Books Published by Angelico Press

"A Defence of Monarchy: Catholics under a Protestant King" by Joseph Shaw offers a profound exploration of the monarchy's role as a unifying symbol of national identity and its significance within Catholic tradition. This work delves into the monarchy's place in balancing tradition with modernity, the evolution of coronation rites, and the constitutional functions of British monarchs. It critically examines the monarchy's impact on Catholic tradition and its position as a neutral entity that ...

The life and work of John Henry Newman makes abundantly clear that the work of a true theologian is not conjured in the void of an ivory-tower mind, but emerges co-creatively from mind informed by heart-heart, that is, as an organ of a deep experiential truth-discernment lying beyond conceptual expression. With heart and mind thus attuned, discernment of the heart comes into alignment with that of the intellect. This leads to the discovery of the experience of love in the truest sense, which ...

In the ancient Christian Apostles' Creed, we speak the fourth line that Jesus Christ "suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried; he went down to the dead (ad inferno-to hell)." This mysterious line of Christ's descent to hell generated a deep mystical spirituality in Adrienne von Speyr (d. 1967), a Swiss laywoman, physician, wife, mother, and spiritual writer. Her extensive, speculative mysticism influenced the critical work of the Catholic theologian, Hans Urs von Ba...

A Pope for All Seasons: Testimonies Inspired by Saint John Paul II contains reminiscences by people who admired this saintly man as student, actor, professor, mentor, author, priest, pope, political leader, uncle, and friend. Among the nearly 50 men and women who share their intimate thoughts on the Polish pontiff are internationally recognized figures such as Maestro Placido Domingo, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Michael Reagan, Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz, Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller, Newt...

Among the giants of the Benedictine Order in modern times, Cardinal Alfredo Ildefonso Schuster stands out as a scholar, churchman, and saint—one who deeply researched monasticism and liturgy, and, in spite of being elevated to the archbishopric of Milan, kept the heart of a monk whose childlike faith, ascetical self-denial, and all-embracing charity were recognized in his beatification. Schuster's commentary on the Holy Rule of St Benedict of Nursia (first published in Italian at the end of W...

Imagine some personal hours face to face with Pope Benedict XVI, one of the greatest Catholic thinkers and spiritual writers of the twentieth century. In this slim volume, hundreds of short quotations and sayings taken from Benedict's papal writings, addresses, and homilies have been classified by the Christian virtues of which they speak, and then categorized according to the mysteries of the Rosary and the great themes of prayer, the Church, the Mass, the papacy, Sacred Scripture, the pries...

The World Council of Churches does not limit its conception of ecumenism to what unites or divides Christians. In a famous 1997 text entitled "Common Understanding and Vision," ecumenism is more broadly defined as "everything that relates to the whole task of the whole church to bring the gospel to the whole world." Moreover, further steps have since been taken toward integrating other religions and faith traditions, leading to a new discipline offering a fully realistic and fully spiritual e...

In post-modern society the "nones" have become our new poor. The West still commands vast markets and militaries but our culture has long been living off of borrowed moral capital with no foreseeable schedule of repayment. In Thinking as Though God Exists, Catholic philosopher Ryan Topping draws upon St. John Henry Newman's voluminous insights to present a far-ranging cultural strategy for the New Evangelization.The conversion of secular culture requires many things - the rebuilding of the fa...

"Nature and history, the Liturgy and the Kalendar, contemporary events both public and personal-all snake their way through the thickets of metaphor in these poems. And the relation between time and Eternity is never far away."-AIDAN NICHOLS, OP, formerly Pope John Paul II Memorial Lecturer in Roman Catholic Theology, University of Oxford"Anna Rist's second volume of poems is a joy to read. The collection exalts not just in the Body of Christ but in people and places of importance to her. All...

