“The Catholic Church saved my marriage and, quite possibly, my life.” So begins David Anders in this remarkably forthright book. In it, David reports that by the early 2000s, his marriage was so painful he actually longed for death. It wasn’t simple incompatibility; he and his wife had just one thing in common: contempt for each other. Today, David and his wife are happy together – not because of marriage therapy, but because they came to know and fully embraced the Catholic Church’s teachings on marriage. Many people who encounter such teachings are shocked by their rigor. Yet the Church offers much more than rules about sexual restraint; she offers a way to make marriage into something supernatural, even mystical. Here Dr. Anders shares his personal discovery of the Church’s teaching on marriage and offers a robust defense of the Church’s most controversial teachings, including divorce, remarriage, gay marriage, and contraception. With the Church’s teachings and the writings of the saints as his guide, he also offers practical, time-tested ways to improve your marriage, such as how to live in peace despite an unhappy marriage, the value of suffering, and ways to overcome your reluctance to forgive grave offenses. In a culture that breaks apart marriages and undermines human dignity, Dr. David Anders offers a hope-filled alternative for those who live moral and spiritual lives in union with Christ and His Church.

Catholicism has long been the dominant religion among ethnic Mexicans in the U.S. Recent shifts, however, have challenged the traditional association between Mexican ethnicity and Catholicism. Evangelical Protestantism has emerged as a notable alternative of ethnic identity expression for ethnic Mexicans. This book takes readers into the thriving Mexican-majority neighborhoods of Santa Ana, California, a city once dubbed the hardest place to live in the U.S. There, Jonathan E. Calvillo explores how religious practices permeate the fabric of everyday social interactions for Mexican immigrants. How does faith shape these immigrants' sense of ethnic identity? To answer this question, The Saints of Santa Ana compares the experiences of Catholic and Evangelical Mexican immigrants-the two largest religious groupings in the city. Drawing on five years of participant observation and in-depth interviews, this book argues that religious affiliations set Catholics and Evangelicals along diverging trajectories with regard to ethnic identity. In particular, Calvillo argues, Catholics and Evangelicals have differing perspectives on collective memory and ethnic community. The Saints of Santa Ana offers a rich portrait of a fascinating American community.

The results of a project in the UK that invited Catholics who no longer regularly practice their faith to share their story. Why they left and what could be done to change this are two of the questions explored.

Top Notable 100 Indie Award of 2022 A story of hope, courage, and perseverance ​Carol misses red flags about Joe’s need for control before she marries him, dashing her dreams for herself and her family. Trouble escalates after their daughter Ellie is paralyzed by the polio virus and Joe returns from WWII. Carol realizes how brutal waking life can be, and she conceals bruises and protects her children the best she can. The Moments Between Dreams is a captivating story of a 1940s housewife who conforms to the rulebook of society until Joe pushes her too far. His constant intimidation shrinks Carol’s confidence while she tries to boost Ellie’s. Church-going neighbors in Carol’s tight-knit Polish community are complacent, but Sam, a handsome reporter, stirs up Carol’s zest for life. Despite impossible circumstances, Carol plans a secret escape. Along a risky path, she empowers her daughter to know no limits and teaches her son to stop the cycle of violence and gender discrimination.

In the first book written specifically for the 11 million divorced Catholics in the United States, Lisa Duffy—CatholicMatch.com columnist and creator of the “Journey of Hope” divorce recovery program—combines personal experience, Church teaching, and more than twenty years of ministering to those wounded by divorce to offer a guide that shows how faith can be a catalyst for healthy dating and relationships. Encouraging yet forthright, The Catholic Guide to Dating After Divorce offers sound advice to anyone who has experienced the deflating effects of divorce, but is not ready to give up on love. Affirming the universal need for intimacy, Duffy—a relationship expert, CatholicMatch.com columnist, and creator of the "Journey of Hope" divorce recovery program—shows how faith can be a catalyst for healthy relationships, helping to identify and uproot emotionally harmful habits and boosting authenticity and confidence. Duffy identifies five essential characteristics of spiritually healthy people—being available, affectionate, communicative, faithful, and magnanimous—and shows how cultivating these qualities can bring out the best, most confident, and most attractive version of anyone. Quizzes, journaling questions, and action steps will help the reader grow in these areas. The book concludes with an appendix on resources for those who need help working through an annulment or who are in need of other post-divorce resources.

In 1993, Sheila Rauch Kennedy received a letter from the Boston Catholic Archdiocese announcing that her former husband, Congressman Joseph Kennedy, was seeking an annulment of their marriage. If the Church granted the annulment, the marriage, which had lasted twelve years, would be rendered nonexistent -- not simply ended, as was stated in the divorce decree, but invalid from the start. And their two sons would be regarded as children of an unsanctified union. Joseph Kennedy needed the annulment to remarry within the Church, and he encouraged his ex-wife to ignore the details. Stunned by the hypocrisy of the process and the betrayal of trust it involved, Sheila Rauch Kennedy was determined to defend the legitimacy of her former marriage. Shattered Faith is the fascinating chronicle of that struggle, and of what Kennedy uncovered about the uses and frequency of annulments in the United States. Interweaving her own experiences with those of other women whose trust in the Church was shattered by annulment, she tells a story that will surprise, anger, and move readers of every faith.

