Sexual abuse is not the only mistreatment that can happen in the Church. There is also spiritual abuse. Fr. Dysmas de Lassus, superior general of the Carthusian Order, comes out of his silence to denounce the unacceptable behavior of some religious superiors and founders of communities. Rooted in the monastic tradition and the robust theology of religious life, Fr. Dysmas presents elements that will assist everyone in evaluating the dangers of certain spiritual practices and methods of government associated with community life.
Fr. Dysmas's wisdom and experience will help you attain the broad equilibrium that nourishes personal and community growth, through the respect of individuals, Catholic tradition, and a healthy spiritual life.Speaking out for the first time, he condemns an era of mental abuse in the Church and in the world. This free and liberating guide exposes some of the abuses within religious orders and includes testimonies of victims.
You will learn:
You will also gain a proper understanding of obedience and discover the three conditions, according to St. Francis de Sales, that highlight what blind obedience really means. Moreover, you will see the difference between the silence that is life-giving and the silence that kills. You will also find two criteria for healthy communication with the outside world and the way to achieve balance in living a life of sacrifice to foster genuine humility. Above all, you will see the necessary path to healing and how the truth sets us free.
Here is the book to provide you with the directions and indications needed to carry out the various rites found in the liturgical books of the Catholic Church. This manual aims to restore the grammar and syntax to the body language demanded by the celebration of Mass, the sacraments, and sacramentals. The scope is limited to those rites that the typical parish clergy are most likely to celebrate on a regular basis. It will assist priests and all those who exercise liturgical ministries with a detailed description of liturgical celebrations commonly found in parishes.
Msgr. Caron's approach draws upon the traditional practice of the Roman Rite as it pertains to the postures and gestures of the various rites. It takes into consideration the immemorial customs that have grown up around the public worship of the Roman Catholic Church.
The General Instruction on the Roman Missal provides the framework for the way Mass is to be celebrated. Along with the rubrics, the General Instruction describes what is to be done by the priest celebrant, the other ministers, and the faithful. However, unlike previous editions, the Missal of Paul VI provides very little detail as to how a given action is to be carried out. Rather, it assumes that the traditional practice of the Roman Rite through the centuries informs the current celebration of Mass.
This principle of interpretation has been made clear only in the third edition of missal in 2002; it helps to define the proper body language of Mass, just as the spoken and sung texts have their own respective grammar and syntax. As such, Ceremonial for Priests is the heir to the various commentaries on the rubrics found in multiple languages prior to the Second Vatican Council. In these pages, you will find:
Ceremonial for Priests functions as a starting point for all those who wish to take seriously the need to offer God the worship due to Him in the beauty of holiness.
Men of God, Men of War tells the stories of chaplains who have served in America's wars. In his exploration of military chaplaincy, author Robert Doyle poses questions about their brand of service to the United States. He examines the complexities of the chaplains' vocation--the types of services they performed, the roles they assumed in combat and as prisoners of war, and how they interacted with the military personnel they served and supported. Doyle explores the high price many paid for their commitment to their unique type of service.
Doyle illuminates the histories of chaplains who did their duty selflessly to God, to their country, to the soldiers, sailors, Marines, and airmen with whom they found themselves in very dire circumstances over the past three hundred years. Chaplains throughout American history have served bravely and selflessly at home and in the field, both under fire and behind the wire. Chaplains served as sources of motivation, inspiration, and peace for military personnel in times of hardship, especially in captivity. Doyle illustrates that while they are now treated as non-combatants, chaplains' vital role as leaders cannot be underestimated or understated. Men of God, Men of War examines how chaplains performed under fire in hostile environments, beginning with the Revolutionary War through the war on terror in Iraq and Afghanistan. The chaplains of the Revolution were patriots first, soldiers second, and men of God third. From the Civil War to modern times, these men gave hope to the hopeless, absolution to those soldiers who stood before their Maker before battles, and faith in themselves and their comrades so necessary for men in combat. Doyle's research shows that military chaplains have always remained necessary to men at war, even in a modern secular military.What is it like to be a preacher or rabbi who no longer believes in God? In this expanded and updated edition of their groundbreaking study, Daniel C. Dennett and Linda LaScola comprehensively and sensitively expose an inconvenient truth that religious institutions face in the new transparency of the information age--the phenomenon of clergy who no longer believe what they publicly preach. In confidential interviews, clergy from across the ministerial spectrum--from liberal to literal--reveal how their lives of religious service and study have led them to a truth inimical to their professed beliefs and profession. Although their personal stories are as varied as the denominations they once represented, or continue to represent--whether Catholic, Baptist, Episcopalian, Methodist, Mormon, Pentecostal, or any of numerous others--they give voice not only to their own struggles but also to those who similarly suffer in tender and lonely silence. As this study poignantly and vividly reveals, their common journey has far-reaching implications not only for their families, their congregations, and their communities--but also for the very future of religion.
