Arriving in Rome from the Netherlands in 1895, the Catholic priest and Redemptorist Willem van Rossum (1854–1932) rose quickly through the ranks of the curia. In many ways an outsider, he made a resounding success of his career. His zeal in the fight against the ‘virus of modernism’ earned him a cardinal’s hat in 1911, and he was appointed prefect of the Congregation of Propaganda Fide in 1918. As ‘red pope’ or head of the Vatican’s mission department, Van Rossum led a hard-fought and ultimately successful campaign to separate missionary policy, fundraising and staffing from Western nationalism, and concentrate control over the worldwide missionary project at supranational level in Rome. He was the driving force behind two programmatic documents on the missions by Popes Benedict XV and Pius XI, which promoted the building up of indigenous churches and the educating of native clergy, thus helping to create a favourable position for the Catholic church during the subsequent wave of decolonisation. In the meantime, Van Rossum continued to decry Italian dominance in the church as well as the curia’s inefficiencies, for instance in a vituperative pamphlet that he wrote shortly before his death. This scholarly biography of Willem van Rossum rescues this great strategist behind the ‘popes of the missions’ from oblivion, and throws fascinating light on the history of the Catholic church and the Roman curia from the late nineteenth century until far into the twentieth.

Watch the Highlights Video of the June 24 live panel discussion from Rome.??????? When Pope Francis' pontificate has passed, it's very likely that one of the nineteen cardinals featured in these pages will be elected to become the next Supreme Pontiff of the Catholic Church, the spiritual leader of over a billion Catholics and the most influential and widely respected moral and religious figure in the world. Yet outside the Vatican walls, despite the considerable roles that some of these men play in the Church and in the world, few of them are known by the public — or even by their brother cardinals. Hence this book, an engrossing and thoroughly documented instrument through which a future pope may be known

In contrast to the role traditionally fulfilled by secular rulers, the pope has been perceived as an individual person existing in a body subject to decay and death, yet at the same time a corporeal representation of Christ and the Church, eternity and salvation. Using an array of evidence from the eleventh through the fifteenth centuries, Agostino Paravicini- Bagliani addresses this paradox. He studies the rituals, metaphors, and images of the pope's body as they developed over time and shows how they resulted in the expectation that the pope's body be simultaneously physical and metaphorical. Also included is a particular emphasis on the thirteenth century when, during the pontificate of Boniface VIII (1294-1303), the papal court became the focus of medicine and the natural sciences as physicians devised ways to protect the pope's health and prolong his life. Masterfully translated from the Italian, this engaging history of the pope's body provides a new perspective for readers to understand the papacy, both historically and in our own time.

Security issue has emerged in workshops and seminars as one of the pertinent themes of today. Global security is at stake as terror networks fuel hate and intolerance against the Christian minority. The Roman Catholic Church is subjected to threats by some radical section of Muslims, and fundamentalists from Pentecostal sects. Some Church ministers including popes have been targeted and attacked. Given such a situation; the security of the Pope and the Roman Catholic Church is an urgent theme for reflection in response to the concrete situations facing the Church. Security issue cannot be treated as peripheral theme in contemporary ecclesiology.

Pope Francis confuses many observers because his papacy does not fit neatly into any pre-established classificatory schemes. To gain a deeper appreciation of Francis’s complicated papacy, this volume proposes that an interdisciplinary approach, fusing concepts derived from moral theology and the social sciences, may properly situate Pope Francis as a global political entrepreneur. The chapters in this volume ask what difference it makes that he is the first pope from Latin America, how and why different countries in the world respond to him, how his understanding of scripture informs his ideas on economic, social, and environmental policy, and where politics meets theology under Francis. In the end, this volume seeks to provide a more robust understanding of the enigmatic papacy of Francis.

Pope Francis: The Last Pope? reveals the possible reasons for the choice of historical abdication of Benedict XVI and traces the process that led to the election of Cardinal Bergoglio: the Pope who many have prophesized will be the last and will bring the Catholic Church to its end. The book details the history of this prophecy, which was hidden away in the Vatican for hundreds of years and predicts that the reign of the last Pope will herald the beginning of "great apostasy" followed by "great tribulation." It also explores the recent scandals in the Catholic Church and addresses questions including What pressures decreed the end of the pontificate of Benedict XVI? What powers have an interest for the Church to end? and What is the relationship between the Vatican and the New World Order? Perfect for anyone interested in prophecies about the end times, Pope Francis: The Last Pope reveals the truth about what numerology says about the last Pope and the darkness that may follow him, as well as fascinating investigations into the gay lobby, Freemasonry, and the Jesuit agenda in the Vatican and how it relates to the first Borgia Pope, the legend of the White Pope and the Black Pope, and how Benedict's resignation may fulfill an ancient prophecy.