Books

America’s former editor in chief, Thomas J. Reese, S.J., described our new pope recently in The National Catholic Reporter as one who had previously been “a little-published, low-profile Latin American archbishop.” In other words, we know relatively little about him, even though he has had a long career in the church.

In Sacred Dread Brenna Moore offers a fascinating account of the life and times of Raïssa Maritain, one of the more hidden, yet highly influential figures of the intellectual revival known as the renouveau catholique. Married to the prominent Catholic theologian Jacques Maritain, the Jewish-born Raïssa converted to the Catholic Church in 1909 and spent much of her life pursuing a spiritual life through silence, prayer, the reading of mystical texts and exchanges with important...

Those for whom San Francisco represents a leftist and left-coast city may be surprised to learn, as William Issel contends was true for the century from 1890 to 1990, that it would be difficult to exaggerate the importance of the Catholic Church to San Francisco politics and culture. For much of that period, few important decisions were made without passing them through the chancery office. Although San Francisco Catholics made up only a third of the city’s population, they amounted to 68...

When things go wrong in Latin America, the tendency is to write new laws or a new constitution. But new laws rarely remedy the situation because Latin America’s major problems are rooted in deep historical realities that condition attitudes and practices, which in turn undermine the democratic process. In this well-researched and up-to-date study, Ignacio Walker explains to the reader in clear language why democracy has had so much difficulty taking hold from...