George Weigel Book order

A leading Catholic intellectual argues that the humanist teachings of the highly controversial Second Vatican Council are essential to the future of the Catholic church

The collection features essays originally published across various media, including newspapers and magazines, showcasing George Weigel's insights. Many pieces stem from his weekly column, The Catholic Difference, reflecting on themes of faith, culture, and contemporary issues. This compilation offers readers a thoughtful exploration of Catholic thought and its relevance in today's world.

The Catholic Church is on the verge of a transition of great consequence. As Catholic theologian, historian, and papal biographer George Weigel notes, the next pope will probably have been a teenager or a very young man during the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965); he may even have been a child during those years. Thus the next pope will not have been shaped by the experience of the Council and the immediate debates over its meaning and reception like Pope John Paul II, Pope Benedict XVI, and Pope Francis. The next pope, Weigel writes, "will be a transitional figure in a different way than his immediate predecessors. So it seems appropriate to ponder now what the Church has learned during the pontificates of these three conciliar popes--and to suggest what the next pope might take from that learning." Drawing on his personal discussions with John Paul II, Benedict XVI, and Francis, as well as his decades of experience with Catholics from every continent, George Weigel examines the major challenges confronting the Catholic Church and its 1.3 billion believers in the twenty-first century: challenges the next pontificate must address as the Church enters new, uncharted territory. To what is the Holy Spirit calling this Church-in-transition? What are the qualities needed in the man who will lead the Church from the Chair of Saint Peter? Weigel proposes what the Catholic leaders of the future, especially the next pope, must do to remain faithful to the Holy Spirit's summons to renewed evangelical witness, intensified missionary fervor, and Christ-centered reform in the wake of grave institutional failures, mission confusion, counter-witness, and the secularist challenge to biblical faith. --Book jacket

A powerful new interpretation of Catholicism's dramatic encounter with modernity, by one of America's leading intellectuals

George Weigel is one of America's most prominent public intellectuals, a New York Times-bestselling author, the biographer of Pope St. John Paul II, and Senior Vatican Analyst for NBC News. In this collection of essays, he brings thirtyfive years of experience in Washington and Rome to bear on some of the most contested issues of contemporary history and world politics. He analyzes the current civic distress of the United States from a point of view that links culture and morals to politics, and explores the recent turbulence in the Catholic Church. The essays cover a wide swath of ground, from the origins of the First World War to the papacy of Pope Francis. Their common denominator is Weigel's conviction that ideas have consequences, for good and ill, and that the deep currents of history flow through culture, which shapes political and economic life in ways not often understood. Many of the essays originated in Weigel's annual William E. Simon Lecture which, since 2001, has become a major intellectual event in Washington, DC.This book is unique in its application of philosophical and theological perspectives by renowned public intellectual to the "surface" issues of history and politics, enabling the reader to "see" current events in a deeper way.

From distinguished Catholic scholar George Weigel, a memoir of his relationship with Pope John Paul II

For the faithful, the doubtful, and the searchers of every age, these letters convey the power of the Catholic faith that is at once personal and universal, timely and eternal. In this remarkable exploration of the Catholic world, prominent Catholic author and papal biographer George Weigel offers a luminous collection of letters to young Catholics, not-so-young Catholics, and curious souls who wonder what it means to be Catholic today. Weigel takes readers on an epistolary tour of Catholic landmarks -- from Chartres Cathedral to St. Mary's Church in Greenville, South Carolina; from the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem to G.K. Chesterton's favorite pub in Oxford; and from the grave of a modern martyr in Warsaw to the Sistine Chapel. Weaving together insights from history, literature, theology, and music, Weigel illuminates the beliefs that give Catholicism its distinctive texture and explores the theological importance of grace, prayer, vocation, sin and forgiveness, suffering, and -- most importantly -- love. To a world that sometimes seems closed and claustrophobic, he suggests, Christian humanism offers a world with windows and doors -- and a skylight.

“Karol Wojtyła, Pope John Paul II, was a man whose life was the expression of a richly textured and multidimensional soul. The many layers of that soul took on their first, mature form in Kraków.” – George Weigel In this beautifully illustrated spiritual travelogue, New York Times bestselling author George Weigel leads readers through the historic streets of Kraków, Poland, introducing one of the world’s great cities through the life of one of the most influential Catholic leaders of all time. “To follow Karol Wojtyła through Kraków is to follow an itinerary of sanctity while learning the story of a city.” Weigel writes. “Thus, in what follows, the story of Karol Wojtyła, St. John Paul II, and the story of Kraków are interwoven in a chronological pilgrimage through the life of a saint that reveals, at the same time, the dramatic history and majestic culture of a city where a boy grew into a man, priest, a bishop—and an apostle to the world.” With stunning photographs by Stephen Weigel and notes on the city’s remarkable fabric by Carrie Gress, City of Saints offers an in-depth look at a man and a city that made an indelible impression on the life and thought of the Catholic Church and the 21st century world.

“As March gave way to April in the spring of 2005 and the world kept vigil outside the apostolic palace in Rome, the pontificate of Pope John Paul II, then drawing to a poignant end, was already being described as one of the most consequential in two millennia of Christian history.” With these words, world-renowned author and NBC Vatican analyst George Weigel begins his long-awaited sequel to the international bestseller Witness to The Biography of Pope John Paul II. More than ten years in the making, The End and the Pope John Paul II—The Victory of Freedom, the Last Years, the Legacy tells the dramatic story of the Pope’s battle with communism in light of new and recently disclosed information and brings to a close Weigel’s landmark portrait of a man who not only left an indelible mark on the Catholic Church, but also changed the course of world history. When he was elected pope in the fall of 1978, few people had ever heard of the charismatic Karol Wojty³a. But in a very short time he would ignite a revolution of conscience in his native Poland that would ultimately lead to the collapse of European communism and death of the Soviet Union. What even fewer people knew was that the KGB, the Polish Secret Police, and the East German Stasi had been waging a dangerous, decades-long war against Wojty³a and the Vatican itself. Weigel, with unprecedented access to many Soviet-era documents, chronicles John Paul’s struggle against the dark forces of communism. Moreover, Weigel recounts the tumultuous last years of John Paul’s life as he dealt with a crippling illness as well as the “new world disorder” and revelations about corruption within the Catholic Church. Weigel’s thought-provoking biography of John Paul II concludes with a probing and passionate assessment of a man who lived his life as a witness to hope in service to the Christian ideals he embraced.