"Dad, what HAPPENS when you go to cofession?" "Do dogs have souls?" "What about capital punishment?" "My friends say evolution is wrong. What does the Church teach?"

Answers to these and hundreds of other questions your kids (or you) are likely to ask while you try to raise them in the faith are answered here. And, they are good answers ... ones that just about anybody can understand.

An great book, essential for answering the tough questions your kids come up with in between dinner and bedtime.

As a practicing Latin Rite Roman Catholic, I refer to this book all the time. I would consider the book useful to non-Catholics as well, who want to learn precisely what Catholics believe, straight from the horse's mouth: the Vatican, which is the custodian and focal point of all statements, decisions, and publications of Roman Catholic bishops worldwide (who are believed to be, by Catholics, successors of the 11 apostles---minus Judas---after Christ's resurrection and who are the modern day apostles). All other cathecisms are knock-offs and immitations of this official Vatican publication.

803 pages total

This feedback is solely my individual opinion and is in no way associated with my employer nor with any other organization.

Unfortunately, much misinformation is out there in print regarding the Catholic faith, and even the right information is sometimes difficult to understand for Catholics, much less non-Catholics. So, too, studious Catholics may have read a number of books by Catholic authors, i.e. St. Augustine, Chesterton, Fr. Bernard Groeschel, St. Theresa of Avila, yet they still don't have a complete handle on some of the basics, but "Catholicism For Dummies" fills in all the blanks and casts away the falsehoods.

This book should find a place in every Catholic home and in every high-school senior and college freshman catechism class.

While dispelling the wrong data, "Catholicsim for Dummies" also presents the true and authentic beliefs, practices, prayer & spirituality as well as moral and institutional dimensions to this ancient, worldwide Christian religion. It is a wonderful introduction to the Catechism of the Catholic Church and it acquaints the non-Catholic with a one BILLION plus member church while reaquainting the Catholic to his/her roots and heriage.

Marcus Tullius Cicero may not have been the greatest trial lawyer of ancient Rome, but he is the best remembered. He wrote much on many subjects, and some of his private correspondence also survives. He did his best writing in the field of rhetoric. Although he was not an original thinker on the subject of rhetoric, "De Oratore" shows him to have had an encyclopedic practical knowledge of oratory in general and criminal trial advocacy in particular.

Cicero wrote "De Oratore" as a dialog among some of the preeminent orators of the era immediately preceding Cicero's time. The occasion is a holiday at a country villa, and the characters discuss all facets of oratory, ceremonial, judicial, and deliberative. They devote most of the discussion to judicial oratory, and their discussion reveals the trial of a Roman lawsuit to be somewhat analogous to the trial of a modern lawsuit. You have to piece it together from stray references to procedure scattered throughout the work, but it appears that a Roman trial consisted of opening statements, the taking of evidence, and final arguments. Modern trial advocacy manuals devote most of their attention to the taking of evidence, but Cicero dismisses the mechanics of presenting evidence as relatively unimportant compared to the mechanics of presenting argument.

"De Oratore" is divided into three books. The first speaks of the qualities of the orator; the second of judicial oratory, and the third of ceremonial and deliberative oratory. The modern trial lawyer would find the second book most interesting and most enlightening. A lot about trial advocacy has changed since Cicero's day (e.g. no more testimony taken under torture), but a lot hasn't.. Much of what Cicero says holds true even in the modern courtroom.

Trial lawyers cannot congregate without swapping "war stories," and Cicero's characters are no exception. They pepper their discussion with references to courtroom incidents which have such verisimilitude that they could have happened last week instead of 2,000 years ago. I have no doubt that Cicero, had he lived today, would have made a formidable trial lawyer.

The Loeb Classical Library edition of "De Oratore" consists of two volumes. Volume one contains Books I and II of "De Oratore," and volume two contains Book III along with two shorter philosphical works and "De Partitione Oratoria." "De Partitione" purports to be a discussion between Cicero and his son on oratory. "De Partitione" differs so much from "De Oratore," that many (myself included) doubt Cicero wrote it.

"Rhetorica ad Herennium" reads like a loom. It states its points in clear, concise language without elaboration. The points are well made and highly relevant to the subject of persuasive oratory.

You might well describe "Rhetorica" as an ancient handbook on the subject of arguing a criminal case to a jury. At some trial advocacy school I attended sometime during my career as a lawyer, I learned a basic outline for delivering a final argument. You can imagine my amusement when I learned that this basic outline came from a 2,000 year old book. That isn't the only part of the book applicable to the modern courtroom.

