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Reading has always been at the heart of Jesuit education. In the 1940s, English courses at Jesuit high schools were built around a four-volume series, “Prose and Poetry,” which included Prose and Poetry for Appreciation, by Elizabeth Ansorge, and Prose and Poetry for Enjoyment, by Julian L. Maline. Courses featured different categories each year, focusing on English and American literature. They included novels, short stories, poems and Shakespearean plays, including “The Merchant of Venice” and “Julius Caesar.” In the 1960s, when I was teaching high school, other standards were All Quiet on the Western Front, The Catcher in the Rye, A Separate Peace, Dubliners, Mr. Blue and A Canticle for Leibowitz. When I was dean of Holy Cross college in the early 1980s, we compiled “The Holy Cross 100 Books,” 120 pages of reflections on works recommended by members of the faculty. My favorites were Walden and The Autobiography of Malcolm X.

Why read? Because books embody a civilization, help us to mature and give us power. We can nourish the spirit that opens us to the presence of the Creator. Above all they allow us to share the intimate lives of our fellow men and women. The word is empathy. We can feel what a novel’s characters are feeling and, in turn, relate to our fellow readers. Reading allows readers to adopt a sensitivity they can apply to other relationships, even to mankind at large.

Why read? Because books embody a civilization, help us to mature and give us power.

In this first issue of the Literary Review, we contemplate the 100th anniversary of the entry of the United States entry into World War II. We also remember James Baldwin and admire the documentary film “I Am Not Your Negro,” based on an unfinished text by Baldwin. We recall James Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and the author’s relationship with the Jesuits. We interview Michael Wilson, a popular columnist for The New York Times, who discovers and interprets crimes that challenge our imagination.

Karen Sue Smith’s analysis of the paintings of Bosch and Brueghel tells the story of how Western art in the 16th century progressed from topics of history and religion to spectacular depictions of everyday life. Monsignor George Deas’s review of a new biography of Martin Luther allows us to see Luther as a great man, though not a saint.

Other reviews deal with President Obama, Cervantes and the history of Fordham University.

Reading is often described as a private act, although you can still find people in the subway reading physical books or e-readers. We may use reading as an escape and move to a beach retreat or travel to another country and close the door to be alone with a given work. Yet inevitably, authors like Henry David Thoreau, James Joyce, Leo Tolstoy, Joan Didion, Agatha Christie, Tom Wolfe and Richard Ford will pop up in the room and want to talk.

They remind us that reading has always had a social dimension. Until television intruded, friends, husbands and wives would read to one another, and even today a major role for a parent is sitting down with a pre-kindergarten child, reading aloud and further knitting the bonds of love between the parent and the wide-eyed son or daughter. In college or in a parish book club, where idea-hungry students or neighbors gather, John Hersey’s presence will inevitably disturb. The class or club has read Hiroshima and knows the author visited the scene of the bombing before he wrote the book. They have all read it and perhaps have written a one-page comment, talked about it before gathering and asked whether it describes a “victory,” a “tragedy” or a “war crime.” Through reading, audiences are transformed into a community, and maybe even one in which we ask, “What shall we do?”

This article appears in Spring Literary Review 2017.

Son of Raymond A. Schroth, of Trenton, N. J., a World War I hero and editorial writer and reporter for the Trenton Times, Brooklyn Eagle and New York Herald Tribune for over 40 years, and of Mildred (Murphy) Schroth, of Bordentown, N. J., a teacher in the Trenton public and Catholic school systems, Raymond A. Schroth, S.J., has spent his life as a Jesuit, journalist, and teacher.

After graduating from Fordham College in 1955--where he majored in American civilization, studied in Paris, and was editorial editor of the Fordham Ram--he served as an antiaircraft artillery officer in Germany for two years and joined the Society of Jesus in 1957. Ordained a priest in 1967, he obtained his PhD in American Thought and Culture at the George Washington University and taught journalism at Fordham until 1979. During that time he was also associate and book editor of Commonweal magazine.

After two years as academic dean of Rockhurst College in Kansas City, he became academic dean of the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Mass. In 1985-86 he held the Will and Ariel Durant Chair in the Humanities at Saint Peter's College in Jersey City. From 1986 to 1996 he taught journalism at Loyola University in New Orleans and was adviser to the Maroon, its award-winning newspaper. In 1995 the Southeast Journalism Conference named him Journalism Educator of the year. In 1996 he returned to Fordham as assistant dean of Fordham College Rose Hill and director of the Matteo Ricci Society, which prepares students to compete for prestigious fellowships. Meanwhile, from 1967 he served as a resident faculty member in the student residence halls.

He has published eight books, including: The Eagle and Brooklyn: A Community Newspaper (Greenwood); Books for Believers: 35 Books Every Catholic Should Read (Paulist); with Jeff Theilman, Volunteer: with the Poor in Peru (Paulist); and The American Journey of Eric Sevareid (Steerforth), a biography of the CBS commentator.

In 1999 he moved to Saint Peter's College, where he wrote two books: From Dante to Dead Man Walking: One Person's Journey through Great Religious Literature and Fordham: A History and Memoir, (Loyola Press in 2001-2002). In 2000 Saint Peter's College named him the Jesuit Community Professor in the Humanities. In Spring 2003 he was made editor of the national Jesuit university review, Conversations and will continue to serve in this position until 2013. His The American Jesuits: A History, (New York University Press, 2007), was followed by Bob Drinan: The Controversial Life of the First Catholic Priest Elected to Congress, (Fordham University Press, 2010). He taught a graduate journalism course at NYU in 2004 and journalism history at Brooklyn College in 2006.

In recent summers he has traveled to Gabon, South Africa, Peru, Iraq, Jordan, Syria, France, Thailand, Vietnam, Cuba, Indonesia, the Czech Republic, and China to educate himself, write articles, and take pictures. In 2003 his National Catholic Reporter media essays won the Catholic Press Association's best cultural columnist award. His over 300 articles on politics, religion, the media, and literature have appeared in many publications, including the Columbia Journalism Review, Commonweal, America, the New York Times Book Review, the Los Angeles Times, New York Newsday, Kansas City Star, Boston Globe and the Newark Star Ledger, where he was a weekly online columnist for several years. From time to time he lectures and appears on radio and TV. He is listed in Who's Who and Contemporary Authors. In his free time he swims, bikes, walks, reads, goes to movies and restaurants, and prays.