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Inside the Jesuits: How Pope Francis Is Changing the Church and the World

Hardcover |English |1442229012 | 9781442229013

Inside the Jesuits: How Pope Francis Is Changing the Church and the World

Hardcover |English |1442229012 | 9781442229013
Overview
Robert Blair Kaiser provides a poignant and informed account of the notably wide appeal of Pope Francis. Kaiser opens up the mystery.(James Carroll, author of Constantine's Sword: The Church and the Jews, A History)Kaiser writes with the enthusiasm and insight of one Jesuit for another Jesuit, Pope Francis. A brilliant journalist with immense experience, he explores Jesuit DNA to predict change in the papacy and Church. It excites with surprising revelations and perceptions. This is a must read for changing times.(Jane Anderson, University of Western Australia; author of Priests in Love)I have known Robert Kaiser since we both covered Vatican Two back in the sixties. He had an inside track, having been ten years a Jesuit, and he has now made an eloquent case for the hope that Pope Francis will transform the sclerotic Catholic Church. I hope that he is right.(Ted Morgan, biographer of Winston Churchill and Somerset Maugham; Pulitzer prizewinner)Kaiser, like Pope Francis, is 'a Jesuit at heart' and he knows what makes Jesuits tick. He is remarkably well-informed and connected, and is thus very well placed to tell us why Francis is turning the modern papacy upside-down. It is because of the pope's Jesuit DNA: the daring to think and act outside the box, to be free to innovate, to remain flexible, to adapt constantly, to set ambitious goals, to think globally, to move quickly, to take risks, to make mistakes—all to find the presence of God in the world.(Simon Bryden-Brook, Catholics for a Changing Church UK)Not for the first time, Robert Kaiser has got it absolutely right. Things really are different under this new Pope, and Kaiser's gift is to explain why, in terms of the 'Jesuit DNA' that are in the very fiber of Pope Francis' being. This is a remarkable insight into a Papacy that is strikingly new and that bids fair to bring to fulfillment the unfinished business of the Second Vatican Council (and here, of course, Kaiser's 'inside track' is enormously illuminating). There is a rollicking ride through the centuries of Jesuit history, at times inspiring, and at times uncomfortable reading for contemporary Jesuits. Kaiser shows how we are today living in an irreversibly new world: God is at work.(Nicholas King, S.J., Oxford University)OpeningInside the Jesuitsis like tearing the wrappings off a gift you thought lost in the snowdrifts of the stern winters that settled on the Church during the long papacies of John Paul II and Benedict XVI. Once opened, Robert Blair Kaiser's book brims with the rising light and warmth of spring in his seamlessly interwoven stories of Pope Francis and the Jesuit tradition he fulfills as, with the humility of Saint Francis and the spiritual depth of Saint Ignatius, he sets the table of the Church and invites the world to take the first places at the feast that Vatican II prepared for it. Nobody does this with the insight or art of Robert Blair Kaiser who was prepared for this challenge by his own interwoven years as a Jesuit seminarian and as a journalist who covered Vatican II for TIME magazine. Kaiser finds the Jesuit tradition with its deep discipline and its commitment ever to seek out the little explored margins of human knowledge and experience exemplified in Pope Francis who, because he is not defensive makes the world comfortable enough to lower its own defenses toward the Church. This is an engrossing and, yes, a thrilling book to read by anyone drawn toward this deeply spiritual and yet profoundly human Pope. In short, Kaiser tells us, just what you would expect from a Jesuit Pope.(Eugene Cullen Kennedy, emeritus professor of psychology, Loyola University of Chicago)Among the few living journalists to have reported the Second Vatican Council, Robert Kaiser offers a unique and rich perspective as he connects the Catholic story over five decades. So anchored, his Jesuit credentials add yet another special vantage. The Pope Francis story remains larger than most can yet imagine. This book helps explain why.(Tom Fox, editor, National Catholic Reporter)It is rare that you can get to know a pope from the ‘inside’. Yet that is precisely what Robert Kaiser has done. He has got ‘inside’ Pope Francis by highlighting how the pope’s spirituality and training has made being a Jesuit part of his DNA. Francis is a Jesuit to the core of his being and Kaiser spells out with lucidity and style what this will mean for his papacy. With an insider’s eye for detail, Kaiser introduces us to the spirituality and creativity that characterizes the best men in the Jesuit tradition, men who are always out ‘on the edge’. He sees Francis as being the first pope for centuries who will challenge the church to move outside its comfort zone, as well as being precisely the style of church leader that Vatican Council II wanted.Inside the Jesuitsis both provocative and reassuring: ‘provocative’ when Kaiser outlines just how challenging Francis’ approach to being bishop of Rome will be. And ‘reassuring’ in that Francis is the most Christ-like pope Catholicism has had for centuries.