Of all of the important Catholic men and women who have been venerated over the last 2,000 years, one of the faith's most popular and influential men also lived one of the most unique lives. Like Roman Emperor Constantine the Great, St. Ignatius of Loyola (1491-1556) found God about as far away from church as possible; it was during military service that he underwent a remarkable conversion.

To many, the quest to obtain the secrets and truths of the universe is one nearly impossible to complete. More importantly, this broad topic comes with an unending assortment of answers. For some, the secret to life is success. To others, it is conquering one's innermost fears. While there are those who simply do not care enough to venture an answer, there are also those who believe they, and they alone, knew the real meaning behind life.

To say Edith Stein lived a remarkable life would be a dramatic understatement. Born in Breslau (then part of Germany) at the end of the 19th century, Edith was raised as an observant jew, only to turn her back on religion right around the time World War I devastated the continent. In the wake of the war, during which she earned a doctorate and began working as an assistant at the University of Freiburg, she began reading the works of the legendary St. Teresa of Ávila, one of the most influential Catholic saints in history.

For the last few decades of the 20th century, the Catholic Church was blessed to have two of its most influential leaders guiding the Church and spreading its faith and message at the same time. Pope John Paul II made history by becoming the first non-Italian pope in several centuries, guiding the church for over 25 years. But while he led the Church, a remarkable woman born Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu (1910-1997) became one of the Church's greatest missionaries and humanitarians. She would come to be known to the world as Mother Teresa.

World-renowned Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon is summoned to a Swiss research facility to analyze a cryptic symbol seared into the chest of a murdered physicist. What he discovers is unimaginable: a deadly vendetta against the Catholic Church by a centuries-old underground organization, the Illuminati. Desperate to save the Vatican from a powerful time bomb, Langdon joins forces in Rome with the beautiful and mysterious scientist Vittoria Vetra.

On July 5, Pope Francis approved John Paul for sainthood, saying that Pope John XXIII and John Paul II will be canonized together. The date has not yet been established, although December 8, the Feast of the Immaculate Conception has been suggested. Irrespective of the details, John Paul's canonization appears imminent. John Paul's pontificate lasted nearly twenty-seven years, one of the longest in papal history. During that time he had an unprecedented amount of contact with the public, including Catholics, non-Catholics, and foreign leaders.

Marcellino D'Ambrosio dusts off what might have been just dry theology to bring you the exciting stories of great heroes such as Ambrose, Augustine, Basil, Athanasius, John Chrysostom, and Jerome. These brilliant, embattled, and sometimes eccentric men defined the biblical canon, hammered out the Creed, and gave us our understanding of sacraments and salvation. It is they who preserved the rich legacy of the early Church for us.

Saxum - the Latin word means rock - is a term that St. Josemaria Escriva, founder of Opus Dei, sometimes used in letters to Alvaro del Portillo to describe him. Don Alvaro, as he came to be known, was for many years the founder's closest associate as well as his successor and first Prelate of Opus Dei after it became a personal prelature-a foundational rock for this dynamic international Catholic group devoted to promoting sanctity in ordinary life.

Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson (1902-1994), the Lubavitcher Rebbe, took an insular Chasidic group that was almost decimated by the Holocaust and transformed it into one of the most influential and controversial forces in world Jewry. This superbly crafted biography draws on recently uncovered documents and archives of personal correspondence, painting an exceptionally human and charming portrait of a man who was well known but little understood.

Part biography, part memoir, part manual for great leadership, My Rebbe explores the evolution of Chabad's global success, its central beliefs and practices, the Rebbe's personal history, and his vision to inspire change. This moving narrative, written by one of today's most influential Jewish thinkers, will motivate listeners to contemplate their own mission in the world and aspire toward meaningful living.

Stories of Maria of Agreda's exceptional attributes spread from her cloistered convent in seventeenth-century Agreda, Spain, to the court in Madrid, and beyond. Without leaving her village, the abbess impacted the kingdom, her church, and the New World. Based upon her transcendent visionary experiences, Sor Maria chronicled the life of Mary, mother of Jesus of Nazareth, in the Mystical City of God. This work was temporarily condemned during the Spanish Inquisition.

In Father Michael McGivney (1852-1890), born and raised in a Connecticut factory town, the modern era's ideal of the priesthood hit its zenith. The son of Irish immigrants, he was a man to whom "family values" represented more than mere rhetoric. And he left a legacy of hope still celebrated around the world.

A Nobel Peace Prize recipient beatified by the Catholic Church in 2003, Mother Teresa of Calcutta was celebrated by heads of state and adored by millions for her work on behalf of the poor. In his measured critique, Hitchens asks only that Mother Teresa's reputation be judged by her actions - not the other way around. With characteristic élan and rhetorical dexterity, Hitchens eviscerates the fawning cult of Teresa, recasting the Albanian missionary as a spurious, despotic, and megalomaniacal operative.

At the heart of the nation's spiritual history are audacious and often violent scenes. But the Puritans and the shining city on the hill give us just one way to understand the United States. Rather than recite American history from a Christian vantage point, Peter Manseau proves that what really happened is worth a close, fresh look.

