Be sure to check out the for more information. It wasn't always the case that Msgr. Georg Ratzinger lived in the shadow of his younger brother, Joseph. Georg was an accomplished musician, who for over 30 years directed the Regensburger Domspatzchor, the world-famous boys choir of the Regensburg cathedral. Brother Joseph was a brilliant young professor, but mostly known in German academic circles. Now Georg writes about the close friendship that has united these two brothers for more than 80 years. This book is a unique window on an extraordinary family that lived through the difficult period of National Socialism in Germany. Those interested in knowing more about the early life of Benedict XVI will not be disappointed. They will also learn of the admirable character and inspiring example of the parents, and see how the Catholic faith can shape not just a family, but an entire culture-in this case, that of Bavaria. Georg's reminiscences are detailed, intimate, and warm. And while they begin with the earliest years of the Ratzinger family, they continue right up to the present day. This is not simply a book to satisfy curiosity about a "celebrity", though it certainly does that. It's a beautiful portrait of Catholic family life and, in the most literal sense, of enduring fraternal charity. Georg has a talent for telling a story, and the co-author fills in some of the larger historical background. The many photographs, both in black and white and in color, round out a thoroughly enjoyable and inspirational book. Illustrated with 47 photographs.

Insights from the world's newest spiritual leader on everything from forgiveness and faith to mercy and money, from prayer and parenting to tango and soccer Book jacket.

Presents a photo-biography of the Pope's life from infancy through the first year of his papacy, giving an overview that helps reveal who the man is that now sits on the Chair of St. Peter.

Lucrezia Borgia is one of the most vilified women in modern history. The daughter of a notorious pope, she was twice betrothed before the age of eleven and thrice married—one husband was forced to declare himself impotent and thereby unfit and another was murdered by Lucrezia’s own brother, Cesar Borgia. She is cast in the role of murderess, temptress, incestuous lover, loose woman, femme fatale par excellence. But there are two sides to every story. Lucrezia Borgia is the only woman in history to have serve as the head of the Catholic Church. She successfully administered several of Renaissance Italy’s most thriving cities, founded one of the world’s first credit unions, and was a generous patron of the arts. She was mother to a prince and to a cardinal. She was a devoted wife to the Prince of Ferrara, and the lover of the poet Pietro Bembo. She was a child of the renaissance and, in many ways, the world’s first modern woman. In this richly imagined novel, Nobel laureate Dario Fo reveals Lucrezia’s humanity, her passion for life, her compassion for others, and her skill at navigating around her family’s evildoings. The Borgias are unrivalled for the range and magnitude of their political machinations and opportunism. Fo’s brilliance rests in his rendering their story as a shocking mirror image of the uses and abuses of power in our own time. Lucrezia herself becomes a model for how to survive and rise above those abuses. Part Wolf Hall, part House of Cards, The Pope's Daugther will appeal to readers of historical fiction and of contemporary fiction alike and will delight anyone fascinated by Renaissance Italy.

A man mourning his alcoholic father faces a paradox: to pay tribute, lay scorn upon, or pour a drink. A wrenching, dazzling, revelatory debut Weaving between the preparations for his father's funeral and memories of life on both sides of the U.S.–Mexico border, Obed Silva chronicles his father's lifelong battle with alcoholism and the havoc it wreaked on his family. Silva and his mother had come north across the border to escape his father’s violent, drunken rages. His father had followed and danced dangerously in and out of the family’s life until he was arrested and deported back to Mexico, where he drank himself to death, one Carta Blanca at a time, at the age of forty-eight. Told with a wry cynicism, a profane, profound anger, an antic, brutally honest voice, and a hard-won classical frame of reference, Silva channels the heartbreak of mourning while wrestling with the resentment and frustration caused by addiction. The Death of My Father the Pope is a fluid and dynamic combination of memoir and an examination of the power of language—and the introduction of a unique and powerful literary voice.

A down-to-earth and deeply intimate portrait of Pope Francis and his faith, based on interviews with the men and women who knew him simply as Jorge Mario Bergoglio Early on the evening of March 13, 2013, the newly elected Pope Francis stepped out onto the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica and did something remarkable: Before he imparted his blessing to the crowd, he asked the crowd to bless him, then bowed low to receive this grace. In the days that followed, Mark K. Shriver—along with the rest of the world—was astonished to see a pope who paid his own hotel bill, eschewed limousines, and made his home in a suite of austere rooms in a Vatican guesthouse rather than the grand papal apartment in the Apostolic Palace. By setting an example of humility and accessibility, Francis breathed new life into the Catholic Church, attracting the admiration of Catholics and non-Catholics alike. In Pilgrimage, Shriver retraces Francis’s personal journey, revealing the origins of his open, unpretentious style and explaining how it revitalized Shriver’s own faith and renewed his commitment to the Church. To help us understand how Jorge Mario Bergoglio became Pope Francis, Shriver travels to Bergoglio’s native Argentina to meet with the people who knew him as a child, as a young Jesuit priest, and as a reformist bishop. Shriver visits the confessional where Bergoglio first felt called to a faith-based life and takes us to the humble parish where the future pontiff’s pastoral career began: in a church created from a converted vegetable shed in an area just outside the city of Buenos Aires. In these impoverished surroundings, Bergoglio answered Christ’s call to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and shelter the homeless, following the example set by his papal namesake, St. Francis of Assisi. In this deeply reported yet highly personal book, Mark K. Shriver explores how Francis's commitment has struck a chord in the hearts of millions who long to make faith, love, humility, and mercy part of their lives as they go out into the world to serve and learn from the most marginalized. Praise for Pilgrimage “Well-researched . . . Pilgrimage shines a light on [Pope Francis’s] unexplored aspects. . . . A very timely and important addition to the literature on the life and person and thinking of Pope Francis. Everybody interested in Pope Francis will enjoy reading this biography.”—The Washington BookReview “Apt to stir the soul of readers . . . While this is a rich telling of Bergoglio’s life and ascension to the papacy, it is more movingly a spiritual memoir that draws us deep into a knowing of this at once humble and soul-stirring rekindler of faith.”—Chicago Tribune “A fascinating portrait of a man and a nourishing account of spiritual yearning.”—Booklist “This fast-paced and fascinating tale takes us on Jorge Mario Bergoglio’s pilgrimage from his grandmother’s knee in the Italian-Argentine community, through years of success and sorrow in the tumultuous country that he loved, to his surprise election as Pope Francis.”—Cokie Roberts, New York Times bestselling author of Capital Dames: The Civil War and the Women of Washington, 1848–1868 “All people of good faith, including those whose lives are not guided by religious beliefs, will be inspired and enlightened by the compelling manner in which Pilgrimage brings us closer to the heart and mind of Jorge Mario Bergoglio, Pope Francis. I highly recommend this book; it will make a difference in your life.”—Cardinal Seán O’Malley, OFM Cap.

