Former Catholic Tony Coffey reveals how centuries of tradition have formed doctrines in the Catholic Church unknown to Jesus and clearly contradicted in Scripture. Once a Catholic is a sensitive, thoroughly biblical guidebook that presents the clearest and simplest differences between Roman Catholic tradition and the teachings of the Scripture.

First published in 2001, Choosing to Be Catholic has sold nearly 25,000 copies and maintains its status as a Catholic parish favorite. In this revised edition, Jesuit priest, master-teacher, and bestselling author William J. O’Malley, S.J., prompts seekers and skeptics alike to ask a new set of questions as they hunger and search for God. He demonstrates once again his uncanny ability to approach the human quest for God with refreshingly frank discourse as he sorts out the Hows, Whys, and So whats of being Catholic. With razor sharp focus, O’Malley offers a cultured and deeply personal argument for Catholicism to those curious about joining the Church, those wondering if they should stay, and those “vacationing” from it. Ideal Uses for Choosing to Be Catholic: RCIA Gift for spiritual seekers Faith-sharing groups

Some of America’s most extraordinary celebrities, artists, and thinkers reveal what they believe Catholicism is–and what it should be In this illuminating collection that redefines an ancient institution in the most contemporary of terms, human-rights activist Kerry Kennedy asks thirty-seven American Catholics to speak candidly about their own faith–whether lost, recovered, or deepened–and about their feelings regarding the way the Church hierarchy is moving forward. “Has something to say to almost every Catholic, or even one-time Catholic, who cracks open its pages. . . . One finishes the book feeling grateful for [Kennedy’s] subjects’ honesty and moved in a hundred different ways by what they reveal of their aspirations and struggles.”–National Catholic Reporter “Revealing . . . offers an unusually intimate view of how much being raised Catholic shapes the identity of many prominent Americans, but also how much tension many feel with the institutional church.”–Boston Globe

As a fourth grader at Holy Cross Grammar School, Matt Weber asked his religion teacher why St. Francis was often pictured with holes in his hands and feet. She responded that those holes were known as the stigmata and that they reflected the wounds Jesus received during his crucifixion. "And how did he get them?" the curious Weber asked. "He got them because he was a good Catholic," was the reply. And so that night, Weber recounts, he did a little more sinning than usual—just to be certain he wouldn’t receive the stigmata! In Fearing the Stigmata, twenty-something Matt Weber—a Harvard graduate, television producer, and certified rosary-bead carrier—employs his sharp wit, earnest candor, and gift for great storytelling to illustrate for young adult Catholics both the real challenges and the immense joys of publicly living out the Catholic faith. The fact that Weber has discovered a way to have a deep, ever-growing faith life that also manages to be culturally relevant will offer hope to many currently disengaged Catholics in the 18-to-35 age range. From smuggling ice-cream sundaes into cloistered convents to telling jokes to an outdoor statue of Mary at a busy intersection in Boston, Fearing the Stigmata amusingly but honestly explores the tension this layman experiences between wanting to be holy yet “fearing being made holey,” and wanting to be good yet not wanting the cost to be too high. Indeed, Weber attends Mass every Sunday morning; but the temptation is there, he admits, to sneak out early so he won’t miss kickoff!

Why Stay Catholic? is a lively, timely book about the "good stuff" within the Catholic Church today.

Are you BORED? Not likely, given the endless opportunities today to see, share, post, watch, and like. So are you bored? No way! (Except maybe at Mass.) We want the Mass to entertain, make us laugh, give us foot tapping music and sound-bite theology, and get it done in under an hour. Yet every Sunday many of us tune out. Author Tim O’Malley, in a series of reflections on every part of the Mass, challenges us to turn the idea of boredom on its head, calling boredom—the “good” boredom that opens us to the quiet interior space where we can encounter God—a “sweet gift.” It is there that full participation in the Mass becomes possible—the potential to be transfixed by a ritual, to contemplate the readings, to savor the Eucharist. To be fruitfully “bored again.” Become a Bored Again Catholic and rediscover the power of the Mass to change your life – and the entire world. ABOUT THE AUTHOR Timothy P. O'Malley, Ph.D. is director of the Notre Dame Center for Liturgy in the McGrath Institute for Church Life. He teaches in the Department of Theology at the University of Notre Dame. He researches in the areas of liturgy, catechesis, and Christian spirituality. He is the author of Liturgy and the New Evangelization: Practicing the Art of Self-Giving Love (Liturgical Press, 2014). He and his wife Kara live in South Bend and have one son.

The haunting, vivid story of a nun whose past returns to her in unexpected ways, all while investigating a mysterious death and a series of harrowing abuse claims A young nun is sent by the Vatican to investigate allegations of misconduct at a Catholic school in Iceland. During her time there, on a gray winter’s day, a young student at the school watches the school’s headmaster, Father August Franz, fall to his death from the church tower. Two decades later, the child—now a grown man, haunted by the past—calls the nun back to the scene of the crime. Seeking peace and calm in her twilight years at a convent in France, she has no choice to make a trip to Iceland again, a trip that brings her former visit, as well as her years as a young woman in Paris, powerfully and sometimes painfully to life. In Paris, she met an Icelandic girl who she has not seen since, but whose acquaintance changed her life, a relationship she relives all while reckoning with the mystery of August Franz’s death and the abuses of power that may have brought it on. In The Sacrament, critically acclaimed novelist Olaf Olafsson looks deeply at the complexity of our past lives and selves; the faulty nature of memory; and the indelible mark left by the joys and traumas of youth. Affecting and beautifully observed, The Sacrament is both propulsively told and poignantly written—tinged with the tragedy of life’s regrets but also moved by the possibilities of redemption, a new work from a novelist who consistently surprises and challenges.

A true story of a man who grew up Catholic and at thirty-eight, after a tragic event in his life discovered his faith could no longer support him spiritually. Realizing he had been going through the motions of religion he sought to find the reasons why there was emptiness where so much religion had been before.Guides you through the deep and complicated Catholic beliefs and forces you to ask the question, Am I who I thought I was? You'll step into the shoes of a married man who questioned his faith then faced the turmail and pressures that accompanies those doubts, only to discover answers that completely changed his life. He eventually left the Catholic Church and reveals the reasons why the Protestant faith completely altered his approach to life.