In his famous series of four paintings, the great American "father" of the Hudson River School of art, Thomas Cole (1801-1848), depicted the life of a single representative human Soul as a voyage from birth to death-each painting illustrating a further bend in the river of life: Childhood, Youth, Manhood, and finally, Old Age. Cole supplemented his series with a long poem (reproduced at the end of this volume) along the lines of Dante's Divine Comedy or Newman's Dream of Gerontius, elucidatin...

The Christian liturgy-and the Roman liturgy in particular-developed and thrived within a tradition of commentary and meditation that was fundamental for its understanding, running parallel with the same way of approaching Scripture. The rationalist influences that led to the decline and eventual rejection of the mystical or spiritual senses of Scripture in favor of a narrowly-conceived literal sense led to a narrowing of liturgy as well, which was reduced to its material parts and their vario...

"A sequel of sorts to Bradley Birzer's Beyond Tenebrae (Angelico Press, 2019), Mythic Realms seeks to pursue excellences in the last hundred years of literature and film. Still rooted in Christian Humanism and Burke's moral imagination, Birzer offers here a series of autobiographical vignettes, following which he analyzes fiction from Willa Cather to J.R.R. Tolkien to Stephen King to Frank Miller, and considers everything from the novel to the graphic novel. From the world of film he explores...

This is a memoir, yes, fictionalized (as all of them are in some way) because the facts don't matter nearly as much here as the Holy Spirit who moves the furniture, the physical world, and everything in it. This unvarnished book tries to do more than offer a happy or easy conversion. It foregrounds the Beat movement too, a movement that has long been way station and home to many excellent Catholic poets. The list is a long one: Kerouac, Merton, Everson, Fabilli, Berrigan, Baxter, Kavanagh, Le...

Letters to the Duchess of Orléans and Meditations on Christian Life The present volume presents a wide selection of letters glowing with affection that Mectilde addressed to Marguerite de Lorraine, Duchess of Orléans (1615-1672).

Identity, Technocracy, and the Church Identity politics and novel identities are everywhere today. The Decomposition of Man takes on these issues in a new and illuminating way. The social crisis we are facing involves weakening traditional identities-man, woman, husband, wife, Catholic, American-and asserting constructed ones like "Latinx" and "nonbinary." This is liberating, we are told. In reality, however, as the familial, religious, and communal arrangements by which people have hitherto ...

The Eddan Collective is a campus novel, a prophecy of the university in the near future, and a reflection on intellectual pride. In the year 2016, one Annika Trent, scholar of the late Roman Empire, founds the Eddan Collective, a group of Marxist faculty planning for the imminent collapse of American society. Annika's memoir details her struggles with her Eddan collaborators, her chronic illness, and her ability to "send herself away" to fifth-century North Africa, where she converses with St...

Recovering the Christian Mystery of Personhood The Apocalypse of the Sovereign Self is a collection of stories, fictional and factual, highlighting two themes: the autonomous self, now in a profound crisis; and the person, whose Christian sources and contours have too long been overlooked. The ongoing cultural and confessional evisceration of Christianity all too graphically proves the validity of Christ's warning: "Apart from me you can do nothing" (Jn 15:5). For these words were addressed t...

Writing of his real-life pilgrimage on the Camino, Nick Maione offers sharp-eyed detail and characterization, incisive poetic image, humor, and wisdom.

A bohemian artist obsessed with a lonely woodland pond haunted by preternatural entities... an old man and his grandson who maintain their strong connection after the former's death... a revenant summoned for vengeance through a carefully guarded secret "conjuring song"... a priest mysteriously called upon to rescue the soul of a woman guilty of a decades-old brutal murder... These are just some of the stories told in this chilling collection. All the tales are set in the early 1960s, in the ...

City of God, cities of men "If God is one, the worlds are many." Meta-Politics: City of God, cities of men explores the philosophical and spiritual basis for political representation and pluralism. Drawing on ancient as well as modern sources, it traces how universal functions have been understood to be "indexed" to particular persons and institutions, and why universals must manifest in a plurality of forms. It argues that, ultimately, the idea of absolute transcendent oneness is the necessa...

