints of the mysterious workings of the Holy Spirit in human affairs. Action takes place primarily in the USSR, Rome, and Portugal, and includes significant flashbacks to World War II. Volkoff takes the skimpy historical details of Pope John Paul I's mysterious death and the equally mysterious death of a Russian prelate in his arms just days before--and fleshes out the story as only a good espionage novelist could do, but with the added dimension of the role that divine providence could have been playing in these events. There is the stuff of a thriller here, but it is a serious novel written in a richly varied style that includes the brutal, coarse argot of the underworld, the allusiveness of an accomplished artist, and the soaring mysticism of the saints.

The heart-pounding history of how Pope Pius XII -- often labeled "Hitler's Pope" -- was in fact an anti-Nazi spymaster, plotting against the Third Reich during World War II. The Vatican's silence in the face of Nazi atrocities remains one of the great controversies of our time. History has accused wartime pontiff Pius the Twelfth of complicity in the Holocaust and dubbed him "Hitler's Pope." But a key part of the story has remained untold. Pope Pius in fact ran the world's largest church, smallest state, and oldest spy service. Saintly but secretive, he sent birthday cards to Hitler -- while secretly plotting to kill him. He skimmed from church charities to pay covert couriers, and surreptitiously tape-recorded his meetings with top Nazis. Under his leadership the Vatican spy ring actively plotted against the Third Reich. Told with heart-pounding suspense and drawing on secret transcripts and unsealed files by an acclaimed author, Church of Spies throws open the Vatican's doors to reveal some of the most astonishing events in the history of the papacy. Riebling reveals here how the world's greatest moral institution met the greatest moral crisis in history.

From the acclaimed author of Brunelleschi's Dome and Leonardo and the Last Supper, the riveting story of how Michelangelo, against all odds, created the masterpiece that has ever since adorned the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. In 1508, despite strong advice to the contrary, the powerful Pope Julius II commissioned Michelangelo Buonarroti to paint the ceiling of the newly restored Sistine Chapel in Rome. Despite having completed his masterful statue David four years earlier, he had little experience as a painter, even less working in the delicate medium of fresco, and none with challenging curved surfaces such as the Sistine ceiling's vaults. The temperamental Michelangelo was himself reluctant: He stormed away from Rome, incurring Julius's wrath, before he was eventually persuaded to begin. Michelangelo and the Pope's Ceiling recounts the fascinating story of the four extraordinary years he spent laboring over the twelve thousand square feet of the vast ceiling, while war and the power politics and personal rivalries that abounded in Rome swirled around him. A panorama of illustrious figures intersected during this time-the brilliant young painter Raphael, with whom Michelangelo formed a rivalry; the fiery preacher Girolamo Savonarola and the great Dutch scholar Desiderius Erasmus; a youthful Martin Luther, who made his only trip to Rome at this time and was disgusted by the corruption all around him. Ross King blends these figures into a magnificent tapestry of day-to-day life on the ingenious Sistine scaffolding and outside in the upheaval of early-sixteenth-century Italy, while also offering uncommon insight into the connection between art and history.

Twenty-five years after she began exchanging drawings with a mysterious boy in the guest book of a Carolina beach house, Macy Dillon is back at Sunset Beach—this time toting a hurting heart and a broken family. Questions of childhood, loss, and longing for love are explored in The Guest Book. When Macy Dillon was five years old her father encouraged her to draw a picture in the guestbook of a Carolina beach house. The next year, Macy returned to discover a drawing by an unidentified little boy on the facing page. Over the next eleven years the children continue to exchange drawings … until tragedy ends visits to the beach house altogether. During her final trip to Sunset, Macy asks her anonymous friend to draw her one last picture and tells him where to hide the guest book in hopes that one day she will return to find it—and him. Twenty-five years after that first picture, Macy is back at Sunset Beach—this time toting a broken family and a hurting heart. One night, alone by the ocean, Macy asks God to help her find the boy she never forgot, the one whose beautiful pictures touched something deep inside of her. Will she ever find him? And if she does, will the guestbook unite them or merely be the relic of a lost childhood?

INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER "A remarkable book. Weigel's biography is likely to remain the standard one-volume reference on John Paul II for many years to come." — Pittsburg Post-Gazette ?“Fascinating. . . sheds light on the history of the twentieth century for everyone.” —New York Times Book Review The definitive biography of Pope John Paul II that explores how influential he was on the world stage and in some of the most historic events of the twentieth century that can still be felt today Witness to Hope is the authoritative biography of one of the singular figures—some might argue the singular figure—of our time. With unprecedented cooperation from John Paul II and the people who knew and worked with him throughout his life, George Weigel offers a groundbreaking portrait of the Pope as a man, a thinker, and a leader whose religious convictions defined a new approach to world politics—and changed the course of history. As even his critics concede, John Paul II occupied a unique place on the world stage and put down intellectual markers that no one could ignore or avoid as humanity entered a new millennium fraught with possibility and danger. The Pope was a man of prodigious energy who played a crucial, yet insufficiently explored, role in some of the most momentous events of our time, including the collapse of European communism, the quest for peace in the Middle East, and the democratic transformation of Latin America. With an updated preface, this edition of Witness to Hope explains how this “man from a far country” did all of that, and much more—and what both his accomplishments and the unfinished business of his pontificate mean for the future of the Church and the world.

Filled with discoveries, this is the dramatic story of Pope Pius XII's struggle to response to the Second World War, the Holocaust, and the Nazi domination of Europe.The Pope at War is the third in a trilogy of books about Pope Pius XII's response to the rise of Fascism and Nazism. It tells the dramatic story of Pope Pius XII's struggle to respond to the Second World War, the Holocaust, and the ongoing Nazi attempts to exterminate the Jews of Europe. It is the first book dealing with the war to make extensive use of the newly opened Vatican archives for the war years. It is based, as well, on thousands of documents from the Italian, German,French, British, and American archives. Among the many new discoveries brought to light is the discovery that within weeks of becoming pope in 1939, Pius XII entered into secret negotiations with Hitler through Hitler's emissary, a Nazi Prince who was married to the daughter of the King of Italy and who was veryclose to Hitler. The negotiations were kept so secret that not even the German ambassador to the Holy See was informed of them. The book also offers new insight into the thinking behind Pius XII's decision to maintain good relations with the German government during the war, including keeping the Germans happy while they occupied Rome in 1943-1944. And throughout, David I. Kertzer shows the active role of the Italian Church hierarchy in promoting the Axis war while the pope, who as bishop ofRome was responsible for the Italian hierarchy, offered his silent blessings and cast his public speeches in such a way that both sides could claim support for their cause.

Lucrezia Borgia is one of the most vilified women in modern history. The daughter of a notorious pope, she was twice betrothed before the age of eleven and thrice married—one husband was forced to declare himself impotent and thereby unfit and another was murdered by Lucrezia’s own brother, Cesar Borgia. She is cast in the role of murderess, temptress, incestuous lover, loose woman, femme fatale par excellence. But there are two sides to every story. Lucrezia Borgia is the only woman in history to have serve as the head of the Catholic Church. She successfully administered several of Renaissance Italy’s most thriving cities, founded one of the world’s first credit unions, and was a generous patron of the arts. She was mother to a prince and to a cardinal. She was a devoted wife to the Prince of Ferrara, and the lover of the poet Pietro Bembo. She was a child of the renaissance and, in many ways, the world’s first modern woman. In this richly imagined novel, Nobel laureate Dario Fo reveals Lucrezia’s humanity, her passion for life, her compassion for others, and her skill at navigating around her family’s evildoings. The Borgias are unrivalled for the range and magnitude of their political machinations and opportunism. Fo’s brilliance rests in his rendering their story as a shocking mirror image of the uses and abuses of power in our own time. Lucrezia herself becomes a model for how to survive and rise above those abuses. Part Wolf Hall, part House of Cards, The Pope's Daugther will appeal to readers of historical fiction and of contemporary fiction alike and will delight anyone fascinated by Renaissance Italy.

THE STORIES: THE LAWS is a monologue in which a man reads a series of laws, contrasting the ancient and the modern worlds. (1 man.) THE FACTS takes place at the scene of a mysterious briefing in the style of a hearing--where one character warns, th

Why did the author pick the popes you’ll meet in the pages of this book? Why not Gregory I, whom many would call the greatest pope of all time? Why not Leo X, who was pope at the beginning of the Protestant Reformation? Why not Leo XIII, who boldly stood up for the rights of workers? Every pope is by definition a remarkable man. But the popes whose stories you’ll read here were chosen because they reveal how the papacy developed. They show us how Christ kept his promise to his bride, the Church, not only in her health but also in her sickness. The great popes advanced our understanding of Christian doctrine. But even more remarkable, the worst popes could do nothing to damage the teaching of the Church. That’s why, even in its darkest moments, the story of the papacy is a story of triumph. And that’s why it’s worth knowing these twelve popes.