Dr. Paul Lavin & Robert Lavin
Without knowing anything about the man whose life is recounted on these pages, The Iron Man of China may seem a curious title. Except for a year furlough home in the states, Father Lavin served the Chinese people for twenty years (1932-1953), traversing thousands of miles by foot or bicycle, and exposing himself every day to life threatening dangers. In 1953 the Communists expelled him from the mainland threatening him with death if he should ever return. This well-documented book, written by the Iron Man’s nephew, illustrates one of the reasons why there are ten million Catholics, loyal to Rome, in China today.
For Chesterton fans this collection of articles written over eighty years ago are vintage G. K. The author arranged the articles in book format by sections and chapters giving to the whole the salient title: The Outline of Sanity. Accused by thickheaded social "progressives" of wanting to push society back into an antiquated agrarian provincialism, these insightful socio-economic indictions ought rather to have heralded the Catholic thinker as today’s prophet for social sanity. The perennial truths of the principles making up these critical commentaries will surely be even more evident in today’s restless age of stroboscopic consumerism. Master of paradox that he is, Chesterton, the philosopher, exposes the enslaving and dehumanizing aspects of an economy dependent upon monopolistic plutocrats and their so-called "labor saving" machines of mass production. With his penchant for balancing satire with humor, this literary giant provides a common sense solution to this age’s fast pace trek to nowhere. Modern man must be weaned gradually, he argues, back away from the imperialistic megalith corporation as a statistical wage earner and be productive on his own terms, on his own land. In order for man to achieve happiness, his true end, he must not build his life around some ephemeral retirement plan, but live each day for his real end: eternal retirement with God. Taking the original sense of the word economy as domestic harmony the ideal which the author champions is simply called Distributism. It is the very antithesis of Monopoly.
Fr. Vincent McNabb
Modern "wisdom" urges people to crowd into cities or their suburbs, to have few children, to live on credit. It teaches them to regard Industrialism as inevitable, and to view a life of speed and noise as both normal and desirable. The Catholic Church teaches the contrary. She proclaims rather that life on the land, the raising of large families, the possession of real wealth over artificial tokens, concern for the needs of men and not those of machines, and a focus on the life to come, constitute the only way to true happiness and contentment. The Church and the Land is a collection of essays and articles by England's famous Dominican Distributist. De facto "chaplain" to the Distributists and the Distributist movement, Fr. McNabb was in many ways the most passionate and fervent of those seeking reform of economic life in the name of truly human values. In over 40 short essays, Fr. McNabb tackles subjects as diverse and yet unified as industrialism, morality and economics, working conditions, and the role of the state in shaping and defending the proper economic conditions. Fr. McNabb's is a common and yet unique voice within the Distributist tradition, for he represents the voice of the Church, with its characteristic concern for morality and the salvation of souls, in economic as well as all other aspects of man's daily life. Originally published: London, 1926.
Ethics and the National Economy is a sorely-needed treatise on an essential aspect of economics: the role of morality, and ethical considerations, in economic science. A must read for anyone concerned with the effects of economic thinking upon day-to-day economic life, as well as the accountability and motivation of those who make policies based upon their conception of economic reality.
Written by A Passionist - PB - 400 Pages
Contemplating the Holy Face on the shroud of Turin, one sees a deep wound on the forehead of our Savior where one of the many thorns of His cruel crown punctured that very spot above His eyes where His members in the Church are marked who enter rightly into the penitential season of Lent. From the many figures of that spiny diadem in the Old Testament to the reality of the instrument of torture beaten into the head of the Son of God amidst insults and spittle, this terrible book, unforgettable in its endearing pathos, will surely help us to understand something of the true ugliness of sin and the awesome price the Just One had to pay in conquering it.
Dona Emilio Pardo Bazan
Much more than simply “another life of Saint Francis,” this book will dazzle and enthrall, and educate all readers, from the most erudite to those who have only rudimentary knowledge of (or interest in) the life of one of the greatest and most exceptional saints. Aptly titled, this author provides the reader with a deeply spiritual and radically historical framework in which she illumines the uniqueness of this soul and the depths of the effects upon the world produced by the sanctity of this one human being who cooperated so magnanimously with the ever present grace of God.