What Old Books Can Tell Us (And Warn Us) About Living in the 21st Century Fake news, genetic engineering, designer babies, Big Pharma, incipient totalitarian rule, the destruction of books, transhumanism, the desire to play God, and the serial misuse of the word "science"-it may sound a lot like America in the 2020s, but these politically charged modern concerns have been probed deeply in classic fiction by a host of prescient authors over the past two centuries. The Art of Being Human draws ...

John Duns Scotus (1265-1308), beatified by Pope St. John Paul II in 1993, is widely recognized as one of the most original and influential philosophers and theologians of the Middle Ages.Ordered by Love offers a sympathetic exploration of a wide range of Scotus's thought. Topics covered include his understanding of the relationship between faith and reason, his doctrine of individuation by "haecceity" (thisness), his theory of the univocity of the concept of being, his emphasis on God's freed...

This book tells the story of a girl from a small convent in Normandy, who lived a life of complete seclusion, known only by a few close friends, and yet today is a canonized saint known throughout the world. Her convent in Lisieux is visited by pilgrims from around the globe, churches in nearly every country are dedicated to her, and her simple spirituality has resonated with people from all walks of life. This is the story of Saint Thérèse of Lisieux. Yet, as with any person of such fame, it...

The life of St. John Vianney, also known as the Curé d'Ars (priest of Ars), is marked by boundless humility and obedience to God. When this simple French priest was assigned in 1818 to the parish of Ars, a town of just 250 people, few would have guessed that it would lead to his international recognition. Disturbed by the religious ignorance and indifference brought about by the French Revolution and openly displayed by his congregation, John Vianney began work in his parish that quickly flow...

First published in 1962, The Metaphysics of Love is both a concise study of Thomas Aquinas's existential metaphysics and a demonstration of the enduring influence of Thomism on Western thought. Penned by distinguished Thomist scholar Frederick Wilhelmsen, this book explores the ontology of the human person, placing it in dialogue with philosophers ranging from Plato, Aristotle, and Aquinas to Kant, Hegel, and Heidegger. Wilhelmsen ultimately narrows his discussion to an examination of human l...

Following after brilliant authoritarian Pope Pius XII and good-humored Pope John XXIII, Pope Paul VI seemed hesitant, anxious, even tormented. Yet the impact of his fifteen-year-long papacy was colossal: not a single aspect of Church life was left untouched in the whirlwind of change unleashed by the Ecumenical Council he guided and sought to implement. Who was this man, Giovanni Battista Montini (1897-1978), who so altered the face, the voice, the bearing of Catholicism? Versatile historian ...

Poems by David Craig "This is a book of joy, an Easter of jubilation. Holiness infuses these poems: holy flights of imagination, holy laughter, holy living in the everyday, and holy resurrection hope. Even the punishing season of winter is 'a glass of chilled champagne.' And angels everywhere-materializing to sing a Bach mass in the middle of the night on an empty street, or maybe dropping in for a summer swim. The energy, the down-to-earth reverence-is all of a piece, creating an abundance o...

Identity means being the same and being different. It is a one-word oxymoron. How on earth can the concept make sense? This brilliant exposition of the question goes-by way of literature, philosophy, and psychology-to show that it can only be answered metaphysically. Identity is the mystery at the heart of creation, and, ultimately, the mystery of its Creator. Personal anxieties about who we are and political tensions about who others are melt before the radiance of God's truth. In that truth...

The Ancient Art of Memory Meets the Timeless Art of Living Memorize the Stoics! The Ancient Art of Memory Meets the Timeless Art of Living. The title says it all! Extolling the powers of God-given human reason, Stoic philosophers such as Roman knight Musonius Rufus and his student, the former slave, Epictetus, developed powerful practical lessons for living tranquil, virtuous, loving lives. These lessons were praised by such early Church Fathers as Justin Martyr and Origen. Epictetus's Handbo...

