Timothy R. Gabrielli – författare

What are we doing when we confirm teenagers? Why is the religious education of teenagers so perplexing? Why is confirmation often a moment of "graduation" out of parish life?

Confirmation: How a Sacrament of God's Grace Became All about Us tells the story of how confirmation, more than any other sacrament, has interacted with secular culture to give rise to these kinds of pastoral challenges. At the same time, confirmation has, over the course of the twentieth century, become a sacramental stamp of approval for various Catholic renewal movements.

The cultural shifts of the last century have led to various theological themes for confirmation, creating a crisis of meaning today. Is confirmation a personal choice for faith, or is it the deepening of an ongoing relationship with the Divine? Timothy Gabrielli gives us a fresh approach for addressing these pressing questions.

What happened to the mystical body?

A theology that stoked much theological creativity in the first half of the twentieth century both in Europe and in the United States had receded by the latter half of the century. One in Christ explores the theology of the mystical body of Christ as developed by Virgil Michel, OSB, examines the reasons for its decline, and traces it throughout the work of Louis-Marie Chauvet, a surprising custodian of the mystical body’s “French stream.” By delineating three major streams of mystical body theology, Timothy R. Gabrielli helps readers understand it more clearly and, in so doing, lays the groundwork for harvesting its potential for contemporary theology.