Walking Toward Virtue

Christopher M. Bellitto, PhD, is a medievalist, Church historian, and professor of history at Kean University in Union, NJ, where he teaches courses in ancient and medieval history. He is also a frequent public speaker and media commentator on Church history and contemporary Catholicism.

Bellitto has written a variety of publications, including The Living Church and Church History 101 from Liguori Publications. He also offers professional development workshops on working with the media, publishing, writing outreach articles and essays, and speaking to a wide range of audiences.

In a world where virtuous people seem less and less valued, we need to talk about virtues more than ever. Christopher Bellitto provides an excellent path to do that by walking with Dante, whose classic writings on the virtuous and unvirtuous still accurately describe human nature. Together, Bellitto and Dante take us on a tour of heaven, hell, and purgatory. Just as Dante did, we will learn how virtues build us and our communities up, while vice turns us inward and tears our communities down. Invitations to meditate and record our own experiences add to the impact of this book. Bellitto and Dante invite us to realize, in an often unvirtuous world, that living a fulfilling life means choosing virtue.

—James Martin, SJ, author, Learning to Pray

Just as Dante had his Virgil and his Beatrice, readers of this thoughtful and thought-provoking book have their Bellitto as a sure-footed guide to Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso. Christopher Bellitto’s gift for communicating to a wide readership in perceptive, pithy, plain-speaking prose is once again on display here. The journaling questions at the end of each chapter not only aid personal reflection but also would suit parish-based discussion groups. For those unafraid to have their illusions and certainties challenged, Bellitto and Dante together offer the perfect “off-ramp”—humility.

—Salvador Ryan, editor, Reforming the Church: Global Perspectives