“A great idea, brilliantly edited...the clearest and most readable way that anyone will encounter of presenting the encyclicals of this extraordinary Pope.”—Michael Novak

John Paul II: The Encyclicals in Everyday Language, an Orbis bestseller, now includes the Pope’s most recent encyclical Fides et Ratio (“Faith and Reason”). Father Donders gives us the gist of this complex encyclical and the twelve that preceded it in easy-to-read sense lines. In a penetrating epilogue entitled “The Man and the Message,” Father Donders offers a profound interpretation of John Paul II’s legacy and the unity of his thirteen encyclicals. Here Donders shows that the Pope’s teaching is best understood as an expression of his fundamental intuition into the meaning of Christianity.

Joseph G. Donders, chair of mission and cross-cultural studies at the Washington Theological Union in Washington, DC, teaches and lectures worldwide. His many books include Jesus the Stranger.