(Paul Collins, author of The Birth of the West)A compelling read if only to hear Robert Kaiser wax rhapsodic about a pope! But there's more, for Kaiser writes from that peculiar 21st century space where a "former" Jesuit can yet profess his enduring affection for the order and the church.(Tom Roberts, editor at large, National Catholic Reporter)Only Robert Blair Kaiser could have pulled this off.Inside the Jesuits, an admiring analysis of what makes the Jesuits such extraordinary achievers in the life of the Post-Reformation Church, is woven seamlessly into a penetrating, astute, and thoroughly engaging reflection on the promise of the first Jesuit Pope. An extraordinary achievement!(Donald Cozzens, John Carroll University, author of Notes from the Underground: The Spiritual Journal of a Secular Priest)At once chatty, insightful, and profound, this part-memoir, part study of Pope Francis as a Jesuit by the doyen of American Catholic religious journalists will delight and inform a wide audience. Written in an engaging style, it is deeply informative of how and why Cardinal Bergoglio was elected, and what we may and may not expect from his papacy. Robert Kaiser places Pope Francis wisely and well amid his Jesuit peers and the Order’s history and charism, puts both Kaiser himself and the pope into conversation with major events and movements in the last fifty years of the Catholic Church’s history, and conveys so well the sense of constructive excitement that Francis’s election has brought to the Church.(Paul Lakeland, Aloysius P. Kelley, S.J., Professor of Catholic Studies, Fairfield University)Robert Kaiser has written a spirited defense of the social gospel, with special attention to Pope Francis and his "Jesuit DNA." As an ex-Jesuit I found this enlightening and indeed persuasive at important points. His hopes for a curing of the papal curia and his stories of Jesuit theologians' trail-blazing in matters of faith were of special interest.(Jim Bowman, author of Company Man: My Jesuit Life, 1950-1968)
ISBN: 1442229012
ISBN13: 9781442229013
Author: Robert Blair Kaiser
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Format: Hardcover
PublicationDate: 2014-05-23
Language: English
PageCount: 238
Dimensions: 6.39 x 0.9 x 9.25 inches
Weight: 18.08 ounces
Robert Blair Kaiser provides a poignant and informed account of the notably wide appeal of Pope Francis. Kaiser opens up the mystery.(James Carroll, author of Constantine's Sword: The Church and the Jews, A History)Kaiser writes with the enthusiasm and insight of one Jesuit for another Jesuit, Pope Francis. A brilliant journalist with immense experience, he explores Jesuit DNA to predict change in the papacy and Church. It excites with surprising revelations and perceptions. This is a must read for changing times.(Jane Anderson, University of Western Australia; author of Priests in Love)I have known Robert Kaiser since we both covered Vatican Two back in the sixties. He had an inside track, having been ten years a Jesuit, and he has now made an eloquent case for the hope that Pope Francis will transform the sclerotic Catholic Church. I hope that he is right.(Ted Morgan, biographer of Winston Churchill and Somerset Maugham; Pulitzer prizewinner)Kaiser, like Pope Francis, is 'a Jesuit at heart' and he knows what makes Jesuits tick. He is remarkably well-informed and connected, and is thus very well placed to tell us why Francis is turning the modern papacy upside-down. It is because of the pope's Jesuit DNA: the daring to think and act outside the box, to be free to innovate, to remain flexible, to adapt constantly, to set ambitious goals, to think globally, to move quickly, to take risks, to make mistakes—all to find the presence of God in the world.(Simon Bryden-Brook, Catholics for a Changing Church UK)Not for the first time, Robert Kaiser has got it absolutely right. Things really are different under this new Pope, and Kaiser's gift is to explain why, in terms of the 'Jesuit DNA' that are in the very fiber of Pope Francis' being. This is a remarkable insight into a Papacy that is strikingly new and that bids fair to bring to fulfillment the unfinished business of the Second Vatican Council (and here, of course, Kaiser's 'inside track' is enormously illuminating). There is a rollicking ride through the centuries of Jesuit history, at times inspiring, and at times uncomfortable reading for contemporary Jesuits. Kaiser shows how we are today living in an irreversibly new world: God is at work.