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In May 1999, seven thousand people crowded the basilica in Bologna, Italy to offer a farewell to Enzo Piccinini, a surgeon who died tragically at the age of forty-eight. Who was this doctor who had left an indelible mark on so many lives? Formed in an era of political activism and violence, the young Enzo made a surprising decision-to pursue a life of faith and healing-thanks in part to his encounter with Father Luigi Giussani and his commitment to the movement of Communion and Liberation (CL). At the center of his vocation as a doctor was the belief that patients needed to be cared for in all their humanity, including their relationships, and to be helped to face pain and the fear of death-an approach still known as the "Enzo Method." While maintaining a hectic schedule as a surgeon and teacher, Enzo found time to travel all over Italy, visiting CL communities and moving people with the eloquence of his Christian witness. Designated "Servant of God" by the Church, the diocesan phase of the cause for his canonization has been opened. Everything I Did I Did for Happiness is an engrossing story that teaches us, as Enzo said, "to put your heart into what you do."
Philosophical realism has taken a number of different forms, each applied to different topics and set against different forms of idealism and subjectivism. Maurizio Ferraris's Manifesto of New Realism takes aim at postmodernism and hermeneutics, arguing against their emphasis on reality as constructed and interpreted. While acknowledging the value of these criticisms of traditional, dogmatic realism, Ferraris insists that the insights of postmodernism have reached a dead end. Calling for the discipline to turn its focus back to truth and the external world, Ferraris's manifesto—which sparked lively debate in Italy and beyond—offers a wiser realism with social and political relevance.
In this highly engaging book, Costantino Esposito argues that nihilism is not merely the loss of the classic values of the Western tradition—rather, it presents a critical opportunity to ask pertinent, timely questions about the meaning of self and the world. Nihilism is a problem that has troubled the culture, philosophy, and worldview of people and societies for more than a century—a problem that seemed, thanks to the advance of cultural relativism, to have become an obvious and globally shared condition. However, in recent years, the conversation around nihilism has begun to change. The questions that nihilism once declared impossible to answer—questions about the ultimate meaning o...
This book tells the story of Michael O'Brien, one of the most popular Catholic novelists and painters of our times. It covers his life from his childhood in the Canadian Arctic to the crucial decision in 1976 to devote himself wholly to Christian sacred arts, followed by his inspiration to write fiction and his best-selling apocalyptic novel, Father Elijah. The story then continues to the present with explorations of O'Brien's other works. O'Brien's life is one of struggle against all odds to reestablish Christian culture in the materialist void created by the modern Western world. It is a timely reminder of hope in trials and sufferings, of endurance during marginalization and poverty. This...
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In these pages Benedict XVI shares his reasons for retiring from the papacy in 2013 in an interview with the author. Many saw his astonishing retirement as a sign of the Church's decline, but he intended it as a seed sown in the hope of bringing the Church a younger, more vigorous leadership in the face of daunting challenges. Among those challenges are the financial and sexual scandals that continue to undermine the Church's mission. When Ratzinger was elected Pope in 2005, he opened a path of purification for the Church, while calling upon the Western world to return to its Christian roots and to build a new humanism for the twenty-first century, and his call for renewal is still relevant. Widely recognized as one of the most important theologians and spiritual leaders of our time, Joseph Ratzinger served throughout the papacy of John Paul II as the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Both men had witnessed how atheistic philosophies and war had ravaged twentieth-century Europe, and they shared in the effort of revealing to modern man his need for God, for redemption in Jesus Christ.
It is difficult to find a surgeon like Enzo Piccinini. He never gave up. He knew how to take risks when others held back. When patients turned to him, he took each person to heart and never abandoned them, even when there was nothing more he could do surgically. However, if there was even the slightest possibility of a solution, he would doggedly pursue it, striving to help each patient any way he could. Enzo Piccinini was an amazing surgeon but also a true friend to everyone he cared about. He was a wonderful father, not only to his four children, but also to the many people he led to embrace Christianity. He was one of the most resolute proponents of contemporary Catholicism-his actions ha...
In this wide-ranging conversation with the Italian journalist Luigi Geninazzi, Cardinal Angelo Scola discusses both the salient moments of his own life and the path and situation of the Church and society in Europe over the last half-century. The Cardinal recounts his life, speaking of the extraordinary gift of particular friendships he has had, starting with Luigi Giussani, founder of the ecclesial movement Communion and Liberation (CL), and moving on to discuss Hans Urs von Balthasar, Henri De Lubac, and Joseph Ratzinger. A figure who bridges the past three pontificates, Scola discusses his relationships with St. John Paul II, by whom he was nominated a bishop at the relatively young age o...
Monsignor Luigi Giussani (1922–2005) was the founder of the Catholic lay movement Communion and Liberation in Italy, which has hundreds of thousands of adherents around the globe. In The Life of Luigi Giussani Alberto Savorana, who spent an important part of his life working and studying with Giussani, draws on many unpublished documents to recount who the priest was and how he lived. Giussani’s life story is particularly significant because it shares many of the same challenges, risks, and paths toward enlightenment that are described in his numerous and influential publications. Savorana demonstrates that the circumstances Giussani experienced and the people he encountered played a cru...
Father Luigi Giussani engaged tirelessly in educational initiatives throughout the course of his life. Much of his thought was communicated through the richness and rhythm of oral discourse, preserved as audio and video recordings in the archive of the Fraternity of Communion and Liberation in Milan. This volume presents the last three spiritual exercises of the Fraternity of Communion and Liberation, drawing from the transcripts of these recordings. In these exercises Giussani investigates the rise of ethics and the decline of ontology that have accompanied modernity and the spread of rationalism. Bearing up against old age and illness, he resisted the urge to withdraw, instead finding new ...