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This book probes the distinctive contribution of Catholics to the life of the American church, and to the unfolding of lived Christianity in the United States. The book explores the powerful spiritual renaissance that has marked African American life and self-understanding over the last several decades by examining one critical dimension: the forging of new expressions of Catholic worship rooted in the larger Catholic tradition, yet shaped in unique ways by African American religious culture. Starting with the 1960s, the book traces the dynamic interplay of social change, cultural awakening, and charismatic leadership that has sparked the emergence of distinctive styles of Black Catholic worship. In their historical overview, the authors chronicle the liturgical and pastoral issues of a Black Catholic liturgical movement that has transformed the larger American church. The foundational vision of Rev. Clarence R. J. Rivers, who promoted forms of Black worship, music, preaching, and prayer that have enabled African American Catholics to reclaim the fullness of their religious identity, is then examined. Finally, a Black Catholic aesthetic based on the theological, ethical, and liturgical insights of four African American scholars is constructed, and expressed through twenty-three performative values. This liturgical aesthetic illuminates the distinctive gift of Black Catholics to the multicultural tapestry of lived faith in the American church and can also serve as a pastoral model for other cultural communities.

The essential activity of Catholic colleges and universities at the undergraduate level is teaching material that is enlightened, contrasted, or highlighted by Catholic perspectives. Until about forty years ago this task was carried out predominantly by priests, sisters, and brothers. Bound to the Catholic Church in a special way, these people are no longer represented in significant numbers at Catholic institutions of higher education, and laypeople are now responsible for teaching in the Catholic tradition. The challenge is that priests, nuns, and brothers received extensive training in how the Catholic faith is related to the specific academic discipline they taught. Laypeople need “Catholic resources” if, following in the footsteps of the sisters, brothers, and priests, they wish to share the Catholic intellectual tradition with their students. At a Catholic institution a layperson in a particular academic discipline is expected to address religious themes that amplify or nuance the normal material presented in the secular discipline. Theology and philosophy are central to Catholic institutions of higher education. But laypeople who are inclined to include religious themes in their usual undergraduate classes play a vital role in strengthening the Catholic mission, identity, and character of a Catholic institution. This book provides resources for faculty members at Catholic institutions who want to incorporate Christian religious themes in the academic disciplines in which they are specialists.

This is a rare book in an emerging field that has neither a documented history nor a consensus as to what should be a normative methodology. Dividing this volume into five interrelated themes central to the practice and theory of Catholic Studies —Sources and Contexts, Traditions and Methods, Pedagogy and Practice, Ethnicity, Race, and Catholic Studies, and The Catholic Imagination—the editors provide readers with the opportunity to understand the great diversity within this area of study. Readers will find essays on the Catholic intellectual tradition and Catholic social teaching, as well as reflections on the arts and literature.

The author of this book has written and lectured on a wide range of topics across his career, and for a wide range of audiences. Integrating faith and scholarship, he has created a rich body of work that, in the words of one observer, is “both faithful to Catholic tradition and fresh in its engagement with the contemporary world” Here are the talks the author has given twice each year since the Laurence J. McGinley Lectures were initiated in 1988, conceived broadly as a forum on Church and society. The result is a diverse collection that reflects the breadth of his thinking and engages with many of the most important—and difficult—religious issues of our day. Organized chronologically, the lectures are often responses to timely issues, such as the relationship between religion and politics, a topic he treated in the last weeks of the presidential campaign of 1992. Other lectures take up questions surrounding human rights, faith and evolution, forgiveness, the death penalty, the doctrine of religious freedom, the population of hell, and a whole array of theological subjects, many of which intersect with culture and politics. The life of the Church is a major and welcome focus of the lectures, whether they be a reflection on Cardinal Newman or an exploration of the difficulties of interfaith dialogue. The author responds frequently to initiatives of the Holy See, discussing gender and priesthood in the context of church teaching, and Pope Benedict's interpretation of Vatican II. He seeks to “render the wisdom of past ages applicable to the world in which we live”. For those seeking to share in this wisdom, this book will be a guide to what it means to be Catholic—indeed, to be a person of any faith—in a world of rapid, relentless change.

This book builds on the author’s previous groundbreaking work to offer this new, systematically integrated theory of the study of religion as visual culture. Providing key tools for scholars across disciplines studying the materiality of religions, the author gives an accessibly written theoretical overview including case studies of the ways seeing is related to touching, hearing, feeling, and such ephemeral experiences as dreams, imagination, and visions. The case studies explore both the high and low of religious visual culture: Catholic traditions of the erotic Sacred Heart of Jesus, the unrecognizability of the Virgin in the Fatima apparitions, the prehistory of Warner Sallman’s face of Jesus, and more. Basing the study of religious images and visual practices in the relationship between seeing and the senses, the author argues against reductionist models of “the gaze,” demonstrating that vision is not something that occurs in abstraction, but is a fundamental way of embodying the human self.