The Lord Jesus Christ intended his kingdom present on earth, the Church of God, to be one, holy, catholic, and apostolic. Prior to the Protestant Reformation in the sixteenth century, history tells of the most egregious division in the Church between the Latin West and Byzantine East in AD 1054 and following. How can it be that Catholics and Orthodox share a thousand years of ecclesial life together in one faith, sacramental order, and hierarchical government, only to have that bond of communion broken? Historians and theologians throughout the years have spilled much ink in recounting the causes and effects of this dreadful and heart-wrenching division, and among the many debates that exist between Catholics and Orthodox, none are as vital to the task of reconciliation as the subject of the papacy. In The Papacy: Revisiting the Debate between Catholics and Orthodox, Erick Ybarra examines sources from the first millennium with a fresh look at how methodology and hermeneutics plays a role in the reading of the same texts. In addition, he conducts a detailed investigation into the most significant points of history in order to show what was clearly accepted by both East and West in their years of ecclesiastical unity. In light of this clear evidence, the reader of The Papacy is free to decide whether contemporary Catholicism or Eastern Orthodoxy has maintained the heritage of the first millennium on the understanding of the Papal office.

If you could sit down with St. Thomas Aquinas over a pint of beer and ask him any one question, what would it be? Pints With Aquinas contains over 50 deep thoughts from the Angelic doctor on subjects such as God, virtue, the sacraments, happiness, alcohol, and more. If you've always wanted to read St. Thomas but have been too intimidated to try, this book is for you.So, get your geek on, pull up a bar stool and grab a cold one, here we go!""He alone enlightened the Church more than all other doctors; a man can derive more profit in a year from his books than from pondering all his life the teaching of others." - Pope John XXII

The Russian Church and the Papacy, edited by Father Ray Ryland, is an abridgement of Vladimir Soloviev's classic work, Russia and the Universal Church. This is a powerful defense of the papacy from Soloviev, a Russian Orthodox theologian who was committed to the cause of Christian unity and spent years attempting to convince his Orthodox brethren to reunite with Rome. Soloviev uses Scripture, history, and hardheaded logic to prove that the papacy is essential to Christian unity and truth, and without it the early Christian Church would have disintegrated into hundreds of competing sects.

At the sixtieth anniversary of Sacrosanctum Concilium, the situation on the ground for Catholics is more chaotic than ever. A liturgical reform, meant to usher in a new age of full churches and ecumenical rapprochement, delivered neither; instead, churches are emptying and closing at an unprecedented rate. Meanwhile, an ancient old rite, grown to maturity in the Middle Ages, encrusted with Baroque pearls, and officially pronounced dead in the 1960s, has made an astonishing return around the world. Tolerated by Paul VI, permitted worldwide by John Paul II, declared free for everyone by Benedict XVI, and most recently put under ban once more by Francis, the Tridentine Mass remains a powerful and polarizing reality in the Church of Rome—an ark of holiness and beauty to the priests and faithful who love it, a belligerent “backwardism” to those who seek its abolition. In this state of spiritual civil war, questions of authority and obedience are never far from anyone’s mind. Bound by Truth grapples with the momentous issues of authority, obedience, tradition, and the common good. Part I, “Papacy, Patrimony, and Piety,” addresses the teaching of Vatican I on the pope’s universal jurisdiction; the limits of his authority in light of other authoritative principles such as liturgical tradition and local custom; the properly Catholic way to interpret and follow the Magisterium; and the virtue of intelligent, God-fearing, and communally perfective obedience versus its vicious distortions—willful rebelliousness on the one hand, and a blind, thoughtless, self-destructive submissiveness on the other. Part II, “Faithful Resistance,” looks at historical examples of prelates who legitimately pushed back against papal overreach; discusses how clergy should navigate unjust episcopal decrees on private Masses, concelebration, the use of the Rituale Romanum, etc.; shares advice and strategies for laity who seek to promote and defend tradition in their dioceses; and draws inspiration from persecuted religious sisters, whether their tormentors were Soviet Communists or apparatchiks of the postconciliar ecclesiastical bureaucracy. “Peter Kwasniewski is a sane and learned voice crying out from within a Catholic Church which—in its earthly, visible aspect—seems to have lost its mind.”—SEBASTIAN MORELLO “Examines the difficult topics of authority and obedience with forthrightness and a willingness to engage even the most controversial debates… a timely guide to how Catholics might respond when truth and tradition are under attack by those who should be their foremost defenders.”—ERIC SAMMONS “As with his earlier books, so here, Kwasniewski emerges as an apostle of tradition and a paladin of the ancient Roman rite. A book to be treasured.”—MICHAEL SIRILLA “Both summarizes the author’s recent thought and serves as a guide and resource for beleaguered faithful… theoretically challenging and eminently useful.”—STUART CHESSMAN “Critiques the latest (and historically worst) abandonment of our grip on the cord that ties us, through tradition, to the Word Incarnate—and indicates the paths along which health and sanity will be recovered.”—JOHN C. RAO “Offered with his usual mixture of scholarship and wit, Kwasniewski’s analysis is primarily and accurately applied to the situation in the Church, but the principles he explores in this book also admit of far wider application.”—CHARLES A. COULOMBE “This thoroughly researched and cogently argued book could not have been published at a better time.”—BRIAN M. MCCALL

