Posted inBooks

Papaphobia

With Popes and Politics Justus Lawler has written two books His first four chapters analyze recent works about Pope Pius XII and the Holocaust His final three chapters address issues of church renewal and reform So massive has been the devastation inflicted on the memory of Pius XII by Rolf Hochhu

Posted inBooks

Lies and War

I first began reading Ian McEwan when Black Dogs came out a decade ago subsequently I started collecting and reading all his novels Combining a shrewd narrative sense with acute psychology he often manages to pick subjects that push him and his reader into the borderlands of ordinary life where t

Posted inBooks

Peacenik Adrift

In 1998 just before he turned 50 Edward Gargan did what any normal Vietnam-era c o former Berkeley Ph D candidate in medieval Chinese history New York Times foreign correspondent and bureau chief West Africa India and Hong Kong and current Newsday Asia hand would do for a midlife sabbatical

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Nothing More Than a Feeling

In his 40th year Chris Offutt took his wife and two sons home to the hills of eastern Kentucky so he could teach creative writing at Morehead State University his alma mater which he confesses was more of a high school with ashtrays than a genuine college Even the location was not much just a

Posted inBooks

They Tell the Story

Over the years many theological texts have brought fresh insights to the well- known story of the sisters from Bethany named Mary and Martha Now we can add the fine scholarship and fresh ideas of the Japanese feminist theologian Satoko Yamaguchi to the list I truly enjoyed this book The author s

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Dramatic Dominican

In the course of 50 years in and out of the theatrical spotlight Vincent Harke the Dominican priest who founded the renowned Department of Speech and Drama at The Catholic University of America in Washington D C attracted a host of admirers One of them a graduate of the department Mary Jo Sa

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Education for Life

Education has long been one of the pillars for the bridge between Christian faith and the world fostering the development of reason giving meaning and order to human life and facilitating an appreciation of ultimate reality Michael L Peterson Fred Herron and George Dennis O rsquo Brien offer th

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Notre Dame’s Fighting Frenchman

Edward Sorin arrived in the United States from France in 1841 27 years old three years ordained and the religious superior of a band of six brothers in the recently founded 1837 Congregation of Holy Cross When he died in 1893 he was celebrated as the founder of four institutions of higher lear

Posted inArts & Culture, Books

Whence Human Depravity?

Andrew Delbanco has persuasively argued in his book The Death of Satan How Americans Lost Their Sense of Evil that the word evil has all but vanished from the American vocabulary and with it the symbols once used to articulate our experience of evil In the wake of the tragic events of last Septemb

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A Way Out of Darkness

As a failed coup attempt in December 2001 delivered yet another wound to Haiti conventional wisdom again declared the Caribbean nation to be almost an economic and political wastelandracked by violence and devoid of all hope and promise But in Beverly Bell rsquo s new collection of 38 spoken-word e

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