(Nicholas King, S.J., Oxford University)OpeningInside the Jesuitsis like tearing the wrappings off a gift you thought lost in the snowdrifts of the stern winters that settled on the Church during the long papacies of John Paul II and Benedict XVI. Once opened, Robert Blair Kaiser's book brims with the rising light and warmth of spring in his seamlessly interwoven stories of Pope Francis and the Jesuit tradition he fulfills as, with the humility of Saint Francis and the spiritual depth of Saint Ignatius, he sets the table of the Church and invites the world to take the first places at the feast that Vatican II prepared for it. Nobody does this with the insight or art of Robert Blair Kaiser who was prepared for this challenge by his own interwoven years as a Jesuit seminarian and as a journalist who covered Vatican II for TIME magazine. Kaiser finds the Jesuit tradition with its deep discipline and its commitment ever to seek out the little explored margins of human knowledge and experience exemplified in Pope Francis who, because he is not defensive makes the world comfortable enough to lower its own defenses toward the Church. This is an engrossing and, yes, a thrilling book to read by anyone drawn toward this deeply spiritual and yet profoundly human Pope. In short, Kaiser tells us, just what you would expect from a Jesuit Pope.(Eugene Cullen Kennedy, emeritus professor of psychology, Loyola University of Chicago)Among the few living journalists to have reported the Second Vatican Council, Robert Kaiser offers a unique and rich perspective as he connects the Catholic story over five decades. So anchored, his Jesuit credentials add yet another special vantage. The Pope Francis story remains larger than most can yet imagine. This book helps explain why.(Tom Fox, editor, National Catholic Reporter)It is rare that you can get to know a pope from the ‘inside’. Yet that is precisely what Robert Kaiser has done. He has got ‘inside’ Pope Francis by highlighting how the pope’s spirituality and training has made being a Jesuit part of his DNA. Francis is a Jesuit to the core of his being and Kaiser spells out with lucidity and style what this will mean for his papacy. With an insider’s eye for detail, Kaiser introduces us to the spirituality and creativity that characterizes the best men in the Jesuit tradition, men who are always out ‘on the edge’. He sees Francis as being the first pope for centuries who will challenge the church to move outside its comfort zone, as well as being precisely the style of church leader that Vatican Council II wanted.Inside the Jesuitsis both provocative and reassuring: ‘provocative’ when Kaiser outlines just how challenging Francis’ approach to being bishop of Rome will be. And ‘reassuring’ in that Francis is the most Christ-like pope Catholicism has had for centuries.(Paul Collins, author of The Birth of the West)A compelling read if only to hear Robert Kaiser wax rhapsodic about a pope! But there's more, for Kaiser writes from that peculiar 21st century space where a "former" Jesuit can yet profess his enduring affection for the order and the church.(Tom Roberts, editor at large, National Catholic Reporter)Only Robert Blair Kaiser could have pulled this off.Inside the Jesuits, an admiring analysis of what makes the Jesuits such extraordinary achievers in the life of the Post-Reformation Church, is woven seamlessly into a penetrating, astute, and thoroughly engaging reflection on the promise of the first Jesuit Pope. An extraordinary achievement!(Donald Cozzens, John Carroll University, author of Notes from the Underground: The Spiritual Journal of a Secular Priest)At once chatty, insightful, and profound, this part-memoir, part study of Pope Francis as a Jesuit by the doyen of American Catholic religious journalists will delight and inform a wide audience. Written in an engaging style, it is deeply informative of how and why Cardinal Bergoglio was elected, and what we may and may not expect from his papacy. Robert Kaiser places Pope Francis wisely and well amid his Jesuit peers and the Order’s history and charism, puts both Kaiser himself and the pope into conversation with major events and movements in the last fifty years of the Catholic Church’s history, and conveys so well the sense of constructive excitement that Francis’s election has brought to the Church.(Paul Lakeland, Aloysius P. Kelley, S.J., Professor of Catholic Studies, Fairfield University)Robert Kaiser has written a spirited defense of the social gospel, with special attention to Pope Francis and his "Jesuit DNA." As an ex-Jesuit I found this enlightening and indeed persuasive at important points. His hopes for a curing of the papal curia and his stories of Jesuit theologians' trail-blazing in matters of faith were of special interest.(Jim Bowman, author of Company Man: My Jesuit Life, 1950-1968)

