Joseph McCabe has 4 audiobooks on Listento.it, narrated by 3 narrators. The most-rated is The Rational Imperative.
From Rome to Rationalism
Summary
It is said that there is no-one more zealous in a cause than an adult convert. A notable example of this was Joseph McCabe, whose conversion was not to a religion, but from religious faith to secularism. Ordained as a Franciscan priest in 1890, and later recognized by the Catholic Church as an able scholar and teacher, by 1897 McCabe had completely lost his faith and had left the priesthood. He became a very active secularist, delivering thousands of public lectures and publishing over two hundred books on a wide range of religious, historical and scientific topics. First published in 1896, From Rome to Rationalism describes McCabe's journey from faith to humanism. The content was later expanded into a full memoir, Twelve Years in a Monastery. Like his humanist peers, Robert Ingersoll and Robert Blatchford, McCabe endured persistent vilification for his anti-religious views. It has been noted that much of McCabe's literary output does consist of material critical of the Catholic Church. However, he claimed that he viewed all religions in the same light, and it appears that his focus on Catholicism was due primarily to his previous deep immersion in it, and also to the status of the church as the largest and most influential Christian denomination.
Public Domain (P)2017 Voices of Today
A History of the Popes
Summary
A History of the Popes by Joseph McCabe. Narrated by Denis Daly. Joseph McCabe's study of papal history is unusual in that he takes a hostile view of the Roman Catholic Church in general, and of the papacy in particular. Raised as a Catholic, McCabe was ordained as a Franciscan priest in 1890, but by 1897 had abandoned both the priesthood and the Catholic faith and was in the process of establishing himself as an ardent secularist. He published over 200 books, many of which were critiques of the history and contemporary activities of the Catholic Church. A History of the Popes is divided into four books: "The Age of Development (AD. 50-450)", "The Dark Age (AD. 450-1050)", "The Age of Power (AD. 1050-1550)", "The Age of Disintegration (AD. 1550-1939)". The history concludes during the reign of Pius XI, who today is hailed as a hero by conservative Catholics for his staunch opposition to modernism, but who has also been the target of strong criticism elsewhere for his accommodating stance toward Mussolini and Hitler. This book is the fascinating story of a unique autocracy which has survived the fall of many empires and which today still claims the allegiance of over one billion followers.
Public Domain (P)2018 Voices of Today
The Doubting Catholic
Summary
This a new edition of a classic critique by Joseph McCabe first published under the singular title, Twelve Years in a Monastery. From the new introduction: Joseph McCabe was a remarkably courageous thinker and writer, who was not shy from pointing out the numerous errors he found in the monastic lifestyle which he eventually felt distracted human beings away from an unvarnished and more honest approach to understanding the cosmos around us and how to live within in it. I realize that some Catholics may be offended by Mr. McCabe’s unyielding skepticism, but I think we are helped (not hindered) in our spiritual pilgrimages by allowing our doubts to be fully vocalized and not suppressed in fear that our God is so puny that she will strike vengeance on anyone who thinks logically and coherently and wisely. I often remark to my philosophy students at Mt. San Antonio College that we are puny creatures and there is nothing wrong with asking the hardest questions possible. Truth doesn’t evaporate because of our uncertainty, just as the sun doesn’t shine any less brightly because we occasionally spit at it. The problem with Roman Catholicism, as Joseph McCabe will illustrate throughout his text, is that it is too concerned with its own survival as a worldwide organization and less as school for open and unabashed inquiry. Yes, Joseph McCabe can rightly be regarded as an agnostic and a non-believer. But as the distinguished sociologist, Peter Berger, insightfully opined in 1979, we must all become heretics if we wish to scale beyond the walls of our own myopic indoctrinations.
©2020 MSAC Philosophy Group (P)2020 David Christopher Lane
The Rational Imperative
Summary
Joseph McCabe, an ex-Catholic monk, is a remarkable thinker: radical, heretical, and a futurist who saw how science would upend religious dogmatism, particularly as it relates to Darwinian evolution. This small book contains two pregnant essays from McCabe's vast array of publications, which touch upon the conflict between science and religion and how a new form of ethics can be based on rational inquiry.
©2020 MSAC Philosophy Group (P)2020 MSAC Philosophy Group