Ecumenism and Catechesis Collection (2 vols.)

by Francis D. Kelly; Francis A. Sullivan

Publisher:

Wipf and Stock

, 2002–2007

Overview

The Ecumenism and Catechesis Collection offers a chance to explore crucial questions of the Catholic church. The authors provide clarity, perspective, and encouragement for the reader seeking to understand these complex issues. Salvation Outside the Church?: Tracing the History of the Catholic Response delivers an in-depth look at the Catholic teaching of salvation outside the church with reference to biblical teaching, history, dogmas, and doctrine. Those involved in catechesis will find this collection enriching as The Mystery We Proclaim, Second Edition: Catechesis for the Third Millennium draws from the Catechism of the Catholic Church and the General Directory for Catechesis in order to equip and inspire those involved in cathechesis. This collection looks to the past for understanding and sets forth a guide for the church’s future.

Key Features

• Discusses the challenges and opportunities of the catechetical movement
• Encourages those involved in catechesis to continue with a renewed passion
• Addresses the historical teaching of salvation outside the church

Product Details

• Title: Ecumenism and Catechesis Collection (2 vols.)
• Publisher: Wipf & Stock
• Volumes: 2
• Pages: 388
• Christian Group: Catholic
• Resource Type: Monograph
• Topic: Soteriology/Salvation, Catachesis

Salvation Outside the Church?: Tracing the History of the Catholic Response

• Author: Francis A. Sullivan
• Publisher: Wipf & Stock
• Publication Date: 2002
• Pages: 230

Sample Pages: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7

When in 1949 Fr. Leonard Feeney, SJ accused the Archbishop of Boston, Richard J. Cushing, of heresy for holding that Jews and Protestants could be saved, he backed up his charge by producing passages from the writings of fathers of the church such as St. Augustine, of eminent theologians such as St. Thomas Aquinas, and from the decrees of popes and councils, to prove that it was a dogma of faith that there is no salvation outside the Catholic Church. He did seem to have the weight of evidence on his side, and it was not easy to see how the modern idea that non-Catholics can be saved could be reconciled with the church’s traditional doctrine that excluded them from salvation.

Many in the Catholic Church have felt that while Feeney must surely have been wrong, the questions he raised were never satisfactorily answered. Is it really a dogma of Catholic faith that there is no salvation outside the church? Can the optimism of Vatican II about the universal possibility of salvation be defended as an example of homogeneous development of doctrine? Or would it be more honest to say that the Catholic Church has recognized that its previous teaching was mistaken?

The author is convinced that the only way to answer such questions is by a thorough study of the history of Christian thought about the salvation of those “outside the church.” Rev. Sullivan makes this historical study a lively reading experience while drawing conclusions that will impact ecumenical thinking for years to come.

Rev. Francis A. Sullivan, S.J. taught ecclesiology at the Gregorian University in Rome for 35 years until 1993. Since then he has taught in the Theology Department at Boston College. His other books include Creative Fidelity, Charisms and Charismatic Renewal, The Church We Believe In (Paulist Press), and From Apostles to Bishops (Paulist Press).

The Mystery We Proclaim, Second Edition: Catechesis for the Third Millennium

• Author: Francis D. Kelly
• Edition: 2nd
• Publisher: Wipf & Stock
• Publication Date: 2008
• Pages: 158

Sample Pages: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7

Catechesis is a unique form of teaching that intends not merely to pass along facts but to hand on the faith received from Christ, the apostles, and the living magesterium of the Church.

The Mystery We Proclaim, Second Edition, is an invitation to all involved in this God-ordained work to reflect and examine the importance of their ministry in light of the revealed mystery of faith we all profess.

Reflecting both the spirit and the content of the Catechism of the Catholic Church as well as the vision of the General Directory for Catechesis, The Mystery We Proclaim, Second Edition, uses the riches of these resources to guide catechists into the third millennium with greater clarity, confidence, and effectiveness. Today is, as Monsignor Kelly points out, “a promising and exciting time in which the ‘new evangelization’ offers many rich possibilities for catechesis.”

Divided into five parts that analyze and evaluate the catechetical movement of the past as well as providing direction for the future, The Mystery We Proclaim, Second Edition, helps consolidate and highlight themes of both the Catechism and the General Directory. Its five major sections are as follows: Catechesis in the New Context, The Heritage and Challenge of Catechesis, The Goals of Catechesis, The Content of Catechesis, and A Methodology for Catechesis.

Everyone from pastors to DREs, to religion teachers, catechists, and principals—in fact, anyone involved in religious education—will find The Mystery We Proclaim, Second Edition, an encouragement to continued vigor and renewed enthusiasm for transmitting the living faith from one generation to the next.

This book has much to recommend itself. . . . [It] is a breath of fresh air; its authenticity resides in its clear focus on Jesus and the Church’s teachings about Jesus in Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition.

—Stephen F. Miletic, Arlington Catholic Herald

The Mystery We Proclaim is a clear analysis of problems we face in catechesis, and a convincingly articulate call to a new catechesis that blends effective methodology with the content of our faith.

—Most Reverend Donald W. Wuerl, Archbishop of Washington, DC

Monsignor Kelly is currently Superior of the Casa Santa Maria in Rome—a residence for United States graduate student priests. He has recently authored Seeking Christ: An Inquiry and Meditation. For thirteen years he was National Director of Religious Education at the National Catholic Education Association in Washington, DC. He served on the Redaction Committee for the Catechism of the Catholic Church.