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Overview
Robert Blair Kaiser provides a poignant and informed account of the notably wide appeal of Pope Francis. Kaiser opens up the mystery.(James Carroll, author of Constantine's Sword: The Church and the Jews, A History)Kaiser writes with the enthusiasm and insight of one Jesuit for another Jesuit, Pope Francis. A brilliant journalist with immense experience, he explores Jesuit DNA to predict change in the papacy and Church. It excites with surprising revelations and perceptions. This is a must read for changing times.(Jane Anderson, University of Western Australia; author of Priests in Love)I have known Robert Kaiser since we both covered Vatican Two back in the sixties. He had an inside track, having been ten years a Jesuit, and he has now made an eloquent case for the hope that Pope Francis will transform the sclerotic Catholic Church. I hope that he is right.(Ted Morgan, biographer of Winston Churchill and Somerset Maugham; Pulitzer prizewinner)Kaiser, like Pope Francis, is 'a Jesuit at heart' and he knows what makes Jesuits tick. He is remarkably well-informed and connected, and is thus very well placed to tell us why Francis is turning the modern papacy upside-down. It is because of the pope's Jesuit DNA: the daring to think and act outside the box, to be free to innovate, to remain flexible, to adapt constantly, to set ambitious goals, to think globally, to move quickly, to take risks, to make mistakes—all to find the presence of God in the world.(Simon Bryden-Brook, Catholics for a Changing Church UK)Not for the first time, Robert Kaiser has got it absolutely right. Things really are different under this new Pope, and Kaiser's gift is to explain why, in terms of the 'Jesuit DNA' that are in the very fiber of Pope Francis' being. This is a remarkable insight into a Papacy that is strikingly new and that bids fair to bring to fulfillment the unfinished business of the Second Vatican Council (and here, of course, Kaiser's 'inside track' is enormously illuminating). There is a rollicking ride through the centuries of Jesuit history, at times inspiring, and at times uncomfortable reading for contemporary Jesuits. Kaiser shows how we are today living in an irreversibly new world: God is at work.(Nicholas King, S.J., Oxford University)OpeningInside the Jesuitsis like tearing the wrappings off a gift you thought lost in the snowdrifts of the stern winters that settled on the Church during the long papacies of John Paul II and Benedict XVI. Once opened, Robert Blair Kaiser's book brims with the rising light and warmth of spring in his seamlessly interwoven stories of Pope Francis and the Jesuit tradition he fulfills as, with the humility of Saint Francis and the spiritual depth of Saint Ignatius, he sets the table of the Church and invites the world to take the first places at the feast that Vatican II prepared for it. Nobody does this with the insight or art of Robert Blair Kaiser who was prepared for this challenge by his own interwoven years as a Jesuit seminarian and as a journalist who covered Vatican II for TIME magazine. Kaiser finds the Jesuit tradition with its deep discipline and its commitment ever to seek out the little explored margins of human knowledge and experience exemplified in Pope Francis who, because he is not defensive makes the world comfortable enough to lower its own defenses toward the Church. This is an engrossing and, yes, a thrilling book to read by anyone drawn toward this deeply spiritual and yet profoundly human Pope. In short, Kaiser tells us, just what you would expect from a Jesuit Pope.(Eugene Cullen Kennedy, emeritus professor of psychology, Loyola University of Chicago)Among the few living journalists to have reported the Second Vatican Council, Robert Kaiser offers a unique and rich perspective as he connects the Catholic story over five decades. So anchored, his Jesuit credentials add yet another special vantage. The Pope Francis story remains larger than most can yet imagine. This book helps explain why.(Tom Fox, editor, National Catholic Reporter)It is rare that you can get to know a pope from the ‘inside’. Yet that is precisely what Robert Kaiser has done. He has got ‘inside’ Pope Francis by highlighting how the pope’s spirituality and training has made being a Jesuit part of his DNA. Francis is a Jesuit to the core of his being and Kaiser spells out with lucidity and style what this will mean for his papacy. With an insider’s eye for detail, Kaiser introduces us to the spirituality and creativity that characterizes the best men in the Jesuit tradition, men who are always out ‘on the edge’. He sees Francis as being the first pope for centuries who will challenge the church to move outside its comfort zone, as well as being precisely the style of church leader that Vatican Council II wanted.Inside the Jesuitsis both provocative and reassuring: ‘provocative’ when Kaiser outlines just how challenging Francis’ approach to being bishop of Rome will be. And ‘reassuring’ in that Francis is the most Christ-like pope Catholicism has had for centuries.