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This digital document is an article from National Catholic Reporter, published by Thomson Gale on February 24, 2006. The length of the article is 1186 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Managing the priestly ministry meltdown: creative management needed from bishops to resolve clergy shortage.(VIEWPOINT)
Author: Michael J. Gallagher
Publication: National Catholic Reporter (Magazine/Journal)
Date: February 24, 2006
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 42Issue: 17Page: 10a(2)

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This digital document is an article from National Catholic Reporter, published by National Catholic Reporter on October 2, 2009. The length of the article is 1640 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

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Title: An open letter to Bishop Robert Finn.(VIEWPOINT)
Author: Michael J. Gillgannon
Publication: National Catholic Reporter (Magazine/Journal)
Date: October 2, 2009
Publisher: National Catholic Reporter
Volume: 45Issue: 25Page: 24(1)

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This digital document is an article from The Historian, published by Thomson Gale on January 1, 2004. The length of the article is 522 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

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Title: Bishop von Galen: German Catholicism and National Socialism.(Book Review)
Author: Michael J. Phayer
Publication: The Historian (Magazine/Journal)
Date: January 1, 2004
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 66Issue: 4Page: 872(2)

Article Type: Book Review

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This scarce antiquarian book is a selection from Kessinger Publishing’s Legacy Reprint Series. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment to protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature. Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone! ... Read more

Product Description
This scarce antiquarian book is a selection from Kessinger Publishing’s Legacy Reprint Series. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment to protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature. Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone! ... Read more

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This digital document is an article from The Historian, published by Phi Alpha Theta, History Honor Society, Inc. on June 22, 2009. The length of the article is 11696 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

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Title: Religion, culture, and the Cold War: Bishop Fulton J. Sheen and America's anti-communist crusade of the 1950s.(Essay)
Author: Irvin D.S. Winsboro
Publication: The Historian (Magazine/Journal)
Date: June 22, 2009
Publisher: Phi Alpha Theta, History Honor Society, Inc.
Volume: 71Issue: 2Page: 209(25)

Article Type: Essay

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Regine Pernoud, the highly acclaimed French medieval historian, and author of best-selling titles on Joan of Arc and Hildegard of Bingen, as well as the book Those Terrible Middle Ages, presents an enlightening biography of one of France's most revered saints, and a man whose impact on France, and Europe, continues to this day. Martin of Tours lived in the 4th century, at that great turning point in history when the Roman Empire fell and the Church took charge in the West. He left a successful career in the military life to become a monk, and later a Bishop who traveled extensively, evangelizing the countryside and creating that particular sort of community life in a village that is now called a "parish". More than four hundred towns and some four thousand parishes in France are named after St. Martin. The term "chapel" is derived from the actual church where pilgrims venerate Martin's "cape" or cloak. Martin of Tours was a servant of the common man, as well as the nobility, and a very humble man who responded to the needs of his times and opened up vast perspectives for ordinary, everyday life. Given the crisis of the Christian Faith now facing France and all of Europe, the story of this soldier and great apostle and Christian evangelist is a timely one indeed. ... Read more

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Includes Issues: Fall 1990 No 1, Winter 1991 No 2, Spring 1991 No 3, Summer 1991 No 4. Subjects Include: Jewish Sabbath Laws; Caesar Augustus; The Visit of the Magi; The Jewish Lawyer; A Woman's Place in the First Century; Barabbas; Heresies in the Early Church; The Jubusites; The Heavenly Places; The Arabians; Hiram of Tyre; Tirzah; etc. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Meta-fiction and parody: a horror novel
Bishop takes us for a wild ride in this book. Combining meta-fiction (making the text of the book self-reference itself) with outrageous parody of the horror genre (it gets awesomelly surreal!), he comes out with anabsurdist comedy that manages to be scary at the same time.

The story infew words: Writer and recent widow Stevie Crye's electric typewriter breaksup, leaving her without the tool of her trade. She gets her machine fixedby a creepy thecnician, and she gets an unexpected extra oomph when thetypewriter begins typing by itself. At first, the machine transcriptsStevie's nightmares. Gradually, it CONSTRUCTS her nightmares, and providesher with hallucinations that taint her waking hours. (Or are thehallucinations the real thing?) When Stevie reads these compositions, theyare the chapters of the book, verbatim.

