Drawing on more than a hundred interviews with Vatican officials, this book affords a firsthand look at the people, the politics, and the organization behind the institution. Throughout, revealing and colorful anecdotes from church history and the present day bring the unique culture of the Vatican to life.

Murder in the Vatican is two books in one book: The Revolutionary Life of John Paul (the only existing biography of the 33-day Pope) and The CIA, Opus Dei and the 1978 Murders. Why two books in one book? Unless one understands the mystery of his life - something the Vatican prefers to keep secret - The Secret Life of John Paul - one will never understand the mystery of his unwitnessed death. This book is in its fourth edition. In that time, I have changed little of what I have said about this good man's life other than to expand my account in this new edition to include stories of his childhood and his young life as a seminarian and as a priest. Yet, the mystery of his death and the deaths of those around him has involved an investigative process that has taken me to Italy and elsewhere in the world many times and spanned many years. I knew much more five years ago, than I knew five years before that, and I knew much more two years ago, than I knew five years before that, and I know much more today, than I did then. Here for the first time is the proof. How John Paul, and those around him, fell victim to twentieth century capitalism as it was jointly embraced by the Vatican and the United States. BEWARE OF THE USED BOOK MARKET: 2003, 2005 and 2006 editions do not include the complete biography or the solution to the murders. Only this 404 page 2008 edition includes both compete books.

A comprehensive examination of the complex triangular relationship between the Irish government, the bishops and the Holy See from the origins of the Irish State in 1922 to the end of the de Valera government.

World and church have changed so much since the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965). With each change, religious congregations have had to review and update both their charism and mission, with ever new emphases in spirituality and mission. The 122 letters of the post-Vatican II superiors general of the Spiritans give some idea of the paths traced by missiology during the period. They offer a chronicle of missiological thinking through the turbulent time of crisis in the 1960s and early 1970s, and the gradual reclaiming of the Spiritans' essential charism of the evangelization of the poor, but in a very changed world and a very changed church.

The Oxford Handbook of Vatican II is a rich source of information and reflections on many aspects of the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965), one of the most significant religious events of the twentieth century. The chapters introduce readers to the historical context and outstanding features of the conciliar event, and its principal teachings on Scripture and Tradition, the church, liturgy, religious liberty, ecumenism, interreligious dialogue, church-world relations, and mission. Consideration is given to some neglected aspects of the council, including: the forgotten papal speeches that lay out its fundamental orientation and ought to guide its interpretation; the presence and contributions of women; and the non-reception of the council among Catholic traditionalists. Ecumenical scholars reflect on the significance of Vatican II for the life of other Christian churches and the search for Christian unity; others examine Catholic dialogue with other religious traditions. Surveying the diverse receptions of the council in the perspective of a world church, chapters focusing on Asia, Africa, Latin America, North America, Oceania, and Europe reflect on the interpretation and influence of the council and its teaching on the life of the church in diverse cultural contexts. This Handbook will serve as a valuable guide to one of the most important events and bodies of Catholic teaching since the Protestant Reformation and the Council of Trent in the sixteenth century, to the interpretation of the council's teaching, and to its continuing role in guiding the life of the church in the twenty-first century. .

Vatican City Business Law Handbook - Strategic Informtion and Basic Laws

Vatican I and Vatican II represent two of the three ecumenical councils in modern times, yet relatively few studies have sought to understand their relation to one another. In fact, the councils are often positioned as mutually exclusive so that one must choose either Vatican I's or Vatican II's presentations of church and ecclesial authority. Failing to understand the relationship between these councils inhibits the church's self-understanding and risks misinterpreting key aspects of its own tradition; further, it limits the church's ability to teach effectively on topics of concern to modern women and men, such as authority, freedom, and ecclesiology. Vatican I and Vatican II: Councils in the Living Tradition uses the questions of what, why, and how the councils taught to frame and demonstrate significant points of continuity, complementarity, and difference between them. It argues that only by seeing both Vatican I and Vatican II as communicating vital dimensions of the Christian faith can the church's living tradition be fully appreciated and speak meaningfully to modern Christian women and men.?

A reliable, even-handed introduction to the to the Vatican Council II, "What Happened at Vatican II" is the first of its kind and a critical resource for understanding the Catholic church today, including the pontificate of Benedict XVI.

The thesis of this essay may be stated quite briefly: Vatican II is a demonstration model of the phenomenological method employed on an international scale. It exemplifies the final developmental stage, postulated by Husserl, of an inter subjective phenomenology which would take its point of departure, not from individual subjectivity, but from transcendental intersubjectivity. Vatican II, accordingly, offers a unique application of a universal transcendental philosophy in the field of religious reflection for the practical purposes of moral and socio cultural renewal. Phenomenology, as a distinctively European development, is relatively un known in America - at least in its pure form. Our contact with this style of 1 intuitive reflection is usually filtered through psychology or sociology. How ever, Edmund Husserl, The Father of Phenomenology, was originally trained in mathematics, and he entered the field of philosophy because he recognized 2 that the theoretical foundations of modern science were disintegrating. He foresaw that, unless this situation were rectified, modern men would eventually slip into an attitude of absolute scepticism, relativism, and pragmatism. After the First World War he saw this theoretical problem mirrored more and more in the social turbulence of Europe, and his thoughts turned to the need for a 3 renewal at all levels of life. In 1937 when Nazism was triumphant in Germany, and Europe on the brink of World War II, he wrote his last major work, The 4 Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Philosophy.

"In [book title], an international team of theologians offers a different reading of the documents from Vatican II. The Council was indeed putting forth a vision for the future of the Church, but that vision was grounded in two millennia of tradition. Taken together, these essays demonstrate that Vatican II's documents are a development from an established antecedent in the Roman Catholic Church."--Back cover.