On the Left Bank of the Tiber
Gerald O’Collins SJ

On the Left Bank of the Tiber covers thirty-two years at the Gregorian University in Rome - a story peopled with students, professors, visitors, Italian friends and of course, popes. O’Collins was there for the last years of Paul VI, experienced at first hand the cruelly short pontificate of John Paul I, and constantly appeared on world television for the final sickness and death of John Paul II. He was on the BBC platform for the election of Benedict XVI. This book records the happiness and challenges of professional life at an ancient and thoroughly international university, situated on the left bank of the Tiber and looking across the river to the offices of the Vatican.  Dean of the theology faculty at the Gregorian (1985-91), O’Collins taught thousands of students, including many who later became bishops and some who have been created cardinals.The book also describes his own theological development.

978 085244 835 9   

320 pages  

£12.99

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From Rome to Royal Park
Gerald O’Collins, SJ

Fascinating reminiscences from Rome open this third volume of Gerald O'Collins' memoirs: stories about Mother Teresa and her beatification, Mel Gibson when filming The Passion of Christ, John Wilkins and the investigation of Jacques Dupuis, a Vatican conference on male impotence, and Richard Hammond and Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code. After a chapter on Joseph Ratzinger as cardinal and pope, O'Collins moves to the busy years when he took up a research post at St Mary's College (now St Mary's University), Twickenham (2006-2009). Gripping stories about Tony Blair, Lord Hailsham, Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor, and others (including the IRA revolutionary Rose Dugdale) pack these pages. On returning to Australia, O'Collins took up residence between Royal Park and Royal Parade, Melbourne, but has continued to lecture at conferences overseas. A Templeton Foundation meeting took him as far as Hamlet's castle in Elsinore. The background to his steady flow of books, including a response to Philip Pullman's The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ, will enthrall readers. Nine appendices enrich this volume- not least the page-turning obituaries of Cardinal Dulles, Cardinal Martini, and the Prince and Princess Doria Pamphilj.

978 085244 891 5  

254 pages  

£12.99

A Midlife Journey

Gerald O’Collins, SJ


A familiar figure from his long career as one of the world’s most prominent theologians, this account of his midlife journey provides a fascinating insight into one of the most momentous decades of the Church’s history. Against the background of the events that swept the world from the death of President Kennedy to the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, and of the spiritual revolution caused by Vatican II,  in this timely volume, Fr Gerald O’Collins provides a personal counterpoint to those turbulent times inside and outside the Catholic Church.


‘Gerald O’Collins journey coincided with all the dramatic events of post-war European reconstruction, the demise of the British Empire, May 1968 in France, the Beatles generation, and, perhaps as significant as any of them, the revolution in world Christianity caused by the Second Vatican Council. With remarkable honesty and lucidity, Gerald describes the impact of the Council on his generation of young priests. He pulls no punches as he narrates the challenge to his thinking and calling to celibacy. The story could easily have been sanitized. Thankfully he has not given in to that temptation. He has presented a

fascinating and detailed autobiography of a fruitful and fulfilled life.’

Lord Carey of Clifton, former Archbishop of Canterbury


978 085244 803 8    

444 pages  pb   b+w illustrations        

£15.99




See also: Second Journey, Focus on Jesus and All Things New