John Haffert - 265 pages - 5" x 8"- PB
Originally printed in 1940. Imprimatur and Nihil Obstat. From the Preface by Msgr. Fulton J. Sheen: "Mr. Haffert has in a masterly way laid bare the solid foundations upon which this [Brown Scapular] devotion reposes. His case is so strikingly presented that to challenge this devotion is to challenge to some extent, the tradition and authority of the Church." The Scapular Promise of Our Lady is: "Whosoever dies clothed in this shall never suffer eternal fire." Pope Pius IX said, "this extraordinary gift of the Scapular brings its great usefulness not only to the Carmelite Family of Mary but also to all the rest of the faithful who wish, affiliated to that Family, to follow Mary with a very special devotion." The book contains 15 chapters, including, The Origin of the Promise, Meaning of the Promise, Historicity of the Promise, How the Promise is Kept, Scapular Prayer and Communication of Benefits, and much more. This is the most complete book on the subject we have seen. It gives many examples of the powerful protection one gets from the Scapular and that protection is in great need today.
Father Charles Arminjon - PB 336 pages - 5.5"x 8.5"
Mystery book on ‘End Times’ reappears
"Reading this book was one of the greatest graces of my life!"
In it, Fr. Arminjon gets right to the point: “The end of the world, Christ says, will come when the human race, sunk in the depths of indifference, is far from thinking about punishment and justice. It will be as in the days of Noah, when men lived without a care, built luxurious homes, and mocked Noah as he built his ark.”
“Civilization will be at its zenith, markets overflowing with money, and stocks will never have been higher. Mankind, wallowing in unprecedented material prosperity, will have ceased to hope for heaven. Crudely attached to pleasures, man will say ‘My soul, you have goods to last for many years. Eat, drink and be merry.’ ”
Doesn’t that sound eerily like America just a year or so ago?
Fr. Arminjon insists that we “steer clear of every perilous opinion and make no assertion that is not justified by Tradition and the doctrine of the Fathers.” Yet it’s precisely his sober reliance on Scripture and Tradition that makes this book so convincing . . . and so chilling!
But Fr. Arminjon doesn’t merely sketch the darkness ahead; he also shows how Jesus will fill that darkness with light; and he details the rich bounty Christ has in store for all who stay faithful.
Father Leonard Feeney
Hardcover $34.95 PB $19.95
This collection of poems and other literary works of Father Feeney is not a complete collection, but a large one nonetheless. It includes almost all of four of his best books: Survival Till Seventeen, Fish on Friday, In Towns and Little Towns, and You’d Better Come Quietly, as well as some of his other works. You will rarely encounter another modern Catholic poet and writer with such depth of faith and dramatic power with words as Father Leonard Feeney. Frank Sheed, of Sheed & Ward, his original publisher and a well-known Catholic writer himself, once labeled him “America’s Chesterton”. Coming from a Catholic Englishman, that is a grand compliment indeed for an American Irishman!
Translated by Helen Waddell PB- 312 Pages
For several hundred years, in the youth of the Church, countless men, and a few women, fled the world and flocked to the deserted places of this earth wishing to found (and to find) their lives in God alone. Their experiences transformed not only their own lives, but also in many ways, the world they left behind. The beauty and timelessness of their stories has captured the imagination of men throughout the ages that have followed. To live in search only of God and the eternal verities is a theme that men never weary contemplating and often imitate. The original of these translations is the Latin of the Vitae Patrum, a vast collection of the lives and sayings of the Desert Fathers, edited by the learned Rosweyde, and printed at the Plantin press in Antwerp in 1615. The original ran to 1600 pages. These extracts assembled by Helen Waddell are among the best.
Thomas B. Costain - 508 pages Paperback
Thomas B. Costain was a Canadian journalist and author who became a US citizen in 1920 and rose to international fame in the 1940s as a historical novelist and author of such works as The Silver Chalice and The Black Rose. The White and the Gold was one of his best works and is not a novel, but rather a history of the founding of New France from its discovery in 1497 until the early 1700s when the war with England for the domination of New France began in earnest. Although this is a factual history and not fiction, the writer has applied the arts of stylistic narrative that he practiced so well as a novelist and the result is a book that will capture the attention of the reader from the first pages and hold it until the end. Indeed, the characters who founded and built a Catholic civilization in the wilderness of North America, both saints and sinners, who are the real subject of this work are so colorful and majestic in their lives and exploits as to be anything but the object of intense interest and sympathy on the part of the reader. This is one of the finest works of historical scholarship that we have ever read, and Loreto is pleased to make this great work available once again sixty years after its original publication and almost 500 years after the first serious explorations of New France began.