The ancient rhetorician was to be skilled in five areas: 1. Invention: Deciding what to say. 2. Arrangment: Deciding what order to say it in. 3. Style: Saying it well. 4. Memory: Remembering what to say. 5. Delivery: The nonverbals that accompany speech.

"Rhetorica" consists of four books arranged as follows:

Books I & II cover Invention, especially as it relates to Judicial or Forensic Rhetoric, giving an analysis as timely as an article from last week's law journal. Although the technology of rhetoric has changed markedly since the days of Cicero, the general principles of rhetoric haven't changed much at all.

Book III takes up Ceremonial and Deliberative Rhetoric and also deals with Arrangement, Delivery, and Memory.

Book IV, which proves the most tedious, deals with Style.

As a Mormon who'd been raised as a fundamentalist Christian for the early part of her life, I found all this to be an exercise in religious tolerance. I had always been taught that praying to Mary was at best a mockery of God, and at worst idolatry. Even after I joined the LDS Church and was taught of the existence of a Heavenly Mother co-equal with God the Father I had an internal conflict about praying the Rosary; despite Her existence and supposed equality, most traditional Latter-day Saints still believe we should only pray to God the Father, and since most Catholics still deny Mary's status as a Goddess despite her every effort to act like one, it was easy to dismiss praying the Rosary as worship of a "mere" Saint and not reverence for the Divine Feminine. Mormons also have a problem with using "vain repetition" in their prayers, where the words are parroted but not truly meant or understood. For this reason, Latter-day Saints have very few written prayers, instead using spontaneous prayer "from the heart". The Rosary, at least by outward appearances, seemed to be a prime example of this "vain repetition" people of my faith strived to avoid, and so I struggled against praying it, too.

I spent most of those high school Rosary prayers on my knees silently praying and meditating, and chiming up for the occasional "Our Father" and "Glory Be" that I didn't feel conflicted with my belief system, always careful to truly mean the words instead of just saying them. I chaffed at the mention of the purely Marian mysteries such as the Assumption into Heaven and Coronation of Mary, unable to make any significant connection between them and the life of Christ. Slowly, however, as the Sisters began to explain the mysteries more and I thought about them during the endless stream of "Hail Mary's", I began to see Mary as an example of Christian discipleship, and the mysteries of the Rosary as an outline of the Way the Christian initiate must walk to Christ. By the end of high school I was able to appreciate the mysteries of the Rosary as acceptable to even the most traditional of Christians, although I still hadn't said a Hail Mary. As I left school for college I abandoned the Rosary altogether, relieved to no longer be participating in its struggle of will and doctrine.

Just as a great many other college students experience, my relationship to the religion of my faith changed greatly during the first few years after high school. More and more I felt the call of my Heavenly Mother, beckoning me to learn Her mysteries and recognize Her dynamic partnership with my Heavenly Father. As I began to do this my inhibitions regarding praying to the Divine Feminine dissolved, and the more I investigated the faces of the Divine Feminine, both within Mormonism and outside of it, the more I began to see the Blessed Virgin Mary as one of the faces of the Goddess. For the first time in my life I became curious about the Rosary. I bought a set of beads, and then began to make my own. I discovered other Rosary prayers dedicated to the Pagan Goddess, or to Mary Magdalene, wife of Jesus and co-Redemptrix. I began to investigate traditional interpretations of the Rosary along with the newer ones, and wished for a book on the Rosary that combined the two. At last, I've found one.

"Circle of Mysteries: The Women's Rosary Book", by Christin Lore Weber, is a meditative guide to the Rosary that combines a traditional Catholic Rosary prayer with a reverence for the Divine Feminine in Her many Christian forms. It is the most refreshingly significant book I have found on the Rosary, and I recommend it highly to Catholics, other Christians, and Christo-Pagans seeking a better understanding of how and why to pray this beautiful meditation. Without delving too deeply into apologetics, Christin dispels many of the fears and inhibitions Christians and Goddess-worshippers have regarding praying the traditional Rosary, and provides exquisite meditations that infuse new life and power into this centuries-old meditation. I would still like to see a Rosary book that includes many of the newer Rosary prayers with the traditional Catholic version, but even if I found one I would still get this book, and buy it for as many friends as I could afford.

I'm giving it five pentacles!