Where is the Catholic church going in 2007 and beyond? With the ascendancy of a new pope and talk of a papal visit to the U.S. in 2007, the future of the Catholic church is again on the minds of many. In this influential bestseller, John R. Quinn, who served as Archbishop of San Francisco, makes a clear and bold case for reform within the Catholic Church, particularly of the policies and procedures of the Roman Curia.

This fascinating collection of sources, translated for the first time in English and assembled in one accessible volume, show the startling impact of papal reform in the eleventh century and its consequences. An essential collection for students of medieval history.

This book explores the relationship between the papacy and reform against the backdrop of social and religious change in later tenth and eleventh-century Europe. Placing this relationship in the context of the debate about ‘transformation’, it reverses the recent trend among historians to emphasise the reform developments in the localities at the expense of those being undertaken in Rome. It focuses on how the papacy took an increasingly active part in shaping the direction of both its own reform and that of society, whose reform became an essential part of realising its objective of a free and independent Church. It also addresses the role of the Latin Church in western Europe around the year 1000, the historiography of reform, the significance of the ‘Peace of God’ as a reformist movement, the development of the papacy in the eleventh century, the changing attitudes towards simony, clerical marriage and lay investiture, reformist rhetoric aimed at the clergy, and how reformist writings sought to change the behaviour and expectations of the aristocracy. Summarising current literature while presenting a cogent and nuanced argument about the complex nature and development of reform, this book will be invaluable for an undergraduate and specialist audience alike.

The essays in this volume centre upon the epoch-making papacy of Gregory VII (1073-85), and complement the author's major study of the pope. They look at the formation and expression of Gregory's ideas, notably in relation to simony and clerical chastity, and emphasise his religious motivation; attention is also given to the impact of his pontificate on the Anglo-Norman lands and Scandinavia. The book further includes extended discussion of the contrasting figure of Lanfranc, Archbishop of Canterbury (1070-89), and of the complex question of the interaction between him and Pope Gregory.

The Catholic Church is on the threshold of a bold new era in its two-thousand year history. As the curtain comes down on the Church defined by the 16th-century Counter-Reformation, the curtain is rising on the Evangelical Catholicism of the third millennium: a way of being Catholic that comes from over a century of Catholic reform; a mission-centered renewal honed by the Second Vatican Council and given compelling expression by Blessed John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI. The Gospel-centered Evangelical Catholicism of the future will send all the people of the Church into mission territory every day -- a territory increasingly defined in the West by spiritual boredom and aggressive secularism. Confronting both these cultural challenges and the shadows cast by recent Catholic history, Evangelical Catholicism unapologetically proclaims the Gospel of Jesus Christ as the truth of the world. It also molds disciples who witness to faith, hope, and love by the quality of their lives and the nobility of their aspirations. Thus the Catholicism of the 21st century and beyond will be a culture-forming counterculture, offering all men and women of good will a deeply humane alternative to the soul-stifling self-absorption of postmodernity. Drawing on thirty years of experience throughout the Catholic world, from its humblest parishes to its highest levels of authority, George Weigel proposes a deepening of faith-based and mission-driven Catholic reform that touches every facet of Catholic life -- from the episcopate and the papacy to the priesthood and the consecrated life; from the renewal of the lay vocation in the world to the redefinition of the Church's engagement with public life; from the liturgy to the Church's intellectual life. Lay Catholics and clergy alike should welcome the challenge of this unique moment in the Church's history, Weigel urges. Mediocrity is not an option, and all Catholics, no matter what their station in life, are called to live the evangelical vocation into which they were baptized: without compromise, but with the joy, courage, and confidence that comes from living this side of the Resurrection.

Concentrating on the popes and the antipopes, this book examines the perturbations of ecclesiastical reform from the mid-eleventh century to the reign of Gregory VII, pointing out what factors other than reform influenced the main personae. It demonstrates how a weak papacy reversed power with a strong empire.

In his portrait of Duke George of Saxony (1471–1539) Christoph Volkmar offers a fresh perspective on the early Reformation in Germany. Long before the Council of Trent, this book traces the origins of Catholic Reform to the very neighborhood of Wittenberg. The Dresden duke, cousin of Frederick the Wise, was one of Luther's most prominent opponents. Not only did he fight the Reformation, he also promoted ideas for renewal of the church. Based on thousands of archival records, many of them considered for the first time, Christoph Volkmar is mapping the church politics of a German prince who used the power of the territorial state to boost Catholic Reform, marking a third way apart from both Luther and Trent. This book was orginally published in German as Reform statt Reformation. Die Kirchenpolitik Herzog Georgs von Sachsen, 1488-1525.