A Primer on Ascetical Theology Do you want to dive deeper in your relationship with Jesus Christ? Are you looking for the deep springs of our spiritual nature? Do you suspect that you're missing the fuller picture of our supernatural life? If so, Glory Unto Glory: A Primer on Ascetical Theology was written for you. Most such books today limit themselves to the practice of prayer or a broad introduction to the spiritual life. Some address moral truth. But few, if any, situate all these aspects...

The Autobiography of a Latin Mass Exile Fr Bryan Houghton's life was fraught with momentous transitions. As a Protestant child educated in a Catholic school, he gradually awakened to the truth of the Faith and eventually converted. He responded to the call to priesthood, which he understood in its traditional sense as an office of offering sacrifice, reconciling sinners, feeding the spiritually hungry, and preaching divinely revealed truths. When the Second Vatican Council hit, and even more ...

In the years since his graduation from St. Marquis University, Blake Yourrick has fled his family and Milwaukee, rotating from job to dead-end job-working the Bakken oilfields in Dakota and even signing on as the night caretaker of a rural abbey graveyard. Deep in student debt and estranged from his misanthropic, alcoholic father, Blake is haunted by the memory of his mother's death-and by his relationship with his college mentor, a defrocked priest named Theo Hape, who is known for his adven...

A Brief History of Catholic Traditionalism in the United States, from Triumph to Traditionis Custodes In this compact and informative book, Stuart Chessman tells the tale of the traditionalist movement in the United States of America, from its birth in the era of Triumph (1965-1975) to the mounting tensions with "conservative Catholicism" (1975-1985), to the dawning of hope in the "Indult regime" (1985-2007), leading into the broad daylight of Summorum Pontificum (2007-2021), and then descend...

Navigating the Spiritual Life with Blessed Columba Marmion In the early twentieth century, Blessed Columba Marmion's dogmatically-grounded spiritual theology, expressed in artful prose, set the Catholic world on fire. A century later, in The Grace of "Nothingness," Fr Cassian Koenemann seeks to rekindle that fire for a new generation with his inspired presentation of Marmion's key spiritual insights. To this task he brings a monk's sensitivity to friendship with God, a schoolteacher's focus o...

The gates of Drancy Internment Camp in the northeast suburbs of Paris served as a holding pen for thousands of Jews during the German occupation of France in World War II. Jean Wahl, philosophy professor, poet, bachelor at the top of Parisian society before his arrest, was among those very few who escaped. In this searing historical novel by W. C. Hackett, the story is told in Wahl's own voice, from the moment he passed beyond the gates of the camp to his harrowing flight for the Free Zone in...

An Annotated Reading of the Prologue of John In this extended meditation, Anthony Esolen looks, phrase by phrase, at the majestic Prologue to the Gospel of John, which with good reason he calls "the most influential paragraph in the history of man." He unfolds its theological richness by showing how the Apostle John has in mind, not only what he saw Jesus do and heard him say, but also the whole witness of Scripture before the time of Jesus, and the way the young Church proclaimed him. A uniq...

The Theology of the Christmas Mystery In Cradle of Redeeming Love, John Saward returns to the mystery of Christ's incarnation and birth. Drawing upon both the rich traditions of the Church and the writings of the great Christian mystics, he fashions a work both new and old, revolutionary and orthodox. This profoundly moving meditation on the meaning of the Incarnation will enrich any contemplation on the life of Christ. The subject of this book is the "Christmas" dogma: the divinely revealed ...

Selected Essays from The Josias (Volume 1: Family, City, and State) Wisdom, in the full sense, is a matter of knowing something that is not subject to political deliberation, that is, the First Principle and Last End of all things. It includes understanding the order of all things from that Principle and to that End-an order that we, as human beings, ought to reflect and embody in our own actions and in our common life in society. The political implications of this truth have been obscured in...