"A daily companion of spiritual meditations by His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI."--Cover, [p.] 4.

This major volume is a collection of the writings of Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI) on the theology of the Liturgy of the Church, a subject of preeminence to him as a theologian, professor and spiritual writer. It brings together all his writings on the subject, short and long, giving his views on liturgical matters and questions over many years and from various perspectives. He chose to have his writings on the Liturgy for the first volume published of his collected works (though listed as vol. 11) because, as he says in the Introduction: "The liturgy of the Church has been for me since my childhood the central reality of my life, and it became the center of my theological efforts. I chose fundamental theology as my field because I wanted first and foremost to examine thoroughly the question: Why do we believe? But also included from the beginning in this question was the other question of the right response to God and, thus, the question of the liturgy." By starting with the theme of liturgy in this volume, Ratzinger wants to highlight God's primacy, the absolute precedence of the theme of God. Beginning with a focus on the liturgy, he said, tells us that "God is first". He quotes from the Rule of St. Benedict, "Nothing is to be preferred to the liturgy", as a way of ordering priorities for the life of the Church and of every individual. He says that the fundamental question of the man who begins to understand himself correctly is: How must I encounter God? Thus learning the right way of worshipping is the gift par excellence that is given to us by the faith. The essential purpose of his writings on the liturgy is to place the liturgy in its larger context, which he presents in three concentric circles. First, the intrinsic interrelationship of Old and New Testament; without the connection to the Old Testament heritage, the Christian liturgy is incomprehensible. The second circle is the relationship to the religions of the world. The third circle is the cosmic character of the liturgy, which is more than the coming together of a circle of people: the liturgy is celebrated in the expanse of the cosmos, encompassing creation and history at the same time.

By any reckoning, the papacy of Pope Benedict XVI was extraordinary, with moments of high drama. Not the least of these was his resignation from office in February 2013, the first papal resignation in 500 years. But who is Joseph Ratzinger? In this definitive biography, based on meticulous historical research and many hours of taped interviews with his subject, Peter Seewald shows the exceptional circumstances in which the exceptionally talented son of a Bavarian policeman became the first German pope for 950 years. In this first volume, covering the years 1927–1965, we witness Joseph Ratzinger's early days, living above his father's police station. Ratzinger came to adulthood through the years of National Socialism. Though hostile to the rise of Hitler, his family knew well about Dachau and Ratzinger himself was conscripted into the Hitler Youth. Joseph Ratzinger proved to be a man of exceptional intellectual gifts and by the time of the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965) he was already noted as one of the outstanding intellects present and was nominated a 'peritus' or theological expert. This was also the time of the start of his friendship with the Swiss theologian Hans Küng who was to become his nemesis. Of his predecessor, Pope Francis has said: 'Pope Benedict was a great Pope, great for the penetration of his intelligence, great for his important contribution to theology, great for his love of the Church and human beings, great for his virtues and faith'. Even in this first volume, we begin to understand how this came to be true.

"The priesthood is going through a dark time", according to Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI and Robert Cardinal Sarah. "Wounded by the revelation of so many scandals, disconcerted by the constant questioning of their consecrated celibacy, many priests are tempted by the thought of giving up and abandoning everything." In this book, the pope emeritus and the prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments give their brother priests, and the whole Church, a message of hope. They honestly address the spiritual challenges faced by priests today, while pointing to deeper conversion to Jesus Christ as the key to faithful and fruitful priestly ministry and genuine reform. Benedict XVI and Cardinal Sarah "fraternally offer these reflections to the people of God and, of course, in a spirit of filial obedience, to Pope Francis", who has said, "I think that celibacy is a gift for the Church. . . . I don't agree with allowing optional celibacy, no." Responding to calls for refashioning the priesthood, including proposals from participants in the Amazonian Synod, two wise, spiritually astute pastors explain the importance of priestly celibacy for the good of the whole Church. Drawing on Vatican II, they present celibacy as not just "a mere precept of ecclesiastical law", but as a sharing in Jesus' sacrifice on the Cross and his identity as Bridegroom of the Church. of his collaboration with Benedict XVI in writing From the Depths of Our Hearts.