What Is Catholicism?: Hard Questions-Straight Answers

What is Catholicism? Questions ... Answers ... Truth Can you defend your Faith without becoming tongue-tied or vacillating? Do you feel adequately prepared to explain Church teaching to anyone who asks? Now you can. Using language and terms all of us can understand, Father John Redford gives straight answers to more than fifty of the hardest questions about Catholicism. From the Bible and Church authority to sexuality and ecumenism, this work grapples with the basic tenets of Catholic teaching and provides straightforward responses to such pointed questions as How can apologetics (the defense of one's own Faith) be reconciled with ecumenism (the search for visible unity among all Christians)? and Has the Roman Catholic Church, in its doctrines of the Virgin Mary, confused doctrine and Tradition with legend? With respect and insight into other Christian traditions as well as a keen grasp of the philosophical perspectives from which most hard questions about the Faith arise, Father Redford addresses even the most complex issues with simplicity, clarity, and vision. If you want to know exactly what the Church teaches and be able to share that knowledge with others, What Is Catholicism? with its easy-to-use index and bibliography, is an essential reference guide to Catholic thought and teaching. What Is Catholicism? is a defense of normative Christianity against modern infidelity... .Father Redford does not shrink from giving solid reasons for holding that God is real, that Jesus is indeed the Son of God, and that he remains in his Church, which subsists in the Roman Catholic communion.... -Avery Dulles, S.J. John Redford, a former Anglican deacon, was received into the Catholic Church and ordained to the priesthood in 1967. He is the former editor of Faith Alive, an adult catechetical program, and Director of the first Distance Learning theology degree in Britain. He is currently a parish priest of Hersden, C