Latest Book Releases

Metaphysics and Hermeneutics of the Image Thomas Pfau's study of images and visual experience is a tour de force linking Platonic metaphysics to modern phenomenology and probing literary, philosophical, and theological accounts of visual experience from Plato to Rilke. Incomprehensible Certainty presents a sustained reflection on the nature of images and the phenomenology of visual experience. Taking the "image" (eikōn) as the essential medium of art and literature and as foundational for the...

America's Third Struggle for Freedom Initially written in 1940, Rural Roads to Security is a well-documented book about agrarian life during the Great Depression, and carried a warranted subtitle: “America’s Third Struggle for Freedom”. According to the authors, the first struggle was the war for American independence from Great Britain. The second struggle was the American Civil War, which succeeded to preserve the union and emancipate the enslaved. The third struggle was taking place during...

The Roman Missal is the liturgical book used by the Roman Catholic Church for the celebration of the Mass. It contains the prayers, instructions, and texts for the celebration of Mass throughout the liturgical year. The Roman Missal provides a structured format for the celebration of Mass, including the prayers and responses of the priest and the congregation, as well as the readings from the Bible and the prayers of the faithful. It includes the Order of Mass, which outlines the various part...

Available for the first time in a comprehensive English translation, this thoroughly annotated but easy-to-use presentation of the classic 1917 Code of Canon Law by canon and civil lawyer Dr. Edward Peters is destined to become the standard reference work on this milestone of Church law. More than just of historical interest, the 1917 Code is an indispensable tool for understanding the current 1983 Code under which the Roman Catholic Church governs itself. Dr. Peters' faithful translation of ...

This new children's Christmas book by bestselling author Anthony DeStefano tells the story of a mean-spirited, prideful old ox who has lost his sight "both physically and spiritually" but who nevertheless experiences the transformative power of God's grace after he witnesses the birth of Jesus Christ in a humble stable in Bethlehem. Illustrated by New York Times bestselling artist Richard Cowdrey, this new holiday book teaches children the true meaning of Christmas while also explaining the c...

The Beggar and the Bluebird is a modern-day fairytale in the tradition of Hans Christian Anderson and the Grimm Brothers. It tells the moving story of a little bird whose flight southward for the winter keeps getting delayed because of the strange requests of a local street beggar. The beggar asks the bird to deliver bread to a homeless man, money to a widow with children, and a gold cross to a sick boy in the hospital. As a result of performing these acts of mercy, the kind bird gets caught ...

Joseph's Donkey is the heartwarming tale of a noble donkey purchased by St. Joseph shortly before his marriage to the Blessed Virgin Mary. The trusted creature helps Joseph in his carpentry business by hauling wood and stones, but he also plays a key role in all the major events recorded in the Infancy Narratives in the Gospels: he carries Mary to Bethlehem, where she gives birth to Jesus; he takes the Holy Family to Egypt to escape the evil king Herod; and he shuttles the family to Jerusalem...

From 1899 until her death in 1903, the young Italian woman St. Gemma Galgani physically experienced the wounds of Christ every Thursday evening. The stigmata would appear and bleed on her hands, feet, and side, stopping only on Friday afternoon and leaving white marks as a reminder. St. Gemma also experienced countless visions, raptures, ecstasies, and other mystical graces― as well as intense temptations from the devil.Here is the remarkable diary of this young saint, which her spiritual dir...

Does your mind often wander when you recite the Holy Rosary? Spiritual master Fr. Dolindo Ruotolo― called “a saint” by Padre Pio― will teach you to deepen your powers of recollection as you reflect upon the sacred mysteries. Here is the Rosary companion that will help you develop a personal relationship with Jesus Christ by entering into the events of His life through the prism of your own. These brief, compelling reflections― written as conversations between Jesus and the soul― will move you...

Learning to Let Go with the Little Flower Do your possessions “spark joy”? In our materialistic society, we are often plagued with the slow torture of accumulated stuff, which creates disharmony, prevents us from living in the present moment, and keeps us from setting our eyes upon Heaven. The Little Way of Living with Less is a spiritual journey guided by St. Thérèse of Lisieux toward a “less is more” manner of living. It shares one couple’s effort to downsize, declutter, and detach― and the...

