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<DIV>This is one of a two-volume collection of texts and documents issued by the International Theological Commission (ITC), a body of theologians that advises the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. The texts and documents of the ITC address pressing theological issues, drawing upon theological experts from around the world who represent differing branches of theology yet who share a common commitment to authentically-Catholic theological reflection. <P><B>Volume 2, 1986-2007</B>, includes texts and documents exploring the following themes: faith and inculturation, the interpretation of dogma, eschatology, God the Redeemer, Christianity and world religions, the Church and the faults of the past, the diaconal ministry, human beings as the image of God, and the hope for the salvation of unbaptized infants. <P>"The special contribution of the Commission is to gain a hearing for the common voice of theology amid all the diversities that exist. For notwithstanding the legitimate pluralism of theological cultures in the Church, the unity of theology must remain, and empower theologians to offer some common account of their subject. In these pages, therefore, one will not find the exciting theses of innovative individuals. If there is excitement here, it lies in the discovery that even in our contemporary situation it is possible to say something together despite all our differences and so to take part together in a further exploration of the one faith of the Church. All the texts which follow are the fruit of a long and often difficult dialogue. In that dialogue, not only have various disciplines, methods and ways of thought found a common path. Over and above that, the wider dialogue of theologians with the bishops, as well as between bishops and the Petrine office in the Church, has found a voice. It is precisely for this reason that the Theological Commission represents an authentic continuation of the great experience of the Council and a clarification of its true bearing."<br><B>�Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger</B> from the Preface to Volume One</DIV></P></P>

International Theological Commission: Texts and Documents 1987-2007

<DIV><P><I>Understanding the Sacraments</I> is a popular guide for prayer and study of all seven sacraments, designed for use by individuals and groups. In this guide, the well-known Fr. Peter Stravinskas, gives you a clear and faithful Catholic teaching in chapters on each of the seven sacraments. Everyday examples and anecdotes enliven the text. An introductory chapter explains the meaning of the word "sacrament", while the closing chapter tells you how to recover a sense of the sacred in the liturgy and how to receive God's healing through the sacraments. </P><P>To help you apply the teaching, frank and thoughtful questions for group discussion are included at the end of all the chapters-making this guide ideal for use in any parish or religious education program. </P><P>Whether at home, your parish, or in a prayer or study group, this popular guide will help you come to a deeper understanding of the sacraments and their important place in your Christian life. </P></DIV>

Understanding the Sacraments: A Guide for Prayer and Study

<DIV><P>In one of his most penetrating books, Kreeft ponders the meaning of a terminal illness we all have: death. The three vital questions of Life, Death, and God are approached through a variety of human experiences. Kreeft's book is a new statement of the Christian vision: the meaning of our existence, and of death, is the fulfillment of our deepest desire for the infinite joy and love of God. </P></DIV>

Love Is Stronger Than Death

<DIV><P>Fifty years ago, nearly 200,000 religious sisters worked in Catholic schools, hospitals and other institutions throughout the United States. American Catholics honored these women of faith who founded and built these flourishing works of mercy.</P><P>Then came the ideological shifts and moral upheavals of the 1960s, and ever since, most women's orders in the United States have been in a state of crisis. Now the sisters are aging, with fewer and fewer younger women to take their place. Perhaps related to this demographic shift is the continuing doctrinal confusion that has come under the scrutiny of the Vatican.</P><P>Using the archival records of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious and other prominent groups of sisters, journalist and author Ann Carey shows how feminist activists unraveled American women's religious communities from their leadership positions in national organizations and large congregations. She also explains the recent and necessary interventions by the Vatican.</P><P>After examining the many forces that have contributed to the crisis, Carey reports on a promising sign of renewal in American religious life: the growing number of young women attracted to older communities that have retained their identity and newly formed, yet traditional, congregations.</P></DIV>

Sisters in Crisis: Revisited

<DIV>Fr. Robinson has done a great service in revitalizing Lorenzo Scupoli's classic, <I>Spiritual Combat</I>, so that contemporary Catholics can rediscover this rich work that has served many generations of Catholics. This book is about the life of prayer and personal reform and renewal. It fits squarely into the tradition of the &#34;great masters&#34; of the spiritual life, and to the line of great modern writers on spirituality. It is a work of particular relevance that confronts modern culture with the tough-minded, deeply authentic challenge of spiritual combat.<P>Robinson has retained Scupoli's appeal to the Catholic reader through a conversational style, short chapters, familiar examples from everyday life, and the pastoral bent which has marked his own outstanding career. Covering the basic difficulties of daily prayer and of obstacles to living the virtues, Scupoli and Robinson test the mettle of real Catholics by calling us to live an interior life for and with God.</P></DIV>

Spiritual Combat Revisited

<DIV><P><B>Foreword by Cardinal Christoph Schönborn</B><P>In 2005 the Archbishop of Vienna, Christoph Cardinal Schönborn wrote a guest editorial in <I>The New York Times</I> that sparked a worldwide debate about "Creation and Evolution". Pope Benedict XVI instructed the Cardinal to study more closely this problem and the current debate between evolutionism and "creationism," and asked the yearly gathering of his former students to address these questions. <P>Even after Joseph Ratzinger became Pope Benedict XVI, he has continued to maintain close contact with the circle of his former students. The "study circle" <I>(Schulerkrers)</I> meets once a year with Pope Benedict XVI for a conference. Many of these former Ratzinger students have gone on to become acclaimed scholars, professors and writers, as well as high ranking Church prelates.<P>This book documents the proceedings of the remarkable conference on the topic of "Creation and Evolution" hosted by Pope Benedict XVI in 2006 at the papal summer residence, Castel Gandolfo. It includes papers that were presented from the fields of natural science, philosophy and theology, and records the subsequent discussion, in which Pope Benedict XVI himself participated. <P> "Ultimately it comes down to the alternative: What came first? Creative Reason, the Creator Spirit who makes all things and gives them growth, or Unreason, which, lacking any meaning, strangely enough brings forth a mathematically ordered cosmos, as well as man and his reason. The latter, however, would then be nothing more than a chance result of evolution and thus, in the end, equally meaningless. As Christians, we say: I believe in God the Father, the Creator of heaven and earth. I believe in the Creator Spirit. We believe that at the beginning of everything is the eternal Word, with Reason and not Unreason." <br/><B>— Pope Benedict XVI</B></P></DIV></P></P></P></P>

Creation and Evolution: A Conference with Pope Benedict XVI

<DIV><P>A major book on the subject of heaven, this expanded edition examines the hunger for heaven that is so strong in all of us. Fascinating and upbeat, Heaven, the Heart's Deepest Longing thoroughly explores the psychological and theological dimensions of this search for total joy and for the ultimate reality that grounds it. <BR /></P></DIV>

Heaven, the Heart's Deepest Longing

<DIV><P>In <I>Beyond Modernity</I>, Father Rutler shows the emptiness and vanity of modern man's attempts to deify progress and look at modernity as a goal in itself. Written in a style reminiscent of Chesterton, this book is a theological and sociological commentary on the bankruptcy of progressivism.</P><P>"The modern age is becoming outmoded, the thing it thought most unlikely. This poses a problem overwhelming to set minds: what happens when the age which was supposed to be the end of all the ages ends itself? The stark reply is, modern man is the least equipped to know. While posturing as the breath of things to come, he was insinuating the first civilized denial of the future. Modernity is worse than a rejection of the past; it is a defiant avoidance of that which is next, probably the first school of discourse to cancel tomorrow as a thing as vapid as part of yesterday."<BR /> — George W. Rutler, from the Foreword</P></DIV>