If you read the Animal Man comicsduring Grant Morrison's run, you might have an idea of what to expect onthe matter of trippiness. If you didn't, suffice it to say that you mayexperience the same confussion as Stevie when Bishop reminds you that allyou're reading is just fiction, and yet the ficticious characters fight toshow their free will within the constraints of plot. ... Read more

Product Description
The second Hackett edition of the Sheed translation, a classic in its own right, offers a wealth of notes on philosophical, theological, historical, and liturgical issues raised by the Confessions, as well as paragraph numbers of the Latin critical edition, and a thorough index. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

A great book for sinners: don't worry, one size fits all!
Sacred Scripture gives us persons like the prophet Isaiah, who cry out, "Woe is me, I am doomed!" He knows he is a sinner, especially realizing that he is in the presence of God. Saint Paul tells us "Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. Of these I am the foremost." Peter, in the gospel, falls on his knees in front of Jesus exclaiming, "Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man." What the three have in common is not simply that they acknowledged their sinfulness. In doing so they began the process of becoming great people, eventually saints. Acknowledging our sins & sinfulness is therefore not a morbid exercise in futility. It is the beginning of true self-understanding. It is an invitation to greatness!

St. Augustine was also one of these. Early on in the "Confessions," he recalls when he was an adolescent that he stole pears, not to eat (he had better himself), but only for the sake of stealing, saying the only pleasure in doing it was that it was forbidden: "the malice of the act was base and I loved it--that is to say ... I loved the evil in me--not the thing for which I did evil, simply the evil" (Book 2, 4). Also, because there was another person involved, the sin was more attractive: "O friendship unfriendly, unanalyzable attraction for the mind, greediness to do damage for the mere sport and jest of it, desire for another's loss with no gain to oneself or vengeance to be satisfied."

"I went away from Thee my God, in my youth I strayed too far from Thy sustaining power, and I became to myself a barren land." He says: "Who can understand sins?" This is after discussing the CAPITAL SINS and their futility, for example:
AVARICE wants to possess much, where God possesses all.
ANGER cries for vengeance, but only God's vengeance is just.
ENVY tries to excel, but who can excel before God?

Father De Bergamo, in the introduction of Humility of Heart, calls these the innate springs of evil within us, from which all other sins arise. All that we are, we have received from God, except for our sinfulness, deeply imbedded in our nature. Then he names the characteristics of his soul, i.e. the SEVEN CAPITAL SINS: PRIDE, COVETOUSNESS/AVARICE, LUST, ANGER, GLUTTONY, ENVY/JEALOUSY, AND SLOTH.

Part of the greatness of St. Augustine was his ability to analyze this and show how it works. Any of these can get out of hand (addictions & compulsions). For him it was predominantly lust (but compellingly all, except perhaps gluttony); for the alcoholic it is usually some combination of pride, anger, & gluttony; for each person, it can be different.

But, EVIL IN HIM?--Yes! St. Augustine knew very much about Original Sin--what we inherited from our first parents. Yes, Baptism took care of it for us: the sin, but not, however, the effects. No, Baptism did not do much about these. It doesn't take very much thinking for us to see how much these affect each of us, and the world around us. Even our modern society realizes that these can get so out of hand that they can exercise a real control over our lives. We have support groups that attest to this. We have "THIS ANONYMOUS" and "THAT ANONYMOUS." And we all know that these groups really work. Why? Because the people admit that they are helpless over that which has its hold on them (they become humbled) and they know that they must turn to God who alone can cure them.

Any person struggling with compulsive or addictive behavior can find comfort in the writings of St. Augustine. He knew what sin was. He knew how it worked. He described it! He knew that any of the capital sins could dominate us and be the source of evil in us. It starts, he says, by just giving into them--that's where the evil begins: WE WILL TO DO EVIL! If repeated enough, we develop habits. Habits, if continued, can turn to compulsions. Compulsions, not resisted, become necessities. He says later (Book 8): "The enemy held my will, and out of it he made a chain and bound me. Because my will was perverse it changed to lust, and lust yielded to habit, and habit not resisted became necessity." And, "With the object of the experiment as myself I was able to see how the flesh lusts against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh. (see Romans 6, 7, and 8). He was held captive by the "law of sin."

