The stories of Andre Dubus delve into loneliness, the ferocity of parental love, adultery, retribution and sex that is a stay against loneliness.
Kevin Spinale
Kevin Spinale, S.J., a Jesuit priest, is an assistant professor in the Curriculum and Teaching Division of the Fordham University Graduate School of Education.
Posted inArts & Culture, Books
The Class of 1943: Simone Weil, Jacques Maritain, C. S. Lewis, W. H. Auden and T. S. Eliot
Alan Jacobs’s new book is a collage of the intellectual considerations of five thinkers who, in their experience of the violence of World War II and their revulsion at the fascism that fueled it, contemplate the nature of education and its renewal after the anticipated Allied victory.
Posted inArts & Culture, Catholic Book Club
The Burden of Suffering, the Weightiness of Love: Kate Bowler and Theodicy
Kate Bowler’s memoir is an elegant theodicy exactly because it is not an explanation. It is a story of human suffering. It is the account of a human person who believes and struggles in her belief as she tries to appropriate the depths of suffering in the midst of an illness that may end her life.
Posted inArts & Culture, Catholic Book Club
A leader of ‘needed strength’: Archbishop John Hughes
An interpretive essay and some questions for reflection on the Catholic Book Club’s new selection, “Dagger John” by John Loughery.
Posted inArts & Culture, Catholic Book Club
Who was Jesus? Gerhard Lohfink on the Messiah
Totality occurred on Aug. 21, 2017, when the first total solar eclipse in the United States in 38 years swathed the country from Oregon to South Carolina. It was reported on by a media hungry for distractions. The event was rare and cosmic: Eyewitnesses described waves of light that mirrored the shape of the sun’s […]
Posted inArts & Culture, Catholic Book Club
The rhythm of the hours: Alice McDermott’s new novel, ‘The Ninth Hour’
Alice McDermott’s new novel will provoke contemplation and prayer. It is a Catholic book, and it will seep into you like indigo into a clean, pure bolt of cloth.
Posted inArts & Culture, Catholic Book Club
An intimate look at the bond between Dorothy Day and her daughter Tamar
Beauty is the medium through which Kate Hennessy describes her mother and grandmother.
Posted inArts & Culture, Catholic Book Club
Three little-known Catholic novels that can enrich your faith
The work of Kate O’Brien, Brian Moore and John McGahern deserve attention in any conversation about the Catholic literary tradition.
Posted inArts & Culture, Catholic Book Club
This month’s Catholic Book Club selection: ‘Silence’ by Shusaku Endo
The novel portrays two apostate Jesuit missionaries from the first half of the 17th century.
Posted inCatholic Book Club
This month’s Catholic Book Club selection: ‘The Berrigan Letters’
The Berrigan bro culture cannot be any more different from our modern “bro culture.”