(Paul Collins, author of The Birth of the West)A compelling read if only to hear Robert Kaiser wax rhapsodic about a pope! But there's more, for Kaiser writes from that peculiar 21st century space where a "former" Jesuit can yet profess his enduring affection for the order and the church.(Tom Roberts, editor at large, National Catholic Reporter)Only Robert Blair Kaiser could have pulled this off.Inside the Jesuits, an admiring analysis of what makes the Jesuits such extraordinary achievers in the life of the Post-Reformation Church, is woven seamlessly into a penetrating, astute, and thoroughly engaging reflection on the promise of the first Jesuit Pope. An extraordinary achievement!(Donald Cozzens, John Carroll University, author of Notes from the Underground: The Spiritual Journal of a Secular Priest)At once chatty, insightful, and profound, this part-memoir, part study of Pope Francis as a Jesuit by the doyen of American Catholic religious journalists will delight and inform a wide audience. Written in an engaging style, it is deeply informative of how and why Cardinal Bergoglio was elected, and what we may and may not expect from his papacy. Robert Kaiser places Pope Francis wisely and well amid his Jesuit peers and the Order’s history and charism, puts both Kaiser himself and the pope into conversation with major events and movements in the last fifty years of the Catholic Church’s history, and conveys so well the sense of constructive excitement that Francis’s election has brought to the Church.(Paul Lakeland, Aloysius P. Kelley, S.J., Professor of Catholic Studies, Fairfield University)Robert Kaiser has written a spirited defense of the social gospel, with special attention to Pope Francis and his "Jesuit DNA." As an ex-Jesuit I found this enlightening and indeed persuasive at important points. His hopes for a curing of the papal curia and his stories of Jesuit theologians' trail-blazing in matters of faith were of special interest.(Jim Bowman, author of Company Man: My Jesuit Life, 1950-1968)
ISBN: 1442229012
ISBN13: 9781442229013
Author: Robert Blair Kaiser
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Format: Hardcover
PublicationDate: 2014-05-23
Language: English
PageCount: 238
Dimensions: 6.39 x 0.9 x 9.25 inches
Weight: 18.08 ounces
Robert Blair Kaiser provides a poignant and informed account of the notably wide appeal of Pope Francis. Kaiser opens up the mystery.(James Carroll, author of Constantine's Sword: The Church and the Jews, A History)Kaiser writes with the enthusiasm and insight of one Jesuit for another Jesuit, Pope Francis. A brilliant journalist with immense experience, he explores Jesuit DNA to predict change in the papacy and Church. It excites with surprising revelations and perceptions. This is a must read for changing times.(Jane Anderson, University of Western Australia; author of Priests in Love)I have known Robert Kaiser since we both covered Vatican Two back in the sixties. He had an inside track, having been ten years a Jesuit, and he has now made an eloquent case for the hope that Pope Francis will transform the sclerotic Catholic Church. I hope that he is right.(Ted Morgan, biographer of Winston Churchill and Somerset Maugham; Pulitzer prizewinner)Kaiser, like Pope Francis, is 'a Jesuit at heart' and he knows what makes Jesuits tick. He is remarkably well-informed and connected, and is thus very well placed to tell us why Francis is turning the modern papacy upside-down. It is because of the pope's Jesuit DNA: the daring to think and act outside the box, to be free to innovate, to remain flexible, to adapt constantly, to set ambitious goals, to think globally, to move quickly, to take risks, to make mistakes—all to find the presence of God in the world.(Simon Bryden-Brook, Catholics for a Changing Church UK)Not for the first time, Robert Kaiser has got it absolutely right. Things really are different under this new Pope, and Kaiser's gift is to explain why, in terms of the 'Jesuit DNA' that are in the very fiber of Pope Francis' being. This is a remarkable insight into a Papacy that is strikingly new and that bids fair to bring to fulfillment the unfinished business of the Second Vatican Council (and here, of course, Kaiser's 'inside track' is enormously illuminating). There is a rollicking ride through the centuries of Jesuit history, at times inspiring, and at times uncomfortable reading for contemporary Jesuits. Kaiser shows how we are today living in an irreversibly new world: God is at work.