These pages aim to help Catholic priests and those who love priests to ponder properly the grace that these consecrated men have received and its implications for their lives. Romanus Cessario, O.P.
The Grace to Be a Priest represents the fruit of one Dominican's service as a priest of Jesus Christ. For more than thirty-five years, Romanus Cessario has taught and advised candidates for the priesthood. In this text, Father Cessario explains how the vocation to the priesthood comes to a man as both gift and mystery. God chooses priests to serve as both instruments of his will and spiritual fathers for his people. They fulfill this divine mission in various ways. Priests become chaste lovers, faithful friends, obedient sons, and shining lights in God's holy Church. Priests administer the seven Sacraments even as they follow the Christ who came to serve not to be served. Again, priests teach the truth with love even as they pray God for the salvation of all people. Drawing on the riches of the Dominican tradition as well as the general principles of Catholic theology, Father Cessario richly illuminates the nature of the priesthood with insights that will instruct priests, seminarians, and laypeople alike.
Romanus Cessario, O.P., serves as a professor of theology at St. John's Seminary in Brighton, Massachusetts. He is a fellow of the Pontifical Academy of Saint Thomas Aquinas and the author of some hundred articles and many books, including Thomas and the Thomists: The Achievement of Thomas Aquinas and His Interpreters; Theology and Sanctity; Introduction to Moral Theology; and The Virtues, or The Examined Life.
In this bold and powerful book, Dr. Peter Kwasniewski marshals an irrefutable defense of the Church's historical teaching that her liturgical ministries -- including those of lector and altar server -- should be performed exclusively by men.
God created the two sexes for profound reasons, explains Dr. Kwasniewski, and we diminish human beings when we lose sight of those reasons. He asserts that the interdependence of the two sexes strengthens both men and women and that the complementary characteristics of masculinity and femininity are indispensable to human development. The manifest differences between the sexes have informed the Church's vision on the roles of men and women in the liturgy for centuries, and they are now under attack not only from outside the Catholic Church but also within it, threatening the very order and coherence of civilization itself.
Dr. Kwasniewski thoughtfully reflects on Scripture, Church teachings, and human nature to determine the proper callings of the laity and clergy as well as their diverse but integral modes of participation in the liturgy. He connects the male priesthood to the Incarnation of Our Lord, and he explains the Old Testament background and New Testament roots of the diaconate, subdiaconate, and minor orders. He then stunningly reveals how these roles are designed to reflect and radiate the priesthood of Jesus Christ.
Finally, Dr. Kwasniewski charts a path to a healthier church life, one that replaces the heresy of activism with the primacy of prayer and the power of contemplation. He argues that we should set aside the push to update everything and return to the serene embrace of the essential changelessness of the Christian religion. Only then can we adequately worship the immutable God in His eternal truth, which is reflected in the liturgical rites of Catholic tradition and the stable forms of life they call forth and bless.
The calling to shepherd the church is one that involves some of the greatest adventures and joys one can experience. Yet, it is a call that also comes with many pitfalls and battles every pastor must be ready to face. The Wounded Pastor explores one such battle that nearly every pastor will face at least once in their ministry. This hidden danger and impending battle looming in the Evangelical world is the unjustified termination, or forced resignation, of pastors from a church.
The Wounded Pastor will explore stories of those who have journeyed such a path, define the scope of the problem in Evangelical churches today, explore Biblical examples, and put forth a strategy that will enable pastors to fulfill their Biblical calling by successfully entering back into vocational ministry, better equipped for the next assignment. With God's help and a bit of hard work the wounded pastor can experience healing and vibrant ministry again.
In Postcolonial Preaching, HyeRan Kim-Cragg argues that preaching is the act of dropping the stone of the Gospel into a lake, making waves to move hearts and transform the world wounded by colonial violence. The ripple effect serves as a metaphor and acronym to guide to preaching that takes postcolonial concerns seriously: Rehearsal, Imagination, Place, Pattern, Language and Exegesis (RIPPLE). Kim-Cragg explains each ripple in this approach and exercise of creating and delivering sermons. The author delivers fresh insights while drawing on some traditional homiletical perspectives in the service of a homiletic that takes the reality of racism, migration, and environmental degradation seriously. Moreover, Kim-Cragg demonstrates the postcolonial sermon in action by including annotated homilies. This book contributes to the very first wave of the application of postcolonial scholarship in preaching. Given the continuing extent and influence of colonial worldviews and legacies, this approach should become a staple in preaching over the next generation.