by William E. May
Here's what they're saying:
Dr. William May for many years has been one of our most important moral theologians... Standing With Peter is a fascinating memoir of a lifetime of scholarship in action–a warmly human account told with Dr. May’s famous gusto, integrity, and passionate commitment to the truth. It’s a joy to read. –Russell Shaw (author Catholic Laity in the Mission of the Church)
Dr. Bill May, perhaps America’s most outstanding moral theologian of the twentieth century, has written a memoir of his personal and professional life that forms an important part of the developing history of the pre- and post Vatican II era in the Church in the US. ... There is no one better to tell the inside story particularly surrounding the events of that pivotal year 1968 and also of his role and charge of heart and mind. –Rev C. J. McCloskey III, Research Fellow, Faith and Reason Institute, Washington DC
In 1968, William May signed a document dissenting from Pope Paul VI’s encyclical Humanae vitae, in which the Pope reaffirmed the Church’s teaching against artificial birth control. In Dr. May’s own words, “Signing this document was on my part a cowardly deed.” But God, in his providence, used this mistake to launch the career of one of the Church’s outstanding moral theologians-who now ‘stands with Peter’ on Humanae vitae. This is his story.
In these reflections, Dr. May takes us from his early years in the seminary, the illness which precluded his ordination, his first career as a book editor, the cataclysmic events of 1968-especially those surrounding Pope Paul VI’s encyclical Humanae Vitae, and finally his academic career at Catholic University of America and the John Paul II Institute.
With personal anecdotes, humor and humility, William May shows how God takes care of us and has plan for each of us; how God in his providence can bring good from our mistakes, if we are willing to co-operate with his grace. Dr. May also illuminates the errors of moral relativism and other questionable theological “innovations” so fashionable in recent decades.
92 pages—Softcover: $5.00 (regularly $9.95)
