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BOOK
Jesus of Nazareth
Pope Benedict XVI
$9.14

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Now in Paperback, with a new Index!

In this bold, momentous work, Joseph Ratzinger--in his first book written since he became Pope--seeks to salvage the person of Jesus from recent "popular" depictions and to restore Jesus' true identity as discovered in the Gospels. Through his brilliance as a theologian and his personal conviction as a believer, the Pope shares a rich, compelling, flesh-and-blood portrait of Jesus and invites us to encounter, face-to-face, the central figure of the Christian faith.

From Jesus of Nazareth: "the great question that will be with us throughout this entire book: What did Jesus actually bring, if not world peace, universal prosperity, and a better world? What has he brought?

The answer is very simple: God. He has brought God! He has brought the God who formerly unveiled his countenance gradually first to Abraham, then to Moses and the Prophets, and then in the Wisdom Literature--the God who revealed his face only in Israel, even though he was also honored among the pagans in various shadowy guises. It is this God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the true God, whom he has brought to the peoples of the earth.

He has brought God, and now we know his face, now we can call upon him. Now we know the path that we human beings have to take in this world. Jesus has brought God and with God the truth about where we are going and where we come from: faith, hope, and love."

BOOK
Pope Joan: A Novel
Donna Cross
$4.44

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One of the most controversial women of history is brought to brilliant life in Donn Woolfolk Cross's tale of Pope Joan, a girl whose origins should have kept her in squalid domesticity. Instead, through her intelligence, indomitability and courage, she ascended to the throne of Rome as Pope John Anglicus.

The time is 814, the place is Ingelheim, a Frankland village. It is the harshest winter in living memory when Joan is born to an English father and a Saxon mother. Her father is a canon, filled with holy zeal and capable of unconscionable cruelty. His piety does not extend to his family members, especially the females. His wife, Gudrun, is a young beauty to whom he was attracted beyond his will--and he hates her for showing him his weakness. Gudrun teaches Joan about her gods, and is repeatedly punished for it by the canon. Joan grows to young womanhood with the combined knowledge of the warlike Saxon gods and the teachings of the Church as her heritage. Both realities inform her life forever.

When her brother John, not a scholarly type, is sent away to school, Joan, who was supposed to be the one sent to school, runs away and joins him in Dorstadt, at Villaris, the home of Gerold, who is central to Joan's story. She falls in love with Gerold and their lives interesect repeatedly even through her Papacy. She is looked upon by all who know that she is a woman as a "lusus naturae," a freak of nature. "She was... male in intellect, female in body, she fit in nowhere; it was as if she belonged to a third amorphous sex." Cross makes the case over and over again that the status of women in the Dark Ages was little better than cattle. They were judged inferior in every way, and necessary evils in the bargain.

After John is killed in a Viking attack, Joan sees her opportunity to escape the fate of all her gender. She cuts her hair, dons her dead brother's clothes and goes into the world as a young boy. Gerold is away from Villaris at the time of the attack and comes home to find his home in ruins, his family killed and Joan among the missing. After the attack, Joan goes to a Benedictine monastery, is accepted as a young man of great learning, and eventually makes her way to Rome.

The author is at pains to tell the reader in an Epilogue that she has written the story as fiction because it is impossible to document Joan's accesion to the Papacy. The Catholic Church has done everything possible to deny this embarrassment. Whether or not one believes in Joan as Pope, this is a compelling story, filled with all kinds of lore: the brutishness of the Dark Ages, Vatican intrigue, politics and favoritism and most of all, the place of women in the Church and in the world. --Valerie Ryan

BOOK
The Apostles
Pope Benedict XVI
$8.96

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Through the Apostles, we come to Jesus himself." -- Pope Benedict XVI

In this fascinating and inspirational journey with the chosen disciples of Jesus, Pope Benedict XVI demonstrates a profound, unbreakable continuity -- built upon the foundation of the Apostles and alive in the succession of the Apostles -- by which Christ is present today in His Church.

"At the start of the third millennium, my beloved predecessor John Paul II invited the Church to contemplate the Face of Christ (cf. Novo Millennio Ineunte, n. 16 ff.). Continuing in the same direction, I would like to show in this book how it is precisely the light of that Face that is reflected on the face of the Church (cf. Lumen Gentium, n. 1), notwithstanding the limits and shadows of our fragile and sinful humanity. After Mary, a pure reflection of the light of Christ, it is from the Apostles, through their word and witness, that we receive the truth of Christ. Their mission is not isolated, however, but is situated wthin a mystery of communion that involves the entire People of God and is carried out in stages from the Old to the New Covenant." -- From The Apostles

BOOK
The Fathers
Pope Benedict XVI
$9.66

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Let us now devote our attention to the Apostolic Fathers, that is, to the first and second generations in the Church subsequent to the Apostles. And thus, we can see where the Church's journey begins in history. Pope Benedict XVI

The Fathers of the Church exhorted believers in the face of persecution while fighting heresies and misunderstandings. They were theologians and philosophers, orators and pastors, leaders and problem solvers, martyrs and heroes.
Pope Benedict carefully explains the stories of their rich history and the vital role each one played in not only preserving the Church at the time, but anchoring the Church of today as well as the future.

Bring your faith to life with the spark of history as told by the Pope himself. Gain a fuller understanding of what the Church teaches and why through the critical efforts and experiences of our early Church fathers.

Saint Clement, Bishop of Rome . . . Saint Ignatius of Antioch . . . Origen of Alexandria . . . Saint John Chrysostom . . .Saint Basil...Saint Gregory Nazianzus...St. Maximus of Turin...and more.

These illustrious Church Fathers are the first and second generations of the Church following the Apostles. It is upon their backs that the Church's journey through history is established and solidified.

