Drawing upon his extraordinary life growing up in Italy, studying the classics at St. Louis University in Naples, and becoming ordained as a Vocationist priest, Fr. Virgil Furfaro shares his innermost thoughts and emotions in this stirring collection of poetry, A Tormented Soul. Furfaro is a true renaissance man—a "consummate doer, thinker, and dreamer" as described by one of his parishioners—and with his poetry proposes a return to the classical ideals, ones that will lead the sterile modern age back to the great values and legends of the past. With his nostalgic look toward the ancient world, Furfaro proposes that yesterday's poetry become today's reality. Of his poetry, Furfaro writes that it "is born from combining the fertile moments of my mind with a psychological, physical, and spiritual anguish that has characterized and tormented me for most of my life." This statement is personified within such poems as "A Cross to See" which explores not only this holiest of Christian symbols, but Furfaro's own tribulations and "Disenchantment," a haunting verse that reveals the deceptiveness of nature. At once powerful in scope, yet elegant in its simplicity, A Tormented Soul reaches to the very essence of our souls, plucks the strings of our hearts, and sets us upon the path to enlightenment.

Rick Ferrante once enjoyed a fulfilling life as a priest. Then, in one horrendous act of violence, his life full of purpose and meaning was stripped away. Now, he is a monster a vampire doomed to walk the earth for all eternity with Lucifer hot on his trail. As he parts from his mentor, Simon, and heads out into the world on his own, Rick thinks his life is an abyss of darkness. But he could not be more wrong. Evangeline Meredeloupe is a savvy New York detective on the scent of a serial killer who has left a trail of mutilated bodies all the way from the city streets to the state parks in Red Rock, Pennsylvania. Like the vampire, Evangeline is something more than human herself. Compounding her troubles is her undeniable attraction to the mysterious figure she now knows is a vampire. But Evangeline isn't the only one attracted to Rick. A dark force has risen from the bowels of Hell a demon so devious and cruel, she is second only to the Prince of Darkness. All who know Rick soon find themselves in grave danger, for the demon will stop at nothing until she gets what she wants the delicious paradox that is the vampire priest.

"The findings, in essence, reveal a person of dual identity, with unconscious forces playing a prominent role and holding the key to Voltaire's paradoxical character. His conscious, rational, and cognitively astute self - the standard-bearer of the philosophes in their epochal struggle for freedom - was also responsible for sealing off the subconscious portion of the self associated with traumatic experiences. The elaborate characterological structure erected to ward off consciously unacceptable impulses and, simultaneously, to obtain satisfaction of frustrated needs, is the subject of this study. The price he had to pay for the drastic disconnect between the two selves was formidable. In this volume, much attention is devoted to the unconventional ways and phantasmal stratagems adopted for dealing with the internal pressure of repressed impulses and a perpetual quest for affectional support. Some of these maneuvers show tenuous contact with social reality, as do his bizarre psychosomatic symptoms and bold rationalizations in the Memoirs." "Fortunately for the Western world, Voltaire's prodigious mind was put to use in rattling the cage of the intolerant and rigidly backward theocratic/political system. Due to his immense popularity as a playwright, and his agile participation in current events through a flood of pamphlets, leaflets, and occasional pieces, together with the gigantic volume and engaging style of his correspondence, the name Voltaire became synonymous with the Age of Enlightenment. The dual identity did not interfere with his effectiveness as a humanist. In fact, there is reason to believe that the energy invested in fighting l'infame, the oppressive authority of Church and State, was augmented by a dynamic driving force of the hidden self: the never verbalized and consciously never processed bitter resentment of paternal coercion. Principles and methods of depth psychology, as applied in the study, are elucidated and illustrated."--Jacket.