When Renee Hodges invited her nephew, Bobby, to come stay with her for a few weeks so he could visit a doctor about his back pain, she knew he was recovering from an addiction to prescription painkillers. She believed that if he could address his back problems, he would have a better chance of staying clean—but she had no idea what a roller coaster ride she was getting on. Unlike other books about addiction, Saving Bobby begins after rehab is over. Told in part through journal entries, e-mails, and personal recollections, this raw, honest, deeply moving memoir—begun to keep the family accountable—describes the sixteen months that Hodges, her husband, and their community struggled alongside Bobby as he attempted to successfully re-enter the day-to-day world. Using a holistic and open approach, the shame and stigma associated with addiction was lessened—and ultimately, Bobby learned he had to save himself. A gripping and heartrending story of survival, Saving Bobby is an essential, timely read for those concerned about America’s most pressing epidemic.

Tich was a South African sports star who lost it all to alcohol. Joan had recently lost her husband. Their lives were at rock bottom when grace showed up and inspired these two middle class South Africans to move past the racial prejudices of the Apartheid era and launch a ministry together. The result was Lungisisa Indlela village (LIV), the legendary residential facility that rescues children, restores lives, and raises young leaders in South Africa. This is the story of transformed lives—both theirs and the orphans—as a country begins to embrace grace and love others as Christ loves the church.

Given that women and girls carry the heaviest burdens of the African HIV pandemic, their lived experiences should be the starting point for any pedagogy of prevention. In light of this claim, Risky Marriage: HIV and Intimate Relationships in Tanzania uses qualitative fieldwork with HIV positive women living in Mwanza, Tanzania to ask why marriage is an HIV risk factor. By beginning with women’s experience as a hermeneutical lens, this book seeks to establish a creative space where African women can imagine new alternatives to HIV prevention that would promote human flourishing and abundant life in African communities. The aim of this book is to listen faithfully to the lived experiences of HIV positive women and ask how their experiences can help us re-imagine Christian conceptions of marriage, sexual ethics, and health in an HIV positive world. By drawing on the unwritten texts of women’s lives, this study proposes alternative pedagogies for faith-based prevention methods and contributes to the wider interdisciplinary and theo-ethical discourse on HIV prevention and women’s health. At the same time, it makes local impact of equal importance as women in East African communities are invited to think creatively about ways to end the HIV pandemic. For more information and comments from the author, watch a trailer for the book here: http://vimeo.com/semafilms/riskymarriage

The Dance of Illusion story covers the topics of courage, change and the power of choice in a way that has never been done before. Imagine the possibility we are all impaired at birth with the blessing of forgetfulness to the universal truth that separation is The Dance of Illusion and where there is love, Divine Love, there is no separation. This story calls humanity forward to awaken from an unidentified silent epidemic of an addiction to suffering caused by an underlying, unrecognized belief system rooted in separation. What is required as the entrance ticket to new beginnings in life? It is for the reader to answer an invitation to love, Divine Love that stands the test of time, with a resounding YES. Ultimately, The Dance of Illusion proposes a new way of living in the 21st century and beyond; to learn and live in joy, with suffering a distant memory of the past. This is a story laced empowerment, hope and new beginnings. This is one woman’s true story about awakening to something more in life and how to navigate through many sunrise and sunsets to find true love, Divine love that is found on a journey within. The basic universal truth offered for consideration throughout the story is that we are human beings having a spiritual experience. What is important along the way is to discover the building blocks of truth both personal and universal to rise out of tragedy to experience triumph. What is triumph you might ask? From the author’s point of view, it is the joy of living in freedom without suffering with great passion while consciously creating life with Divine Love as the foundation of faith upon which we stand. Every element of the story showcases an innovative, breakthrough process on how to thrive through difficult times of chaos and change, and how to quiet the passions of the mind in ways that are previously unimaginable and unavailable to millions of people today. The reader is encouraged to ask and seek the answer to a tough question, “How do we create peace in the world when so many millions of us are at war, an invisible war, an attack unrecognized within our own being, perhaps even sleepwalking through life?” The described paradigm creates the set up for denying the time to question the true meaning of life on earth beyond the obvious. In midlife, the author asked herself the question, “Who am I at the core of my being?” The answers sought were beyond the field of right and wrongdoing, beyond make a living and beyond material possessions. While this sounds serious and it is, there are many stories shared that will leave the reader laughing and asking for more. Time may just be the new currency of wealth in the 21st century. It is the author’s perspective; it is what we consciously choose to do with time, that is up for investigation throughout this story. In midlife, the author found herself in emotional and financial crisis which, unexpectedly led to a spiritual emergency. After experiencing great loss, she found herself experiencing deep depression, anxiety and nagging, never ending suicidal thoughts. Having been raised Catholic, she found herself feeling separate from God, family and everyone she loved. This is a story that has never been told before about suicide from a spiritual perspective. This is a must read for those who suffer from depression, anxiety and suicidal tendencies, those who love them and professionals who help them.