Books

When The Changing Face of the Priesthood was published two years ago it created a virtual firestorm in the church The Rev Donald Cozzens was praised for his honesty and vilified for his unsportsmanlike conduct He had the nerve to say not only that a substantial number of priests and seminarians

The following expropriation of Walt Whitman’s Song of Myself appears in The Partly Cloudy Patriot, a collection of 19 reflective, often witty essays by Sara Vowell, author, radio artist, editor, literary critic, presidential essayist and self-admitted Clinton apologist: “The best description of you [President Clinton] I’ve ever read was published in 1855:

Do I contradict myself?

This is an important book Christopher Ringwald makes strikingly clear that spirituality is the ldquo soul of recovery rdquo from addiction Through interviews and research he shows that addicts have for over a century found the way to sobriety and to a positive contribution to society through so

Singing to the Dead recounts the experiences of Victoria Armour-Hileman a Catholic lay missioner from the United States among the Mon Buddhist refugees in Bangkok in the early 1990 rsquo s As the Burmese government intensifies its ethnic war on its Mon people Armour-Hileman engages in the daily

Survival or Prophecy is the right book for Merton devotees seeking greater insight into Merton rsquo s thoughts about monastic renewal In his letters to his friend Jean LeClercq Merton candidly bares his own soul revealing frustration with his monastic situation at Gethsemani and a yearning to li

Though often labeled a modern-day Thoreau Wendell Berry is perhaps more akin to a biblical prophet a lone voice crying not in the wilderness but from his own farm Like Isaiah and Amos Berry is able to discern the embedded patterns of corruption and injustice in a culture of haves and have-nots

When we were in the seminary our economics professor Ed Roche God be good to him told us one day that his classmates were getting old ldquo I say to them when you start complaining about the young guys it rsquo s proof you rsquo re getting old rdquo Ironically his classmates in those days

By this point in his illustrious career Garry Wills the most celebrated Catholic intellectual in the United States must find it increasingly burdensome to be ldquo Garry Wills rdquo Not only the most celebrated but perhaps the most ubiquitous as well This spiritual autobiography which doub

The Dead Sea scrolls have fascinated the general public for over 50 years Indeed 10 years ago they were front-page news with wild claims about their contents and charges about coverups and conspiracies What has happened since and what can we expect in the future These two fine books can help t

On Nov 7 1630 Orazio Morandi abbot of the Roman monastery of Santa Prassede and former general of the Benedictine order of Vallombrosa was found dead in his cell in the Eternal City rsquo s Tor di Nona prison Although the doctor on duty and a friar confessor insisted that he died a natural dea