Now, with an updated preface, the latest edition of the definitive biography of Pope John Paul II that explores how influential he was on the world stage and in some of the most historic events of the 20th century that can still be felt today.

This deeply textured dual biography and fascinating intellectual history examines two of the greatest minds of European history - Desiderius Erasmus and Martin Luther - whose heated rivalry gave rise to two enduring, fundamental, and often colliding traditions of philosophical and religious thought.

Throughout the course of history, civilization has been blessed by strong-minded men and women who have impacted our world in extraordinary ways. Their imprint upon humanity is beyond dispute. And many would contend that they were no less than the result of Divine Providence - a gift of God to the human race. The Mark of a Giant examines the lives and contributions of seven men and women who changed the world: Abraham of Ur, Pericles, the Apostle Paul, Sir Isaac Newton, Marie Curie, Martin Luther King Jr., and Mother Teresa.

In 1830, a young seer and sometime treasure hunter named Joseph Smith began organizing adherents into a new religious community that would come to be called the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (and known informally as the Mormons). One of the nascent faith’s early initiates was a twenty-three-year-old Ohio farmer named Parley Pratt, the distant grandfather of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney. In The Mormon People, religious historian Matthew Bowman peels back the curtain on more than 180 years of Mormon history and doctrine.

What do Abraham Lincoln, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Louis Pasteur, Frederick Douglass, Florence Nightingale, and John D. Rockefeller, Sr., all have in common? They all changed the world - and they were all Christians. Now the little-known stories of faith behind 12 influential people of history are available in one inspiring volume. They Were Christians reveals the faith-filled motivations behind some of the most outstanding political, scientific, and humanitarian contributions of history.

On October 31, 1517, an unknown monk nailed a theological pamphlet to a church door in a small university town and set in motion a process that helped usher in the modern world. Within a few years, Luther's ideas had spread like wildfire. His attempts to reform Christianity by returning it to its biblical roots split the Western Church, divided Europe, and polarized people's beliefs.

At the heart of the nation's spiritual history are audacious and often violent scenes. But the Puritans and the shining city on the hill give us just one way to understand the United States. Rather than recite American history from a Christian vantage point, Peter Manseau proves that what really happened is worth a close, fresh look.

The Chosen Wars tells the dramatic story of how Judaism redefined itself in America in the 18th and 19th centuries - the personalities that fought each other and shaped its evolution and, importantly, the force of the American dynamic that prevailed over an ancient religion. Determined to take their places as equals in the young nation, American Jews rejected identity as a separate nation and embraced a secular America. Judaism became an American religion.

The Inquisition conducted its last execution in 1826-the victim was a Spanish schoolmaster convicted of heresy. But as Cullen Murphy shows in this provocative new work, not only did its offices survive into the twentieth century, in the modern world its spirit is more influential than ever.

Marcellino D'Ambrosio dusts off what might have been just dry theology to bring you the exciting stories of great heroes such as Ambrose, Augustine, Basil, Athanasius, John Chrysostom, and Jerome. These brilliant, embattled, and sometimes eccentric men defined the biblical canon, hammered out the Creed, and gave us our understanding of sacraments and salvation. It is they who preserved the rich legacy of the early Church for us.

Carlos Eire, popular professor and gifted writer, chronicles the 200-year era of the Renaissance and Reformation with particular attention to issues that persist as concerns in the present day. Eire connects the Protestant and Catholic Reformations in new and profound ways, and he demonstrates convincingly that this crucial turning point in history not only affected people long gone but continues to shape our world and define who we are today.

Insights from Philip Yancey's personal pilgrimage away from and back to the church. Why are there so many more professing Christians than churchgoing Christians? Is it because something is wrong with the church? In his candid, thought-provoking manner, award-winning author Philip Yancey reveals the reasons behind his own journey back from skepticism to wholehearted participation in the church, and weighs the church's human failings against its compelling worth as the body of Christ.

Two-time Pulitzer Prize - winning historian Barbara Tuchman explores the complex relationship of Britain to Palestine that led to the founding of the modern Jewish state - and to many of the problems that plague the Middle East today.

Part biography, part memoir, part manual for great leadership, My Rebbe explores the evolution of Chabad's global success, its central beliefs and practices, the Rebbe's personal history, and his vision to inspire change. This moving narrative, written by one of today's most influential Jewish thinkers, will motivate listeners to contemplate their own mission in the world and aspire toward meaningful living.

Can God stir revival by his Holy Spirit, even in our culture today? Do we really believe he can? In a day of diminished expectations, A God-Sized Vision: Revival Accounts That Stretch and Stir recounts global examples of prior revivals, beginning with the Reformation and the Great Awakenings. It continues with the Welsh and Azusa Street revivals and those that occurred simultaneously in Asia, followed by the East Africa Revival of the 1930s.

As a reminder of God's role in the history and future of America, Newt and Callista Gingrich give listeners a look into the architecture and beauty of the nation's capital in Rediscovering God in America. Listeners will take a walk through Washington, DC, to view the nation's monuments and memorials, including the National Archives, where Thomas Jefferson's immortal words jump off the page. But this is not simply a walking tour of the city; this is a tour of American history.