(Nicholas King, S.J., Oxford University)OpeningInside the Jesuitsis like tearing the wrappings off a gift you thought lost in the snowdrifts of the stern winters that settled on the Church during the long papacies of John Paul II and Benedict XVI. Once opened, Robert Blair Kaiser's book brims with the rising light and warmth of spring in his seamlessly interwoven stories of Pope Francis and the Jesuit tradition he fulfills as, with the humility of Saint Francis and the spiritual depth of Saint Ignatius, he sets the table of the Church and invites the world to take the first places at the feast that Vatican II prepared for it. Nobody does this with the insight or art of Robert Blair Kaiser who was prepared for this challenge by his own interwoven years as a Jesuit seminarian and as a journalist who covered Vatican II for TIME magazine. Kaiser finds the Jesuit tradition with its deep discipline and its commitment ever to seek out the little explored margins of human knowledge and experience exemplified in Pope Francis who, because he is not defensive makes the world comfortable enough to lower its own defenses toward the Church. This is an engrossing and, yes, a thrilling book to read by anyone drawn toward this deeply spiritual and yet profoundly human Pope. In short, Kaiser tells us, just what you would expect from a Jesuit Pope.(Eugene Cullen Kennedy, emeritus professor of psychology, Loyola University of Chicago)Among the few living journalists to have reported the Second Vatican Council, Robert Kaiser offers a unique and rich perspective as he connects the Catholic story over five decades. So anchored, his Jesuit credentials add yet another special vantage. The Pope Francis story remains larger than most can yet imagine. This book helps explain why.(Tom Fox, editor, National Catholic Reporter)It is rare that you can get to know a pope from the ‘inside’. Yet that is precisely what Robert Kaiser has done. He has got ‘inside’ Pope Francis by highlighting how the pope’s spirituality and training has made being a Jesuit part of his DNA. Francis is a Jesuit to the core of his being and Kaiser spells out with lucidity and style what this will mean for his papacy. With an insider’s eye for detail, Kaiser introduces us to the spirituality and creativity that characterizes the best men in the Jesuit tradition, men who are always out ‘on the edge’. He sees Francis as being the first pope for centuries who will challenge the church to move outside its comfort zone, as well as being precisely the style of church leader that Vatican Council II wanted.Inside the Jesuitsis both provocative and reassuring: ‘provocative’ when Kaiser outlines just how challenging Francis’ approach to being bishop of Rome will be. And ‘reassuring’ in that Francis is the most Christ-like pope Catholicism has had for centuries.(Paul Collins, author of The Birth of the West)A compelling read if only to hear Robert Kaiser wax rhapsodic about a pope! But there's more, for Kaiser writes from that peculiar 21st century space where a "former" Jesuit can yet profess his enduring affection for the order and the church.(Tom Roberts, editor at large, National Catholic Reporter)Only Robert Blair Kaiser could have pulled this off.Inside the Jesuits, an admiring analysis of what makes the Jesuits such extraordinary achievers in the life of the Post-Reformation Church, is woven seamlessly into a penetrating, astute, and thoroughly engaging reflection on the promise of the first Jesuit Pope. An extraordinary achievement!(Donald Cozzens, John Carroll University, author of Notes from the Underground: The Spiritual Journal of a Secular Priest)At once chatty, insightful, and profound, this part-memoir, part study of Pope Francis as a Jesuit by the doyen of American Catholic religious journalists will delight and inform a wide audience. Written in an engaging style, it is deeply informative of how and why Cardinal Bergoglio was elected, and what we may and may not expect from his papacy. Robert Kaiser places Pope Francis wisely and well amid his Jesuit peers and the Order’s history and charism, puts both Kaiser himself and the pope into conversation with major events and movements in the last fifty years of the Catholic Church’s history, and conveys so well the sense of constructive excitement that Francis’s election has brought to the Church.(Paul Lakeland, Aloysius P. Kelley, S.J., Professor of Catholic Studies, Fairfield University)Robert Kaiser has written a spirited defense of the social gospel, with special attention to Pope Francis and his "Jesuit DNA." As an ex-Jesuit I found this enlightening and indeed persuasive at important points. His hopes for a curing of the papal curia and his stories of Jesuit theologians' trail-blazing in matters of faith were of special interest.(Jim Bowman, author of Company Man: My Jesuit Life, 1950-1968)

