Robert Royal Livres

From the Catholic martyrs at Auschwitz to Oscar Romero; from Ita Ford and her companions to the recent murders of Christians in India, it is estimated that more than one million Christians died for their faith in the “century of progress” we have just experienced. In The Catholic Martyrs of the Twentieth Century, Robert Royal presents a wide-ranging history of these martyrs. The book traces the specific situation of each incident and studies the political system and the reason for confrontation. Regions and topics include the Calvary of Romania, the death of Edith Stein, Miguel Pro and the Mexican tragedy, Soviet Russia, and China.

Secular humanists and other “progressives” have been predicting the demise of religion for the past 250 years. But they keep running into a problem: those who were supposed to be liberated by the secular gospel that God is Dead aren’t buying it. Except for some parts of western Europe and in countries culturally destroyed by Communism, secularization in the radical sense has not occurred. While it has not obliterated the religious impulse, however, the drive towards “progressive irreligion” has, Robert Royal believes, encouraged ignorance of religion’s central role in the development of the West. In The God That Did Not Fail, Royal offers an original reading of religion in ancient Greece and Rome, of Christianity and Judaism, the Middle Ages, the Renaissance and Reformation, the several modern Enlightenments, culminating with a profound assessment of our current postmodern moment. He concludes that since religion is a permanent part of human nature and of the particular character of the West, our efforts should be directed not into a quixotic effort to deny the undeniable, especially as we face challenges from Islamic fundamentalism, but into promoting a well thought out and dynamic interplay of faith, reason, and modern freedoms.

"This wide-ranging and ambitious volume is a comprehensive and balanced appraisal of the Catholic intellectual tradition in the twentieth century. Robert Royal presents a sweeping account of the important contributions to philosophy, theology, Scripture studies, and literature made by prominent modern Catholics whose accomplishments have been recognized both inside and outside the Church. He demonstrates that the Catholic tradition has always united emotion and intellect, action and contemplation into a comprehensive whole."--Publisher description