The Papal Plan for Restoration: Restoring the Catholic Priesthood
A Study Guide for Catholic Laity, Seminarans, and Clergy - By Robert Wolfe
Large 8.5" by 11" format 200 pages - paperbackAs the title suggests, this book describes a plan taken from key papal encyclicals that engendered and safeguarded the vitality of the Catholic Faith in the prospering pre-Conciliar Church. That plan is still being followed by small traditional Catholic communities around the world today, producing that same vitality in their members. The families in these communities, particularly the heroic mothers in these large families, produce many priestly vocations. Shepherded by the traditional orders that serve them, these families seed the restoration of the Catholic priesthood.In the Book:
• A wake-up call for Catholics.• Modern popes quoted acknowledging the crisis in the Church.• Extensive statistics on problems currently facing the Church.• A thorough study guide on the problems and their proposed solutions.• More than twenty papal encyclicals quoted.• Six key encyclicals studied in detail.• Six elements of the Plan developed from the encyclicals.• Ten cause-and-effect relationships developed, statistically linking the crisis with the implementation of changes subsequent to Vatican II.• Statistical evidence that the current crisis could have been prevented had the bishops at Vatican II not ignored the quoted warnings of pre-Conciliar popes.• A logical, defendable, statistical estimate of the abundance of Catholic priests the Church would have today if pre-Conciliar Church growth had continued.• Statistical evidence that the current shortage of priests has a proven remedy not being seriously considered by our bishops.• Statistics on vital Catholic communities successfully implementing the Plan.• New seminaries ordaining many traditional priests for the Extraordinary Form Mass.• Integral to the study guide is an extensive survey questionnaire on the Faith, the Mass and The Plan.
Father James Wathen - PB-256 pages
In 1971, amidst the chaos and confusion wrought by the Second Vatican Council and the advent of the Novus Ordo Missae, faithful Catholics craved clarity and direction. TAN Books published this strong critique of the New Mass shortly after the famous Intervention of Cardinals Ottaviani & Bacci was issued.
Father's love of the true, the good, the beautiful, and the holy was evident on every page, and his indignation at the destruction of 1900 years of Catholic liturgical tradition is clear as he minced no words in his criticism of his fellow clergy or in his analysis of what was at the heart of the New Mass. Father's insights into the crisis in the Church and the attack upon the ancient liturgy and the dogmas of the Church are just as relevant today as they were in 1971.
When TAN Books was sold several years ago this book disappeared from its catalog and it was recently re-issued by the Father James Wathen Foundation in a new and easy to read format.
Volume One: The Church and the World in which the Church was Founded
Msgr. Philip Hughes - PB - 344 pages
The first volume, then treats of the Church in the West up to the conversion of Constantine (312) but in the East up to Justinian I—or rather a century and a half beyond to allow for the consummation of the disunion that followed Chalcedon.
Volume One: The Church and the World in which the Church was FoundedVolume Two: The Church and the World the Church CreatedVolume Three: The Church and the Revolt against it of the Church-created World
Hilaire Belloc - PB - 362 Pages
“As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be”…This well known phrase could have easily been utilized in the introduction to this exceptional history of the religions of mankind that have come to birth in that portion of the world that has been the home of men since the beginning of the world and which to this day is the center of the stage where the story of our race is being played out. The epic battles among men for control of Syria and Palestine continue, and the Church still offers, as one of the primary prayer intentions of the Popes, the invitation to her faithful to Pray for the Recovery of the Holy Land.
In the 20th century as today, the land that once harbored the incarnate God and his holy family and disciples has now been criminally invaded by those men who, once upon a time, cried out on the very spot that they now have conquered, (with the connivance and invaluable and relentless assistance of the governments of the formerly Christian West), “Crucify Him!” and “We will not have this Man to reign over us!”This land of Syria and Palestine that had been under the power of that degenerate and infidel cult known as Mohammedanism for over 1000 years has been cruelly and brutally wrested from its inhabitants by the Mammonites of the West allied with the racist Jewish sect known as Zionism, which is considered by traditional Jews to be a heresy from Judaism. Meanwhile, the rest of the world is fast slipping into that original darkness of men known as paganism or demon worship.
Also Available as Ebook
Distributism for Dorothy or The Economy of Salvation and other exhortations to dethrone the great god mammon
Father Lawrence C. Smith - PB 520 pages
Distributism is not an economic means or a method, rather, the term is meant to be a description or a measurement of a state of affairs in human society. The term Distributism was coined in order to facilitate an assessment of whether or not any sort of “economic system” is working according to Catholic morality. If real property and the means of production are widely owned (distributed) among the population and the majority of men are economically independent and are not dependant upon either the state, large “capitalist” corporations, a minimum “wage”, or other men for their daily bread and the means of providing the necessities of life for themselves and their families, then, you have Distributism. In short, Distributism is a way of life based upon the Gospels and the principles of morality. It is so much more than a mere “economic system.”Distributism is not something that is to be enacted by any state or political entity, although they can and must do what is possible to facilitate its accomplishment. Distributism is a way of living and this way of living must be protected and nourished by society and its organs, i.e. families, societies, and governments. The responsibilty therefore lies primarily with families to begin to live the distributive way of life. Distributism is the living out of the Gospel in our daily lives and it will bring in its wake, peace, joy, and true freedom such as can be found only among the subjects of Christ the King.Father Smith explains it all so beautifully in Distributism for Dorothy: The Ecomony of Salvation and other exhortations to dethrone the great god mammon.
