As inequality skyrockets, economists and politicians alike demand a new economic paradigm to promote the common good. In Cathonomics, Anthony M. Annett draws on economics, Catholic social thought, philosophy, climate science, and psychology to show how readers of all faiths and backgrounds can work together to create a more just economy.

The Old Stuff : Where it All Comes From--The New Stuff : Modern Catholic Social Teaching--Who's Right and Who's Wrong : Catholic Social Teaching vs. The Dominant Economic Paradigm--The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly : Practically Assessing the Global Economy--Who Does What? The Roles of Government, Business, and Labor--Inequality : The Root of Social Ills--Care for Our Common Home--Expanding Our Circles : The Global Dimension.

On the back cover of one of his most groundbreaking solo albums, . . . Nothing like the Sun of 1987, Sting (Gordon Matthew Sumner, b. 1951 in Wallsend, UK) somberly stands close to a statue of Mary, the mother of Jesus. The album was released a few months after his own mother, Audrey, died. The picture was taken on the island of Montserrat, where he was recording the album, apparently on the day of her death. "I said goodbye to my mother, as I had a recording date in Montserrat, and she died a week later." When asked by the author if his mother was particularly connected to Mary, and if this was why he chose this image, he replied "No, but I did." This evocative photograph and Sting's quick answer encapsulate the two pillars of this book: a microhistory of a specific British Catholic parish in the 1950s-60s, and the impact that growing up there had on Sting's artistic output. And beyond that, this book opens a window onto the influence of Catholic education and imagination on millions of less famous people who had similar upbringings.

Catholics are not Christians. They worship Mary. They do whatever the pope says. They cannot divorce. They eat fish on Fridays. These flawed but common statements reflect a combined ignorance of and fascination with Catholicism and the Catholic Church. Catholicism Today: An Introduction to the Contemporary Catholic Church aims to familiarize its readers with contemporary Catholicism. The book is designed to address common misconceptions and frequently-asked questions regarding the Church, its teachings, and the lived experience of Catholics in modern societies worldwide. Opening with a concise historical overview of Christianity in general and Catholicism in particular, the text explores the core beliefs and rituals that define Catholicism in practice, the organization of the Church and the Catholic calendar, as well as the broad question of what it means to be Catholic in a variety of cultural contexts. The book ends with a discussion of the challenges facing the Church both now and in the coming decades. Also included are two short appendices on Eastern Catholicism and Catholicism in the United States.

A new biography that reveals the saint as his best friends knew him to be. Chiara Mercuri argues that the familiar Francis of the catechism and popular anecdote does not begin to take into account the complexity of the real person, because Bonaventure of Bagnoregio, a successor of Francis, essentially created “another” Francis. It was Bonaventure, a man who never knew Francis personally, who came to define the great saint. In the mid-1300s, every one of the approximately fifteen hundred Franciscan friaries and about four hundred Claretian convents possessed a copy of the Lifeof St. Francis by Bonaventure. Today there are some 400 of these writings remaining from the 1200s and 1300s. That is an enormous number that confirms the determination with which Bonaventure pursued his decision to affirm a new image of Francis. Why was he so determined to recreate the life of the saint who gave his name to the largest spiritual movement that Christendom had ever seen? The effect was to wipe out any trace of the testimony of Francis’s closest companions, and to impose a new, ethereal, almost disembodied image of the follower of Christ. Mercuri takes the reader back in time to the real Francis of Assisi, revealing with wisdom and clear scholarship the complexities of the social, family, religious, and economic dynamic of the Middle Ages, and the concentric circles of those who knew and wrote about St. Francis from firsthand knowledge. This is a biography of the world’s most popular saint – for everyone!

Too smart to believe in God? The twelve philosophers in this book are too smart not to, and their finely honed reasoning skills and advanced educations are on display as they explain their reasons for believing in Christianity and entering the Roman Catholic Church. Among the twelve converts are well-known professors and writers including Peter Kreeft, Edward Feser, J. Budziszewski, Candace Vogler, and Robert Koons. Each story is unique; yet each one details the various perceptible ways God drew these lovers of wisdom to himself and to the Church. In every case, reason played a primary role. It had to, because being a Catholic philosopher is no easy task when the majority of one's colleagues thinks that religious faith is irrational. Although the reasonableness of the Catholic faith captured the attention of these philosophers and cleared a space into which the seed of supernatural faith could be planted, in each of these essays the attentive reader will find a fully human story. The contributions are not merely collections of arguments; they are stories of grace.