Death Comes for the Archbishop is a 1927 novel by Willa Cather. It concerns the attempts of a Catholic bishop and a priest to establish a diocese in New Mexico territory. The novel portrays two well-meaning and devout French priests who will encounter a well-entrenched Spanish-Mexican clergy after the United States acquired New Mexico in the Mexican-American War. As a result of the U.S. victory, the dioceses of the new state were remapped by the Vatican to reflect the new national borders. Se...

Christian Humanism in an Age of Crisis By early 1943, it had become increasingly clear that the Allies would win the Second World War. Around the same time, it also became increasingly clear to many Christian intellectuals on both sides of the Atlantic that the soon-to-be-victorious nations were not culturally or morally prepared for their success. A war won by technological superiority merely laid the groundwork for a post-war society governed by technocrats. These Christian intellectuals-Ja...

In the struggle to find the touchstone between faith and reason, modern psychology is often a very problematic area for Catholics. Why? Because post-Freudian psychology is based on a mistaken idea that moral laws lead to neurosis. It argues that we must be freed from morality in order to become psychologically whole. In this powerful and assuring book, Fr. Brian Mullady examines the nature of a healthy Christian emotional life, and ultimately provides the Catholic answer to the problematic th...

"Jane Austen's brilliantly sophisticated teenage writings constitute her beginnings as a writer. We see in the works in this volume the sheer fun of her early sketches and their ridicule of human foibles, her parody of the absurdities of romance and sentimental fiction, her decision-making over choice of word and incident, her changing attitude towards character and style, and especially her early fascination with wordplay and hidden meanings that reveal her sprightly imagination." —From the ...

"I wish as well as everybody else to be perfectly happy; but, like everybody else it must be in my own way." Following the death of Mr. Dashwood, a beloved father and noble squire, his widow and three daughters look to John Dashwood, a son by Mr. Dashwood's first wife, to ensure their financial security now that he is to come to Sussex to inherit Norland. But as an avaricious man under the influence of a manipulative wife, John soon convinces himself he is not betraying his father's dying wis...

How the Church Rediscovered Itself and Challenged the Modern World to Reform Throughout much of the nineteenth century, both secular and Catholic leaders assumed that the Church and the modern world were locked in a battle to the death. The triumph of modernity would not only finish the Church as a consequential player in world history; it would also lead to the death of religious conviction. But today, the Catholic Church is far more vital and consequential than it was 150 years ago. Ironica...

Angels are all around us. They are not fairy-tale creatures or New Age sprites but powerful beings created by God to reflect his light. And while we often are not aware of them, the angels are deeply interested in us. In Angels: Our Guardians in Spiritual Battle, moral theologian, author, and speaker Msgr. Brian Bransfield teaches us how to recognize the angels present in our lives. Drawing on Scripture, the Church Fathers, and the Catechism of the Catholic Church, Msgr. Bransfield shows how ...

"'Better be without sense than misapply it as you do.'" Emma Woodhouse— "rich, handsome and clever"— is every bit that rich and that handsome, but perhaps not as clever as she believes. Residing in the quietness of rural England at the turn of the 19th century, the young heiress has as yet no intention of marrying, but enjoys playing the matchmaker among her acquaintances. Supposing she arranged her governess's marriage, she then takes for a protégé Harriet, a simple-minded girl of humble and...

"'For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbors, and laugh at them in our turn?'" Set in the English countryside at the turn of the 19th century, Pride and Prejudice opens upon the excitement of the Bennet family of Longbourn Estate when a rich, eligible, and unsuspecting gentlemen has taken residence at nearby Netherfield. In the interest of financial security, little can deter Mrs. Bennet from doing all she can to encourage a marriage between amiable Mr. Bingley and one her five ...

A newly designed and typeset edition of the popular Ignatius Revised Standard Version-Catholic Edition Bible. This contemporary English translation revises archaic language of the first edition, but avoids dumbing-down the text. It retains the beauty of the RSV language that makes the Ignatius Bible such a joy to read. Now the only contemporary Catholic Bible translation in standard English is even more beautiful in word and design!

How Great Books Shaped a Great Mind C. S. Lewis had one of the great minds of the twentieth century. Many readers know Lewis as an author of fiction and fantasy literature, including the Chronicles of Narnia and the Space Trilogy. Others know him for his books in apologetics, including Mere Christianity and The Problem of Pain. But few know him for his scholarly work as a professor of medieval and Renaissance literature. What shaped the mind of this great thinker? Jason Baxter argues that Lew...