No surprise! We can all see this in us to some degree. We can pervert our will so that any of our passions can have a hold on us. St. Augustine describes these as "chains which bound him," and though he wanted to love God, his will struggled greatly because his sins "held him bound," like a "captive!"

He understood, first hand, what St. Paul meant in Romans 7:13, ff., about being a "prisoner to the law of sin in his body's members." That is, St. Augustine describes, "the law of sin is the fierce force of habit, by which the mind is drawn and held even against its will, and yet deservedly because it had fallen willfully into the habit" (Book 8,5). So, he knew he was licked, that was his first step! His second step he got from his "sponsor," St. Paul, who himself could say "what a wretched man I am" in Romans 7:24 and also the answer for St. Augustine: "Who then should deliver me from the body of this death, but Thy grace only, through Jesus Christ Our Lord!"

St. Augustine was willing to pray for help: Lord that I may know me; and I may know Thee."We see in this what Father Scupoli, in The Spiritual Combat and a Treatise on Peace of Soul (Tan Classics), that the SPIRITUAL LIFE consists in: "knowing the infinite greatness and goodness of God, together with a true sense of our own weakness and tendency to evil ... and in renouncing our will to follow His." The battle always includes: DISTRUST IN SELF, CONFIDENCE IN GOD accompanied by PRAYER. This is no different than "believing that we are powerless," that help must come from "a power greater than ourselves," and then asking for help.

Like it or not, we are all involved in this battle. Only if we have HUMILITY will we be able to see our own helplessness and turn to God who can and will help us. Saint Augustine's "Confessions" will enable us to recognize this in ourselves and respond, as did Saint Teresa of Avila, as she describes in Teresa of Avila: The Book of Her Life (a new translation):
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"O my God, I am amazed at the hardness of my heart amidst so many succours from Thee.I am filled with dread when I see how little I could do with myself, and how I was clogged, so that I could not resolve to give myself entirely to God.When I began to read the "Confessions," I thought I saw myself there described, and began to recommend myself greatly to this glorious Saint.When I came to his conversion and read how he heard that voice in the garden, it seemed to be nothing less than that our Lord had uttered it for me: I felt so in my heart.I remained for some time lost in tears, in great inward affliction and distress. O my God, what a soul has to suffer because it has lost the liberty it had of being mistress over itself!And what torments it has to endure; I wonder now how I could live in torments so great: God be praised Who gave me life, so that I might escape from so fatal a death!I believe that my soul obtained great strength from His Divine Majesty, and that He must have heard my cry, and had compassion upon so many tears."

Philosophy isn't my strong point
Augustine's Confessions is not for the faint of heart. With a lot of confusing backpedaling, this book has confused many a philosopher. Chronicling his search for God and acceptance, this is a semi-autobiographical account of Augustine's life. He tackles a variety of topics, but the only reason I can see anyone reading this book is for a college course. In which case, I have to say, good luck to you, your life got worse. 2/5

Beautiful translation of a classic text
Sheed's translation of this classic of Western and Christian culture is truly beautiful. He went beyond presenting an accurate translation; beyond a clear translation. He gave us a translation that is accurate, clear, and sonorous. The footnotes, introductions (one by famous Augustine scholar Peter Brown), and index make this a solid scholarly edition. This is a translation I will reread often.

the editor's preface
Michael P. Foley's "Editor's Preface" to this edition of Confessions contextualizes the translation well.It serves to locate Sheed's translation historically and academically.The "Editor's Preface" also discusses the cover art for this edition.That discussion is not only an insightful description of the art, but also relates the art to the text effectively. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Awesome book about an awesome priest
I strongly recommend this wonderful little book about a very brave and noble priest.I would love to learn more about this priest and his mission to the Arctic. ... Read more