Papal primacy has grown with the Church, and it remains a reality embedded in the Church as a living community begins to change.

"AIPARTHENOS | EVER-VIRGIN? Understanding the Orthodox Catholic Doctrine of the Perpetual Virginity of Mary, the Mother of Jesus, and the Identity of James and the Brothers and Sisters of the Lord" offers a comprehensive, scholarly, yet easy to read treatment of the issue of Mary's perpetual virginity and of the identity of the "brothers and sisters" of Jesus. Leaving no stone unturned, Pr Cleenewerck explores the three main positions (Epiphanian, Helvidian, Hieronymian), from an Epiphanian/Orthodox perspective. In doing so, he discusses the major arguments brought forth by apologists and scholars on all sides and concludes in favor of the historic belief of Mary's perpetual virginity. This book will be of particular interest to Evangelical Christians seeking to better understand the Orthodox Catholic position, as well as all Christians wishing to obtain a comprehensive reference on this still-controversial issue.

In the second edition of this major work, Dominican theologian Aidan Nichols provides a systematic account of the origins, development and recent history—now updated—of the relations between Rome and all separated Eastern Christians. By the end of the twentieth century, events in Eastern Europe, notably the conflict between the Orthodox and Uniate Churches in the Ukraine and Rumania, the tension between Rome and the Moscow patriarchate over the re-establishment of a Catholic hierarchy in the Russian Federation, and the civil war in the then federal People’s Republic of Yugoslavia, brought attention to the fragile relations between Catholicism and Orthodoxy, which once had been two parts of a single Communion. At the start of the twenty-first century, in the pontificate of Benedict XVI, a papal visit to Russia—at the symbolic level, a major step forward in the ‘healing of memories’— appears at last a realistic hope. In addition, the schisms separating Rome from the two lesser, but no less interesting, Christian families, the Assyrian (Nestorian) and Oriental Orthodox (Monophysite) Churches, are examined. The book also contains an account of the origins and present condition of the Eastern Catholic Churches—a deeper knowledge of which, by their Western brethren, was called for at the Second Vatican Council as well as by subsequent synods and popes. Providing both historical and theological explanations of these divisions, this illuminating and thought-provoking book chronicles the recent steps taken to mend them in the Ecumenical Movement and offers a realistic assessment of the difficulties (theological and political) which any reunion would experience.

"Fr Christian Cochini has made a thorough examination, based on years of extensive research, of the topic of clerical celibacy in the first seven centuries of the Church's history. ...." [from back cover]

The Papacy and the Orthodox examines the centuries-long debate over the primacy and authority of the Bishop of Rome, especially in relation to the Christian East, and offers a comprehensive history of the debate and its underlying theological issues. Siecienski masterfully brings together all of the biblical, patristic, and historical material necessary to understand this longstanding debate. This book is an invaluable resource as both Catholics and Orthodox continue to reexamine the sources and history of the debate.