A Godly Humanism: Clarifying the Hope That Lies Within

By: Cardinal Francis George OMI, Cardinal George OMI

Narrated by: Kevin F Spalding

Length: 5 hrs and 1 min

Publisher's summary

For Cardinal Francis George, the Catholic Church is not a movement built around ideas but a communion built around relationships. In A Godly Humanism, he shares his understanding of the church in lively, compelling prose, presenting a way to understand and appreciate the relationships of God to human beings and of human beings to one another. These loving relationships are continually made present to us in and through the church, from the time of Jesus' first disciples down to our own day.

We are introduced to how the spiritual and intellectual life of Christians, aided in every generation by the Holy Spirit working through the Apostles and their successors, resist the danger of splitting apart from one another. God is the nonstop giver, we are nonstop recipients of his gifts, and the recent popes, no less than the Father of the Church, have made every effort to make us aware of the graces - that is, of the unearned benefits that God confers on us as Catholics, as Christians, as believers, and simply as human persons.

Pope Francis, he reminds us, contrasts human planning with God's providence, and this book is at once an exposition of that providence and a personal response of gratitude for the way it has operated in one man's life. This persuasive book, imbued with the thoughts of profound thinkers from the ancient world, from St. Augustine and other church fathers, and steeped in the wisdom of church teaching from earliest times through to the Popes John Paul II, Benedict XVI, and Pope Francis.

The book is published by The Catholic University of America Press.

©2015 The Catholic University of America Press (P)2018 Redwood Audiobooks

Essays of the Christian Intellectual Life

The preface makes it clear that this is a series of essays (30-45 mins ea.) meant for reflection and not for apologetic discourse and theology/philosophy. While they contain a unifying theme and is directly targets to a relatively small audience of Catholic Intellectuals, it is useful for reflection by the laity as well. In general, these essays identify a tension between modern secular culture, grounded in rational/intellectual ideals and the traditional culture of the church grounded in faith/spirituality. These essay attempt to argue for the necessity of a synthesis between the two … without surrendering the putative authority of the magisterium … by appealing to the belief that [American] culture sees religion as the basis for communicating a moral code that tells us how to what we should do [as well as what we should think] that us a way to behave within society. All of this appears to be used as a foundation for essay 7 and the rehabilitation of Vatican II as a means to renew the mission of the Church to change the world by renewing/reforming the Church to be able to “talk to everyone” aka ecumenism. There is an interesting caveat here that highlight the danger of the Church losing its identify if it abandons its intellectual roots to become absorbed into service where there is no call for conversion (the primary mission of the Church). The last essay continue the rehabilitation effort for recent Popes attempting to preserve their moral authority and leadership.

Over all these was an interesting series if lacking in much depth; however, in view of the stated goal in the preface, it accomplished what it sets out to do, so I am inclined to give due credit with respect to how it rates against other works in the genre even as the preferred audience remains fairly restrictive (I doubt it would hold much interest for those outside the Catholic Church).

<spoiler>Preface and Retrospective
Chapter 1 - Saints in Catholic Intellectual Life
Chapter 2 - An Integrate Life
Chapter 3 - How God Thinks
Chapter 4 - A Christian Intellectual in a Post Christian Society
Chapter 5 - A Christian Intellectual and the Moral Life
Chapter 6 - Education that Integrates Culture and Religion
Chapter 7 - Integrating the Second Vatican Council
Chapter 8 - Recent Popes and the Renewal of Catholic Intellectual Life
</spoiler>

I was given this free advance listener copy (ALC) audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

#AGodlyHumanism #AudibookFree