The three most powerful of the ultra-traditionalist movements within the Catholic Church engage in secret initiation ceremonies, brainwashing techniques involving ego destruction, moral and spiritual intimidation and highly questionable, even dangerous, psycotherapeutic practices. These three movements--Focolare, Communion and Liberation and the Neocatechumenate--have a total world membership of around thirty million. They are completely self-contained, and each is ruled by a charismatic founder, the centre of a fanatical personality cult. In many respects these movements behave like other sects such as the Moonies. Yet they have the strong support of Pope John Paul himself, who has adopted them as his personal 'Armada': his task-force for a crusade of extreme right-wing values. The author, who for nine years was a Focolare leader, draws on interviews with ex-members and his own experiences to reveal the bizarre hidden world of these organizations. "The Pope's Armada" shockingly depicts a potent and sinister force for reaction, which could turn out to be John Paul II's most enduring legacy.

SHELVED: 1st FLOOR REFERENCE--COUNTER HIGH SHELVING WEST SIDE.Missing v. 1, 17, and 38-40, (06-03).

A fascinating and enlightening look at the world’s oldest and most mysterious institution, written by an American journalist with unparalleled knowledge about the Vatican's past and present. The sexual abuse scandals that shook American and British Catholicism in 2002 brought to light a long-standing cultural gap between the English-speaking Catholic world and the Vatican. In Rome, the crisis was often seen as an attack on the Church mounted by money-hungry lawyers, a hostile press, and liberal activists who used it as a way to turn attention on such concerns as celibacy, women’s ordination, and lay empowerment. When the Vatican struck down the U.S. bishops’ draft for handling allegations of sexual abuse, many saw it as an attempt to curb an independent American Catholic church. Yet, as time passed, it became clear that the Vatican’s well-founded concerns about due process were shared by most liberal U.S. bishops and canon lawyers. ALL THE POPE’S MEN is a lucid, in-depth guide to the sometimes puzzling, often incomprehensible inner workings of the Vatican. It reveals how decisions are made, how papal bureaucrats think, and how careers in the Roman Curia are shaped. It debunks the myths that have fed the distrust and suspicions many English-speaking Catholics harbor about the way the Vatican conducts its business, explains who really wields the power, and offers entertaining profiles of the personalities, historical and present-day, who have wielded that power for good and for bad. A thoughtful analysis of the recent sexual abuse crisis sheds light on how the Vatican perceives the Church in the United States. Balanced, lively, and filled with Vatican history and lore, ALL THE POPE’S MEN provides the general reader with an authoritative picture of the highly charged relationship between the Vatican and the richest, most influential national Catholic church in the world today.

The Complete Idiot's Guide® to the Popes and the Papacy offers a comprehensive look at the history, trials, and triumphs of the Bishops of Rome. This book offers an easy-to-understand historical survey of the papacy, which is among the oldest institutions on earth, and may well be the oldest continuous position of leadership in existence. It's all here: remarkable stories of popes who held immense power within the Church and popes who served as figureheads; popes who ruled as supreme authorities in their own right and popes who offered an inspired model of resistance to secular tyrannies; popes who lost sight of the dictates of their own faith and popes who set sublime moral and devotional examples to the world. The book offers history, trivia, and trends new and old -- as well as a look at the future of the office. This is an entertaining and enlightening look at one of the world's most remarkable jobs, one that has guided Catholicism for two millennia and wields an influence today.