An Introduction to Thomistic Epistemology First published in 1956, Frederick Wilhelmsen's Man's Knowledge of Reality remains a classic study in Thomistic epistemology. Wilhelmsen begins with an examination of what he refers to as Descartes' "critical problem"; namely, the supposed inability of philosophy to procure what Descartes calls "certain knowledge." Using Descartes' argument as a starting point, he then launches into a comprehensive examination of Thomistic Metaphysical Realism, focusi...

Advent Poems Each Advent season is new. Those most recent have been tumultuous: COVID, bitterly cold snows, visionaries speaking frankly of a coming apocalypse. But other things as well: our own issues, the creeping age factor, the death of loved ones. Advent, like a creaking old metal gate, corrects us every time. It lets us know that only one thing matters: the stable, that little crib where cows chewed hay. Children, and childlike adults, still find all the consolation they need there. We ...

St. Cecilia's, Brooklyn, 1871-1930 Here, in these pages, first published in 1931, is the story of the first sixty years of St. Cecilia's parish in Brooklyn, NY. Under the stewardship of Msgr. Edward McGolrick (1857-1938), an impressive network of social support that touched practically every aspect of a parishioner's life was built: a maternity hospital, a daycare center (the first of its kind in the country!), the largest Catholic parochial school building in America, a sports facility for h...

"Ceremonial may be interpreted as a spiritual obeisance to the created beauty of the world." So writes Abbie Graham in the Foreword to her Ceremonials of Common Days. In this succinct yet surprisingly profound work, Graham demonstrates this same "obeisance to beauty" in her own artful writing on the special celebrations, festivities, and traditions accompanying the four seasons. Looking not with the modern eye (which views such things as little more than random, culturally produced rituals) b...

While Arthur Machen's mastery of dark and bizarre themes has been more than amply demonstrated to countless readers-and enthusiasts-in such well-known works of horror as The Great God Pan, his forays into more ecstatic and mystical realms remain woefully neglected. In this charming, if utterly perplexing novella, Machen begins his story in the anxious, dark, despairing streets of 1915 London, then in short order leads the reader to a transfigured world in western Wales, where a small village ...

Mohammed and Charlemagne the last book penned by Belgian historian Henri Pirenne before his death in 1935, is in many ways the culmination of his lifelong study of medieval history. As Professor of History at the University of Ghent from 1886 until 1930 (with a brief hiatus during Germany's invasion of Belgium during World War I), Pirenne contributed many works to the study of medieval Europe. Not the least of these is the present volume, left unfinished at the time of his death but meticulou...

Edith Stein was a figure most singular and rare. Even within the purview of the illustrious history of the Church's saints, few can lay claim to so powerful a marriage of faith and intellect. Born into a devout Jewish family in 1891, her intellectual abilities did not long go unnoticed and in 1913 she moved to Göttingen in Germany to study philosophy under Edmund Husserl. There, as destiny would have it, she encountered a work on the life of Saint Teresa of Ávila, which lead her to a profound...

Few religious figures have enjoyed such notoriety as John Henry Newman. His conversion from Anglicanism to the Catholic Church, chronicled in his extensive writing, has been the source of endless debate and discussion. The difficulty confronting the modern reader when faced with such a controversial figure is the task of accurately deciphering his precise thoughts and ideas. In A Newman Synthesis, Erich Przywara has done us exactly this service. In these pages the reader will find an extensiv...

From the Medieval Bank to Financial Globalization This book, perhaps startlingly, is about finance from a Christian point of view, taking its start from the Gospels and moving forward to modern Catholic Social Teaching and today's opaque money markets, pausing along the way to delve into the origins of finance in the Christian Middle Ages. Not only those with a Christian orientation, but anyone looking for a coherent, moral view of finance will profit from its keen insights. Markets represent...