Recent Faculty Publications (Click cover image for a link to Amazon.com)

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Ruling Peacefully: Cardinal Ercole Gonzaga And Patrician Reform in Sixteenth-century Italy

Dr. Paul V Murphy, Ph.D
Director, Institute of Catholic Studies
Associate Professor, Department of History

Raised in the splendid court of Mantua, wealthy even by the standards of Renaissance cardinals, the patron of artists and scholars, the father of numerous children, an active participant in Italian and European politics as regent of the Duchy of Mantua, Cardinal Ercole Gonzaga (1505-1563) was in many respects a typical Renaissance prelate from a noble family. Nevertheless, in the course of his life he also exhibited a real commitment to reform of the Church and gave serious attention to the religious debates of his day. He reformed the diocese of Mantua, befriended reformers both Catholic and Protestant, and served as papal legate to the Council of Trent.

Ruling Peacefully provides the first in-depth study of this influential and paradoxical figure. Gonzaga emerges as a complex personality whose interests as the representative of a northern Italian ruling family could just as easily lead him to support reform in the Catholic Church as to hinder it. His career exemplifies much of the history of Italy and the Catholic Church in an era of uneasy transition. The process of change that the Church underwent in the sixteenth century only gradually provided theological clarity. This lack of definition exhibited itself not only in theology but also in the lives and works of individuals, including the leaders of the Church.

The career of Ercole Gonzaga, who does not fit easily into the categories of spiritual reformer, or intransigent inquisitor, or unreformed noble prelate, challenges stereotypical descriptions of Italian prelates and may represent the age more fully than any of these ideal types. This intermingling of the worldly and the religious suggests that he may best be understood as a patrician reformer who manifested the cultural life of late Renaissance Italy, the call for reform, and the interests of a powerful ruling family.

Catholic University of America Press
ISBN: 0813214785

Therese of Lisieux: God's Gentle Warrior

Dr. Thomas R. Nevin, Ph.D
Professor, Department of Classical and Modern Language

Therese of Lisieux (1873-1897), also known as St. Therese of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face, is popularly named the Little Flower. A Carmelite nun, doctor of the church, and patron of a score of causes, she was famously acclaimed by Pope Pius X as the greatest saint of modern times. Therese is not only one of the most beloved saints of the Catholic Church but perhaps the most revered woman of the modern age. Pope John Paul II described her as a living icon of God. Her autobiography Story of a Soul has been translated into sixty languages. Having long transcended national and linguistic boundaries, she has crossed even religious ones. As daughter of Allah, she is venerated widely in Islamic cultures. Therese has been the subject of innumerable biographies and treatises, ranging from hagiographies to attacks on her intelligence and mental health. Thomas R. Nevin has gained access to many untapped archival materials and previously unpublished photographs. As a consequence he is able to offer a much fuller and more accurate portrait of the saints life and thought than his predecessors. He explores the dynamics of her family life and the early development of her spirituality. He draws extensively on the correspondence of her mother and documents her influence on Thereses autobiography and spirituality. He charts the development of Thereses career as a writer. He gives close attention to her poetry and plays usually dismissed as undistinguished and argues that they have great value as texts by which she addressed and informed her Carmelite community. He delves into the French medical literature of the time, in an effort to understand how the tuberculosis of which she died at the age of 24 was treated and lamentably mistreated. Finally, he offers a new understanding of Therese as a theologian for whom love, rather than doctrines and creeds, was the paramount value. Adding substantially to our knowledge and appreciation of this immensely popular and attractive figure, this book should appeal to many general readers as well as to scholars and students of modern Catholic history.

Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0195307216

The Sheed and Ward Anthology of Catholic Philosophy

Fr. Harry J. Gensler, S.J., Ph.D
Professor, Department of Philosophy

The Sheed & Ward Anthology of Catholic Philosophy is a thorough introduction to the evolution of Catholic philosophy from Biblical times to the present day. The first comprehensive collection of readings from Catholic philosophers, this volume aims to sharpen the understanding of Catholic philosophy by grouping together the best examples of this tradition, both well-known classics and lesser-known selections. The readings emphasize themes integral to the Catholic tradition such as the harmony of faith and reason, the existence and nature of God, the nature of the human person and the nature of being, and the objectivity of the moral law.

Each reading includes a brief introduction and is historically placed within five major groups--1) Preliminaries, including readings from the Bible, Plato and Aristotle, 2) The Patristic Era, selections from Aristides to Boethius, and a heavy focus on Augustine, 3) The Middle Ages, readings from the early Moslem and Jewish thinkers to William of Ockham, with an emphasis on Aquinas, 4) The Renaissance through the Nineteenth Century, including Suarez, Descartes, Pascal, Newman, and Pope Leo XIII, and 5) The Twentieth Century and Beyond, including Maritain and Lonergan, Blondel and Marcel, Geach and Rescher, and others like Chesterton and Teilhard.

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
0742531988

Dante and the Franciscans (The Medieval Franciscans)

Dr. Santa Casciani, Ph.D
Director, Bishop Anthony M. Pilla Program in Italian American Studies
Associate Professor, Classical and Modern Languages

Only the second volume dedicated to Dante and the Franciscans, this collection of essays offers a Franciscan reading of the Divine Comedy. Nine of the ten essays address how Dante's Comedy and his Vita Nuova were influenced by Franciscan spirituality; the tenth essay addresses the influence that Dante's Comedy had on the preaching of the Franciscan Order. More specifically, the essays in this volume are truly interdisciplinary and contribute to the understanding of how Dante understood and employed Franciscan sources in his literary production and how Bernardino of Siena integrated Dante's work in his preaching.

Brill Academic Publishers
9004154957