By Wilfrid Diamond - SB - 160 pagesLiturgical Latin, obviously enough to anyone who has even a smattering of the language, is not the Latin of the classical writers. Liturgical Latin, for the most part, is the common Latin of the people with a vocabulary suited to its use. Some Latin words were “christianized”—i.e., given meanings not found in dictionaries of classical Latin. Variant spellings are also quite common in the ecclesiastical books. Here are over 11,000 words—gathered from Scriptures (including the new Latin Psalter), the Breviary, the Missal, and other church books—a good percentage of which are not to be found at all in classical dictionaries, and almost all of which have a peculiar meaning in ecclesiastical use.
Volume Two: The Church and the World the Church Created
Msgr. Philip Hughes - PB - 500 pages
The first volume, then treats of the Church in the West up to the conversion of Constantine (312) but in the East up to Justinian I—or rather a century and a half beyond to allow for the consummation of the disunion that followed Chalcedon. This second volume carries the history through to the time of St. Thomas Aquinas, while the third volume takes the story from Aquinas to Martin Luther.
Volume Three: The Church and the Revolt against it of the Church-created World
Msgr. Philip Hughes - PB
Large Format 8.5" x 11" PB - 452 pages
In a very well-reasoned book, Michael Malone brings our attention to a number of learned authorities who teach that Our Lady was indeed baptized. He makes a very well-argued and logical case for this to have been, and further to have been necessary. Such an apparently outrageous claim! I have never considered such a possibility ~ that the Immaculately-Conceived Virgin Mother of God should have been baptized ... but out of necessity?Only a fool or a person of ill-will can deny that the Catholic Church today is in the midst of an unprecedented crisis and universal decline. Perhaps the chief reason for this is the utter collapse of the spirit of mission over the last thirty years. This, in my view, has been caused by "forgetting" the Dogma that outside the Church there is no salvation and its replacement with the obsession of an "Ecumenism" that would have us believe that all religions are an equally efficacious means of salvation. Whatever we might think about the theological accuracy of his case ~ and, to negate it would, I submit, prove difficult ~ Michael Malone reveals his utter Catholicity. Congratulations on a most stimulating book!Fr. Timothy Hopkins Shrine of St. Philomena Miami, Florida
Michael Malone is a graduate of the diocesan University of Dallas and lived in SanAntonio. He and his wife Jane are members of Our Lady of the Atonement parish. His field of endeavor involves an exhaustive study of all things touching the Catholic Church, from which he has composed, edited, and published some fifty books, essays, and articles over a penod of thirty-five years.
Pio Nono:A Study in European Politics and Religion in the Nineteenth Century
by E. E. Y. Hales - PB - 378 pages
At the time of his death in 1878 Pope Pius IX had served as pope longer than any pope besides Saint Peter. His papacy, from 1846 until 1878, was the political and religious pivot-point of the nineteenth century.He was elected pope as the candidate of the politically “liberal” party in the College of Cardinals. By liberal here we mean those who were sympathetic generally towards the new republican and anti-monarchical leanings of so many leaders and thinkers in those post-enlightenment years; but the violent revolutions of 1848 convinced him that the liberals had far more than merely political ends in mind. In fact, he now believed that the destruction of the Church was their ultimate goal, and for many of the leaders, it was. Because of that, he became, although not by his choice, a political as well as a religious warrior. Because the position that Pio Nono inherited as Pope was that not only of the universal shepherd of the faithful and vicar of Christ, but also that of a temporal Prince and sovereign, the task of leadership before him was inextricably intertwined with political and revolutionary affairs. The great battles of church and state that dominated that century were, by the grace of God, his to fight. Mr. Hales beautifully and faithfully tells us the story of that battle and Blessed Pio Nono’s part in it.
Rt. Rev. Fernand Cabrol, O.S.B. (1855–1937) - PB -386 pages
Rev. Cabrol was the Abbot at St. Michael's in Farnborough England and the Prior of Saint Peter's ins Solesmes France. He was one of the heirs to the great Liturgical revival begun by Dom Guéranger and the monks of Solesmes in France. This is the complete Divine Office for Holy Week at the time it was published in 1926. It is useful for those who celebrate the liturgical life of the Church according to the missals of 1962 or earlier. Also available in hardcover.