 Its Spirit, Conditions, Methods In his book, The Intellectual Life, A.G. Sertillanges synthesizes an instruction manual for future Dominicans on how to dedicate themselves to their studies as intellectuals and lovers of truth. By writing this book, Sertillanges makes a compelling account iterating what a vocation to the intellectual life should look like. Written shortly after the end of the Great War, Sertillanges fills his book with concrete examples of what a routine day of the life of an...

"She was not often invited to join in the conversation of the others, nor did she desire it. Her own thoughts and reflections were habitually her best companions; and, in observing the appearance of the country, the bearings of the roads, the difference of soil, the state of the harvest, the cottages, the cattle, the children, she found entertainment that could only have been heightened by having Edmund to speak to of what she felt." In early 19th century England, Fanny Price, at ten years ol...

"She had been forced into prudence in her youth, she learned romance as she grew older— the natural consequence of an unnatural beginning." Eight years ago, Anne Elliot drew back her consent to marry Fredrick Wentworth, the headstrong and spirited naval commander of a yet-certain career or established fortune, in the conviction that she acted for his own good. Forbearing, selfless, and pensive, she would as yet have married him against the wishes of her vain and rank-obsessed father, Sir Walt...

Compiled under the direction of St. Charles Borromeo and recognized as the most authoritative Catholic catechism. Leo XIII recommended two books-- the Summa and this Catechism--for all seminarians! Pope Benedict 16th, as a Cardinal, called it the most important Catholic Catechism. Originally designed to supply parish priest with an official book of instruction, it has been used extensively by the laity as a steadying guide in our confused age.

"She was not often invited to join in the conversation of the others, nor did she desire it. Her own thoughts and reflections were habitually her best companions; and, in observing the appearance of the country, the bearings of the roads, the difference of soil, the state of the harvest, the cottages, the cattle, the children, she found entertainment that could only have been heightened by having Edmund to speak to of what she felt." In early 19th century England, Fanny Price, at ten years ol...

“If adventures will not befall a young lady in her own village, she must seek them abroad.” Irony, witty banter, and all the wisdom that defines Jane Austen's novels, pour forth from every page of Northanger Abbey. At the end of the 18th century, as Gothic literature was especially popular, an avid reader of such novels— young, affectionate, and unworldly Catherine Morland, the daughter of a country clergyman— sets off for the high society of lively Bath, thus to begin an adventure of her own...

In this #1 international bestseller, a young woman leaves everything behind to work as a librarian in a remote French village, where she finds her outlook on life and love challenged in every way. Prudencia Prim is a young woman of intelligence and achievement, with a deep knowledge of literature and several letters after her name. But when she accepts the post of private librarian in the village of San Ireneo de Arnois, she is unprepared for what she encounters there. Her employer, a book-lo...

"'Better be without sense than misapply it as you do.'" Emma Woodhouse— "rich, handsome and clever"— is every bit that rich and that handsome, but perhaps not as clever as she believes. Residing in the quietness of rural England at the turn of the 19th century, the young heiress has as yet no intention of marrying, but enjoys playing the matchmaker among her acquaintances. Supposing she arranged her governess's marriage, she then takes for a protégé Harriet, a simple-minded girl of humble and...

"She had been forced into prudence in her youth, she learned romance as she grew older— the natural consequence of an unnatural beginning." Eight years ago, Anne Elliot drew back her consent to marry Fredrick Wentworth, the headstrong and spirited naval commander of a yet-certain career or established fortune, in the conviction that she acted for his own good. Forbearing, selfless, and pensive, she would as yet have married him against the wishes of her vain and rank-obsessed father, Sir Walt...

"'For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbors, and laugh at them in our turn?'" Set in the English countryside at the turn of the 19th century, Pride and Prejudice opens upon the excitement of the Bennet family of Longbourn Estate when a rich, eligible, and unsuspecting gentlemen has taken residence at nearby Netherfield. In the interest of financial security, little can deter Mrs. Bennet from doing all she can to encourage a marriage between amiable Mr. Bingley and one her five ...

"BEST NONFICTION BOOK OF THE 20TH CENTURY." —Time Volume 3 of the gripping epic masterpiece, The Gulag Archipelago, by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. In Volume 3, Solzhenitsyn gives a moving account of resistance within the Soviet labor camps and his own release after eight years. Foreword by Anne Applebaum."The greatest and most powerful single indictment of a political regime ever leveled in modern times." —George F. Kennan, The New York Review of Books "It is impossible to name a book that had a ...