Books - New and Used

The following guidelines apply to books:

  • New: A brand-new copy with cover and original protective wrapping intact. Books with markings of any kind on the cover or pages, books marked as "Bargain" or "Remainder," or with any other labels attached, may not be listed as New condition.
  • Used - Good: All pages and cover are intact (including the dust cover, if applicable). Spine may show signs of wear. Pages may include limited notes and highlighting. May include "From the library of" labels. Shrink wrap, dust covers, or boxed set case may be missing. Item may be missing bundled media.
  • Used - Acceptable: All pages and the cover are intact, but shrink wrap, dust covers, or boxed set case may be missing. Pages may include limited notes, highlighting, or minor water damage but the text is readable. Item may but the dust cover may be missing. Pages may include limited notes and highlighting, but the text cannot be obscured or unreadable.

Note: Some electronic material access codes are valid only for one user. For this reason, used books, including books listed in the Used – Like New condition, may not come with functional electronic material access codes.

Shipping Fees

  • Stevens Books offers FREE SHIPPING everywhere in the United States for ALL non-book orders, and $3.99 for each book.
  • Packages are shipped from Monday to Friday.
  • No additional fees and charges.

Delivery Times

The usual time for processing an order is 24 hours (1 business day), but may vary depending on the availability of products ordered. This period excludes delivery times, which depend on your geographic location.

Estimated delivery times:

  • Standard Shipping: 5-8 business days
  • Expedited Shipping: 3-5 business days

Shipping method varies depending on what is being shipped.  

Tracking
All orders are shipped with a tracking number. Once your order has left our warehouse, a confirmation e-mail with a tracking number will be sent to you. You will be able to track your package at all times. 

Damaged Parcel
If your package has been delivered in a PO Box, please note that we are not responsible for any damage that may result (consequences of extreme temperatures, theft, etc.). 

If you have any questions regarding shipping or want to know about the status of an order, please contact us or email to support@stevensbooks.com.

You may return most items within 30 days of delivery for a full refund.

To be eligible for a return, your item must be unused and in the same condition that you received it. It must also be in the original packaging.

Several types of goods are exempt from being returned. Perishable goods such as food, flowers, newspapers or magazines cannot be returned. We also do not accept products that are intimate or sanitary goods, hazardous materials, or flammable liquids or gases.

Additional non-returnable items:

  • Gift cards
  • Downloadable software products
  • Some health and personal care items

To complete your return, we require a tracking number, which shows the items which you already returned to us.
There are certain situations where only partial refunds are granted (if applicable)

  • Book with obvious signs of use
  • CD, DVD, VHS tape, software, video game, cassette tape, or vinyl record that has been opened
  • Any item not in its original condition, is damaged or missing parts for reasons not due to our error
  • Any item that is returned more than 30 days after delivery

Items returned to us as a result of our error will receive a full refund,some returns may be subject to a restocking fee of 7% of the total item price, please contact a customer care team member to see if your return is subject. Returns that arrived on time and were as described are subject to a restocking fee.

Items returned to us that were not the result of our error, including items returned to us due to an invalid or incomplete address, will be refunded the original item price less our standard restocking fees.

If the item is returned to us for any of the following reasons, a 15% restocking fee will be applied to your refund total and you will be asked to pay for return shipping:

  • Item(s) no longer needed or wanted.
  • Item(s) returned to us due to an invalid or incomplete address.
  • Item(s) returned to us that were not a result of our error.

You should expect to receive your refund within four weeks of giving your package to the return shipper, however, in many cases you will receive a refund more quickly. This time period includes the transit time for us to receive your return from the shipper (5 to 10 business days), the time it takes us to process your return once we receive it (3 to 5 business days), and the time it takes your bank to process our refund request (5 to 10 business days).

If you need to return an item, please Contact Us with your order number and details about the product you would like to return. We will respond quickly with instructions for how to return items from your order.


Shipping Cost


We'll pay the return shipping costs if the return is a result of our error (you received an incorrect or defective item, etc.). In other cases, you will be responsible for paying for your own shipping costs for returning your item. Shipping costs are non-refundable. If you receive a refund, the cost of return shipping will be deducted from your refund.

Depending on where you live, the time it may take for your exchanged product to reach you, may vary.

If you are shipping an item over $75, you should consider using a trackable shipping service or purchasing shipping insurance. We don’t guarantee that we will receive your returned item.

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