This book explores the contribution of the Rev Dr Thomas Shields (1862-1921) to Catholic education in the United States of America in the late 19th and early 20th century. Fr Shields was a pioneer in combining a career as an academic in Catholic University of America with the publication of many resources for schools. Given his pioneering role in aligning Catholic educational thought with emerging insights in the sciences, and his multi-layered commitment to Catholic education as scholar, author of textbooks and founder of initiatives in the field of Teacher Education, it seems fitting that his considerable body of work should be the subject of fresh scholarly investigation. The book is in five parts. Part 1, “Catholicism as an Educational Movement”, sets out the contours of the intellectual climate in which Shields operated and presents Catholicism as a dynamic educational movement. Part 2, “Responding to Progressive Thought”, explores the relationship between Progressivism and Catholic Education, showing how the Catholic Church responded to the challenges presented by Progressive thought. Part 3, “Shields and the Reform of Pedagogy”, examines both Shields’ general pedagogical principles and how they relate to Catholic education. Part 4, “Forming Teachers in Heart and Mind”, considers Shields’ ideas on Catholic Teacher Formation, exploring issues such as culture, vocation, method and curriculum. Part 5, “The Catholic Education Series”, explores selected examples from Shields’ Catholic Education Series to identify how his material for schools reflected, to a greater or lesser extent, his wider educational ideas. As the present age is also witness to considerable and deep-rooted challenges to Catholic education and, indeed to the Catholic understanding of the human person, Shields’ work will inspire contemporary reform-minded Catholic educators to reassess and develop the mission of Catholic education in light of the traditions of the Church.

This book is a contribution to scholarship in the field of religious education. Its aim is simple: to offer a critical perspective on the nature of religious education in the light of contemporary developments in Catholic thinking in catechesis and wider thinking in education. The issues raised in the book will provide ample material for fruitful dialogue and constructive debate in the world of Catholic education. Part One revolves around four historical contexts selected specifically to illuminate contemporary developments in the field. While these historical periods have porous boundaries, they offer a working structure in support of the core claims of the book. Part Two explores the complex genealogy of the relationship between catechesis and Religious Education. Key thematic frames of reference within which the relevant Magisterial documents and associated academic literature are set out and explored chronologically thus allowing for some cross-referencing across the themes: unsurprisingly the range of the issues for debate resists a neat packaging within specific time-frames but does provide a helpful working structure. Part Three proposes that a Spirituality of Communion should underpin the Church's work in catechesis, education and Religious Education. Shared Mission seems to be a satisfactory articulation of the necessary dialogic relationship between both fields and offers a suitable space for both distinction and reciprocity. The revised edition contains an appendix on the Global Compact on Education.

Winner of a 2018 Association of Catholic Publishers Award: Resources for Ministry (First Place) and a Catholic Press Association Award: Pastoral Ministry (Second Place). Drawing on more than forty years of experience as a catechist, parish DRE, textbook publisher, and founding director of the Echo Program at the University of Notre Dame, Gerard F. Baumbach explores contemporary catechesis in light of its history. This landmark book is an essential resource for every catechetical leader and will spur a new appreciation of the opportunities and challenges of catechesis in the Church today. The Way of Catechesis offers a new and timely perspective on the vital ministry of catechesis at a pivotal moment in the work of New Evangelization. Baumbach shows how today’s catechists can follow the pedagogy of Jesus, “the way, the truth, and the life,” and he invites readers to an understanding that includes both the process and the content of handing on the faith and also a way of living in union with Christ the Teacher. Baumbach asks readers to consider how key issues and questions throughout the Church’s history shed light on today’s questions and concerns. Numerous reflection questions help the reader prayerfully reflect and personally integrate the lessons. For example: What is Jesus teaching you through the Beatitudes about the need for a new evangelization in your life as you seek to promote the Church’s mission to evangelize? What does our history teach us about inviting Catholics who are distant from the Church to find the way back to this community of faith? What is your earliest memory of hearing about the Second Vatican Council? What questions did you have? What questions about Vatican II do you have now? Drawing from his own experience, study, and implementation of the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults, Baumbach highlights four characteristics—belonging, believing, discerning, and living—that help the reader connect the history of catechesis with their own faith and practice in the Church today. Each chapter also includes a broad look at highlights of some important dimensions of the catechetical climate, weaving together influences that affected the era. In addition, Baumbach explains the role of key thinkers in each period of the history of catechesis is explained, including Cyril of Jerusalem, Thomas Aquinas, Robert Bellarmine, and Joseph Jungmann. Those engaged in catechesis and evangelization at every level will find much to enrich their ministry and deepen their commitment to the Church in this extraordinary book.

The Roman Catholic Church has always been concerned with the quality of the music used in the liturgy, and the essays in this volume trace the church's efforts, during the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth, to cultivate a more appropriate liturgical music for its Latin Rite. The task of restoration - expressed, for example, in the chant revival associated with the monks of Solesmes, the efforts of the Cecilian movement, and Pius X's determination to reform sacred music in the universal church - is a recurring theme in the book. Meanwhile resistance, particularly to the reforms decreed by the pope's 1903 motu proprio, also finds a voice in the volume. The essays collected here describe selected scenes and episodes from the unending story of imperfect human beings trying to express in their music the perfection of God.