Catholic Book Club

Part I of the Discussion (Pages 1-164)Read part II here.What is martyrdom? What is the difference between martyrdom and recklessness motivated by a desire to gain heaven? Does Tertullian’s claim, “the blood of martyrs is the seed of the Church,” inspire violence and the rash absorp

Augustine’s Confessions is the story of a soul. It is the account of a soul that once had a rigid, fairly intelligible story for itself. For some thirty years, Augustine told the same story of his soul—to himself, to others—until that story was torn up and reconstituted i

The word “someone” is indefinite and ordinary. It is a word that stands in for or anticipates another more vivid concept. It almost always denotes a person: “Someone will pick me up.” “Someone will know how to get there.” It is a subtle word that carries a great d

Recently, Randy Boyagoda, a professor of English and a writer of fiction and essays, offered a provocative call to reflective Christians to put down their Flannery O’Connor and Dostoyevsky and pick up some hard cover fiction in order to revive the Christian literary imagination and Catholic li

In order to introduce the Catholic Book Club Selection for September, I quote something astonishing from Herbert McCabe’s short collection, Faith Within Reason. It is contained within a brief chapter entitled “Forgiveness.” Reflecting upon Luke’s story of the prodigal son (Lk

As the ballots were being read during the papal conclave last March, it soon became clear to the cardinal electors that Jorge Bergoglio of Argentina would be named pope. When the two-thirds majority was reached, Cardinal Claudio Hummes—a member of the Order of Friars Minor—comforted Berg

The Catholic Book Club seeks to right a wrong with this month’s selection.   Since its inception in 1928, CBC has never chosen a work by Flannery O’Connor.  This month, we will read and discuss O'Connor’s novel, The Violent Bear It Away.On April 15, 2013, I

In the midst of Ernest Hemingway rsquo s novel The Sun Also Rises a successful novelist Bill Gorton demands that his friend Jake Barnes mdash the novel rsquo s narrator mdash give him ldquo irony and pity rdquo one morning in a friendly repartee Jake Barnes has been trying to write fiction

In the epilogue of The Pope rsquo s Last Crusade How an American Jesuit Helped Pope Pius XI 39 s Campaign to Stop Hitler Peter Eisner offers an interesting insight on the men who held the seat of Peter during the 20th century Of the seven pontiffs that were elected during that time six are eith

In the October 20, 1928 issue of America, the editors of the magazine inaugurated the Catholic Book Club with the following notice:[T]he Catholic Book announces that it has selected “The Way It Was with Them” by Peadar O’Donnell, as the outstanding Catholic novel of the month. This