By defending the newborn Christianity to the point of death and explaining the content of the Faith in a language understandable to the masses, the Apostolic Fathers created a timeless anchor of faith that extends through the challenges of today.

BOOK
Michelangelo and The Pope's Ceiling
Ross King
$10.13

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Almost 500 years after Michelangelo Buonarroti frescoed the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in Rome, the site still attracts throngs of visitors and is considered one of the artistic masterpieces of the world. Michelangelo and the Pope’s Ceiling unveils the story behind the art's making, a story rife with all the drama of a modern-day soap opera.

The temperament of the day was dictated by the politics of the papal court, a corrupt and powerful office steeped in controversy; Pope Julius II even had a nickname, "Il Papa Terrible," to prove it. Along with his violent outbursts and warmongering, Pope Julius II took upon himself to restore the Sistine Chapel and pretty much intimidated Michelangelo into painting the ceiling even though the artist considered himself primarily a sculptor and was particularly unfamiliar with the temperamental art of fresco. Along with technical difficulties, personality conflicts, and money troubles, Michelangelo was plagued by health problems and competition in the form of the dashing and talented young painter Raphael.

Author Ross King offers an in-depth analysis of the complex historical background that led to the magnificence that is the Sistine Chapel ceiling along with detailed discussion of some of the ceiling’s panels. King provides fabulous tidbits of information and weaves together a fascinating historical tale. --J.P. Cohen

BOOK
The President, the Pope, and the Prime Minister: Three Who Changed the World
John O'Sullivan
$11.30

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The President, the Pope, and the Prime Minister is a sweeping, dramatic account of how three great figures changed the course of history. All of them led with courage--but also with great optimism. The pope helped ordinary Poles and East Europeans banish their fear of Soviet Communism, convincing them that liberation was possible. The prime minister restored her country's failing economy by reviving the "vigorous virtues" of the British people. The president rebuilt America's military power, its national morale, and its pre-eminence as leader of the free world. Together they brought down an evil empire and changed the world for the better. No one can tell their intertwined story better than John O'Sullivan, former editor of National Review and the Times of London, who knew all three and conducted exclusive interviews that shed extraordinary new light on these giants of the twentieth century.

BOOK
Tales from the Odyssey #1: One-Eyed Giant, The (Tales from the Odyssey)
Mary Pope Osborne
$1.74

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When Odysseus must leave his home to fight the Trojan War, he never imagines that heíll be away from his family for so many years. Now, at long last, he is leading his men home across the seas. But many dangers await them ñ and none is more terrifying than Polyphemus, the one-eyed giant.

BOOK
The Church Fathers: From Clement of Rome to Augustine
Pope Benedict XVI
$10.14

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Following his best selling book, Jesus of Nazareth, and his talks published in Jesus, the Apostles, and the Early Church, Pope Benedict's Church Fatherspresents these important figures of early Christianity in all their evangelical vitality, spiritual profundity, and uncompromising love of God. Benedict tells the true story of Christianity's against-all-odds triumph in the face of fierce pagan Roman hostility and persecution. He does this by exploring the lives and the ideas of the early Christian writers, pastors, and martyrs, the men so important to the spread of Christianity that history knows them as "the Fathers of the Church".

This rich and engrossing survey of the early Church includes those churchmen who immediately succeeded the Apostles, the "Apostolic Fathers": Clement of Rome, Ignatius of Antioch, Justin Martyr, and Irenaeus of Lyon. Benedict also discusses such great Christian figures as Tertullian, Origen, and Cyprian of Carthage, the Cappadocian Fathers, as well as the giants John Chrysostom, Jerome, Augustine, Leo the Great, and Benedict of Nursia, the Pope's namesake. This book is a wonderful way to get to know the Church Fathers and the tremendous spiritually rich patrimony they have bequeathed to us.

BOOK
Magic Tree House #40: Eve of the Emperor Penguin (A Stepping Stone Book(TM))
Mary Pope Osborne
$5.40

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JACK AND ANNIE continue their quest for the secrets of happiness—secrets they need to save Merlin. This time, the Magic Tree House takes them to the one continent they haven’t visited before: Antarctica! What can they hope to learn about happiness in such a barren place? Only the penguins know for sure . . . Jack and Annie are about to find out!

BOOK
The Pope's Daughter: The Extraordinary Life of Felice della Rovere
Caroline P. Murphy
$6.99

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The illegitimate daughter of Pope Julius II, Felice della Rovere became one of the most powerful and accomplished women of the Italian Renaissance. Now, Caroline Murphy vividly captures the untold story of a rare woman who moved with confidence through a world of popes and princes.
Using a wide variety of sources, including Felice's personal correspondence, as well as diaries, account books, and chronicles of Renaissance Rome, Murphy skillfully weaves a compelling portrait of this remarkable woman. Felice della Rovere was to witness Michelangelo paint the Sistine Chapel, watch her father Pope Julius II lay the foundation stone for the new Saint Peter's, and saw herself immortalized by Raphael in his Vatican frescos. With her marriage to Gian Giordano Orsini--arranged, though not attended, by her father the Pope--she came to possess great wealth and power, assets which she used to her advantage. While her father lived, Felice exercised much influence in the affairs of Rome, even egotiating for peace with the Queen of France. After his death, Felice persevered, making allies of the cardinals and clerics of St. Peter's and maintaining her control of the Orsini land through tenacity, ingenuity, and carefully cultivated political savvy. She survived the Sack of Rome in 1527, but her greatest enemy proved to be her own stepson Napoleone, whose rivalry with his stepbrother Girolamo ended suddenly and violently, and brought her perilously close to losing everything she had spent her life acquiring.
With a marvelous cast of characters, The Pope's Daughter is a spellbinding biography set against the brilliant backdrop of Renaissance Rome.