In this comprehensive guide, Father Francis Spirago provides a detailed and thorough explanation of the Catholic religion, covering a wide range of topics from the fundamental beliefs to the practical aspects of living a Catholic life. The Catechism Explained serves as an invaluable resource for those seeking to deepen their understanding of the Catholic faith, offering clear and concise explanations that are accessible to readers of all backgrounds. Whether you are a lifelong Catholic or simply curious about the religion, this book will provide you with the knowledge and insights needed to navigate the rich and complex world of Catholicism.

Not content playing out the hand society relegates to someone beginning life’s second half, Montgomery St. John avoids, and seeks out, Near Occasions of Sin. With crackling energy, the novel unwinds a narrative following the protagonist’s goal to uncover truth, discover meaning, and achieve inner peace. The author serves up one insightful experience after another, delivering quick-sketch portraits and in depth introductions of characters encountered along this odyssey. Reared, and until a mature adult, comfortable with his Catholic faith, St. John resigned the priesthood as a young man, and married. After his wife’s death, the children grown, he dons the brown habit of a Franciscan Brother. But war catapults the Franciscan Brother back into a secular lifestyle. We watch him morph into an innovative risk taker who rolls the dice to satisfy an unquenchable curiosity in both the spiritual, and raw sides of life. When St. John confronts a fork in the road, where he’s able to square only a handful of aspects of his existence, he seeks absolution by coming to grips with reality: He’ll reinvent himself one last time.

Physician and aristocrat Margarethe von Stahle spends time at a German convent between World Wars. While there, she encounters a new member of the order, Sister Augustine, and the two slowly fall in love even as they realize the danger in doing so during the fall of the Weimar Republic.

Ferriter covers such subjects as abortion, pregnancy, celibacy, contraception, censorship, infanticide, homosexuality, prostitution, marriage, popular culture, social life and the various hidden Irelands associated with sexual abuse - all in the context of a conservative official morality backed by the Catholic Church and by legislation. The book energetically and originally engages with subjects omitted from the mainstream historical narrative. The breadth of this book and the richness of the source material uncovered make it definitive in its field and a most remarkable work of social history.

From her strict Catholic childhood through her marriage at age twenty-one, Tess is imprisoned by her rigid religious upbringing.

Father Laurence McAuliffe must penetate the late John Cardinal McGlynn's life for proof of sinfulness.