Paulist Press Church History Collection (4 vols.)

The Great Catholic Reformers covers the careers of Pope Gregory the Great, Peter Damian, Bernard of Clairvaux, Clare of Assisi, Catherine of Siena, Jean Gerson, Jan Hus, Gasparo Gontarini, John Henry Newman, and Dorothy Day. This diversity of reformers in our tradition suggests that legitimate reform within the Catholic Church can operate from different spiritualities, employ either gentle or harsh critiques, use secular or canon law to enforce discipline, and begin with lay men and lay women as well as with members of the religious or of the clergy.

The Second Vatican Council stated that the Church is always in need of purification and renewal, but it did not attempt to describe how this process takes place. C. Colt Anderson presents lessons on Church renewal from 10 of the most significant reformers in Church history. By looking at models from a variety of historical and cultural contexts, Anderson describes how reform takes place, what it looks and sounds like, and how it can be effective.

By offering these diverse models, The Great Catholic Reformers seeks to encourage every Catholic to take up the difficult task of reform and to provide them with examples that suit their own temperaments. It also aims at broadening tolerance for people who follow different approaches to reform.

A History of the Christian Tradition is a comprehensive overview of the institutional history and the theological issues involved in the development of Christianity from its roots in the Jewish religion through the sixteenth century Reformation. In 25 chapters the authors survey the principal movements that shaped and nurtured Christian consciousness. They show how the first, small communities developed into an institutional Church, and they trace the changing face of the Church through the first centuries and the Middle Ages. But Thomas McGonigle and James F. Quigley also show how Christian faith emerged, grew and changed over the same period. They evaluate the impact of the great Christian teachers—Jesus and Paul, Augustine, Benedict, Thomas Aquinas, and Luther.

This volume takes you through the momentous events of the post-Reformation Christian world to the dawning of the ecumenical movement in the late twentieth century. Beginning with an overview of Protestant Europe, Thomas McGonigle and James F. Quigley examine the missionary ventures in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the establishment of churches in the New World, and the struggles between rationalism and faith during the Enlightenment and beyond. Notice is also given to developments in the Orthodox churches and the story of the Jews in Christian Europe. The history concludes with renewal movements, culminating in the Second Vatican Council and the pontificate of Pope John Paul II.

Gérard Vallée presents this introduction to the formative centuries of Christianity, written for those who are new to the subject. The Shaping of Christianity surveys the development of the Christian movement in the context of the political, social, and religious milieux of the second through the eighth centuries. Vallée incorporates primary sources, charts, a map, and numerous helpful appendixes.

He explores such topics as:

• Cultural and religious legacies of Greek society and Judaism
• The establishment of Christianity as the religion of the Empire
• The division of the Empire and growing split between East and West
• Early heresies and dissident factions within the church
• The practice of Christian life
• Christological and other theological controversies
• The formation of orthodoxy and the role of early church councils
• Patristic literature and history

The Shaping of Christianity not only facilitates a better understanding of the patristic era, it also illuminates how the developments of the past give insights into Christian life and practice in the present.