Best Review at the Catholic Press Association Convention Studies of young American Catholics over the last three decades suggest a growing crisis in the Catholic Church: compared to their elders, young Catholics are looking to the Church less as they form their identities, and fewer of them can even explain what it means to be Catholic and why that matters. Young Catholic America, the latest book based on the groundbreaking National Study of Youth and Religion, e...

In innumerable discussions and activities dedicated to better understanding and helping teenagers, one aspect of teenage life is curiously overlooked. Very few such efforts pay serious attention to the role of religion and spirituality in the lives of American adolescents. But many teenagers are very involved in religion. Surveys reveal that 35% attend religious services weekly and another 15% attend at least monthly. 60% say that religious faith is important in their lives. 40% report tha...

The first comprehensive resource for spiritual and pastoral caregivers—a vital resource for clergy, seminarians, chaplains, pastoral counselors and caregivers of all faith traditions.This essential resource integrates the classic foundations of pastoral care with the latest approaches to spiritual care. It is specifically intended for professionals who work or spend time with congregants in acute care hospitals, behavioral health facilities, rehabilitation centers ...

How important is religion for young people in America today? What are the major influences on their developing spiritual lives? How do their religious beliefs and practices change as young people enter into adulthood? Christian Smith's Souls in Transition explores these questions and many others as it tells the definitive story of the religious and spiritual lives of emerging adults, ages 18 to 24, in the U.S. today. This is the much-anticipated follow-up study to the landmark book, Soul S...

Marriage is a bit like the sun in that no one owns it. If it had a patent it would be God’s patent, one without an expiry date and not available for just anyone to tamper with. I argue that marriage is governed principally by a higher law, a divine one that gives it a transcendent and sacramental quality. It stands solidly on a sexual difference that mirrors God’s image for its uniqueness and power. No philosophy or politics of “embracing difference” has greater meaning than the conjugal u...

Are human beings naturally endowed with a conscience? Or is morality artificially acquired through social pressure and instruction? Most people assume that modern science proves the latter. Further, most of our current social policies are based upon this “scientific” view of the sources of morality. In this book, however, James Q. Wilson seeks to reconcile traditional ideas with a range of important empirical research into the sources of human behavior over the last fifty years. Marshallin...

The goal of this book is to uncover the meaning of "human formation and development" as it appears in the new fifth edition of the Program of Priestly Formation and The Basic Plan for the Ongoing Formation of Priests. This book is unique in its careful analysis of the depths of human formation for seminarians and priests.

Catholic high schools in the United States have been undergoing three major changes: the shift to primarily lay leadership and teachers; the transition to a more consumerist and pluralist culture; and the increasing diversity of students attending Catholic high schools. James Heft argues that to navigate these changes successfully, leaders of Catholic education need to inform lay teachers more thoroughly, conduct a more profound social analysis of the culture, and address the real needs of...

A meticulously researched inside look at child sexual abuse by clergy, this exhaustive, hard-hitting analysis weaves together interviews with abusive priests and church historical and administrative details to propose a new way of thinking about clerical sexual offenders. Linking the personal and the institutional, researcher and therapist Marie Keenan locates the problem of child sexual abuse not exclusively in individual pathology, but also within larger systemic factors, such as the ver...

Stay up-to-date in health care ministry as cultural and spiritual heterogeneity increases!Ministry in the Spiritual and Cultural Diversity in Health Care: Increasing the Competency of Chaplains identifies concrete methods for improving the provision of pastoral care to culturally and religiously diverse patients and/or residents. Experts from both inside and outside the professionwith established records in cross-cultural work and experience with religious diversitydiscuss in detai...

"This book makes the reader think deeply about the role of curriculum planning and its connection to assessment in this age of accountability."—J. Jeannette Lovern, Associate Professor of Curriculum and InstructionEastern Kentucky University"For educators who want students and schools to be successful, this book provides a clear and proven process to accomplish this goal. It is succinct, yet packed with what′s really important to create, develop, assess, ...

An inside look at the reasons Catholic priests and nuns commit sexual abuseSexual Abuse and the Culture of Catholicism digs beneath the public scandals to explore the underlying causes of sexual abuse by priests and nuns from the unique perspective of an abuse victim/survivor who is an experienced mental health practitioner and social science researcher. This powerful book includes the author’s personal account of sexual abuse by a nun and her years of struggle to recover....