"BEST NONFICTION BOOK OF THE 20TH CENTURY." —Time Volume 2 of the gripping epic masterpiece, The Gulag Archipelago, by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. In Volume 2, Solzhenitsyn recounts his entrance into the Soviet prison camps, where he would remain for nearly a decade. Foreword by Anne Applebaum."The greatest and most powerful single indictment of a political regime ever leveled in modern times." —George F. Kennan, The New York Review of Books "It is impossible to name a book that had a greater eff...

"BEST NONFICTION BOOK OF THE 20TH CENTURY." —Time  Volume 1 of the gripping epic masterpiece, The Gulag Archipelago, by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. In Volume 1, Solzhenitsyn gives a chilling report of his arrest and interrogation, which exposed to the world the vast bureaucracy of secret police that haunted Soviet society. Foreword by Anne Applebaum."The greatest and most powerful single indictment of a political regime ever leveled in modern times." —George F. Kennan, The New York Review of Book...

A Novel Based on the Life of St. Augustine of Hippo "You say, the times are troublesome, the times are burdensome, the times are miserable. Live rightly and you will change the times. The times have never hurt anyone. Those who are hurt are human beings; those by whom they are hurt are also human beings. So, change human beings and the times will be changed." -St. Augustine of Hippo, Sermon 311, 8 Growing up on the northernmost edge of the African continent, young Augustine had never known a ...

A Novel Based on the Life of Luca Pacioli An orphan from a small town in Italy, Pacioli came of age during the Renaissance seemingly destined for a life of struggle and obscurity. But Pacioli had the good fortune of meeting mentors who recognized his uncanny ability with numbers and introduced him to renowned artists and philosophers, royalty, and popes. At a time when many still used Roman numerals and colleges didn't even teach mathematics, Pacioli was determined to share his passion and ma...

A Novel Based on the Life of St. Francis of Assisi His neighbors thought he was spoiled and lazy. His teachers found him incorrigible. His own father believed he was crazy. His mother never doubted that he was a true son of God. Arrogant and grandiose, young Francis di Bernardone was an embarrassment to his family and a source of amusement to his community. He led a lavish, undisciplined life, squandering his father's fortune on the finest food, wine, and late-night parties with his coterie o...

A Novel Inspired by the Life of Guido d'Arezzo It was too big a secret to keep and too great a price to pay. Though few details are known of 11th-century Benedictine monk Guido d'Arezzo, he is widely recognized for inventing the language of music. Music's Guiding Hand offers a fictional account as to how an unlikely friendship between two medieval monks might have inspired one of the most important and enduring innovations of the Western world. When a fellow monk continually struggles to lear...

A Novel Based on the Life of Thomas Aquinas Entering the world with a burning desire for knowledge, Thomas Aquinas set out on a quest for truth that forced him into captivity. But his thirst for truth never wavered. Known today among many as the most brilliant light of the church, Aquinas was a Catholic priest and a Doctor of the Church. His influence on Western thought as he attempted to synthesize Aristotelian philosophy with the principles of Christianity is considerable. Aquinas is distin...

The Astounding Achievements of Mother Cabrini: A Novel Based on the Life of Mother Frances X. Cabrini Her passion became her reality. Children were her life, and God's messenger Mother Frances X. Cabrini dedicated her entire life to caring for poor Italian immigrants who sought refuge in the slums of New York City in the early 1890s. A devout champion of education and proper health care for the poverty-stricken, Cabrini forged a path of survival for young children by building schools, orphana...

A Novel Based on the Life of Father Eusebio Kino Through a great and terrible wilderness, with serpents, scorpions, and thirsty ground, he sowed peace and sustenance and left an enduring mark on the New World. A celebrated teacher of mathematics and astronomy, Eusebio Kino's future promised to be comfortable and secure. Jesuit elders urged the young priest to continue his ministry in education. But a greater voice called, and Father Kino answered by pursuing a lifetime of danger and uncertain...

A Novel Based on the Life of Father Matteo Ricci The Forbidden City--home to the opium-addicted Ming Dynasty emperor and protected by thousands of ruthless eunuchs--no European had ever been inside. Would a simple Jesuit priest be the first? Armed with a homemade clock, a wealth of patience, and an uncompromising drive to share his faith with a new people, Father Matteo Ricci would overcome one barrier only to be met by another: treacherous seas, a complex language, and a culture with an unsh...