Father Kevin Spinale, S.J. offers his thoughts on the two latest selections of the Catholic Book Club: ‘Miracles on the Hardwood’ and ‘I Came as a Shadow’.
Literature
Posted inArts & Culture, Catholic Book Club
Walker Percy, master of prose (and king of snark)
The author of “The Moviegoer” and other distinguished novels was also an occasional book reviewer and commentator for America, and his prose in our pages shone as well.
Posted inArts & Culture, Books
Review: Thomas Merton, unfiltered
Patrick Collins gives a close read of Thomas Merton’s correspondence in “A Focus on Truth: Thomas Merton’s Uncensored Mind.”
Posted inArts & Culture, Books
Suffering, faith and perseverance: Ross Douthat chronicles his struggle with Lyme disease
In “The Deep Places,” Ross Douthat relates how an experience of illness and suffering can lead to a search for answers to more transcendent questions, including the meaning of suffering and the gift of perseverance.
Posted inArts & Culture, Catholic Book Club
The Catholic Church is no stranger to banning books—and we know it (almost) always backfires.
The news that Maus, a graphic novel about the Holocaust, had been removed from school curricula was a reminder of one of our nation’s favorite pastimes: book bans.
Posted inArts & Culture, Vantage Point
From 1974: Walker Percy on the humbling, eccentric craft of writing
Walker Percy: “Writing is a craft like any other. Writers and carpenters had better have respect for the workaday tools of the trade, the feel of the wood under the thumb.”
Posted inArts & Culture, Catholic Book Club
A peace activist with a monastic temperament: Remembering Jim Forest
Jim Forest, who died on Jan. 13, was a lifelong peace activist and the author of numerous books, including biographies of Dorothy Day, Thomas Merton and Daniel Berrigan, S.J.
Posted inArts & Culture, Books
Review: These six Ugandan leaders have enacted the ideals of Catholic social teaching
In “For God and My Country: Catholic Leadership in Modern Uganda,” J. J. Carney profiles a strategy for being both Catholic and catholic—both uniquely ourselves and totally for the world.
Posted inArts & Culture, Books
Father Greg Boyle’s newest must-read asks Catholics to trade moral outrage for a moral compass
In his new book about the power of God’s radical love, Greg Boyle introduces readers to new experiences in his ministry to former gang members and teaches valuable lessons about inclusivity.
Posted inArts & Culture, Books
Review: How the Catholic Church did—and didn’t—respond to the AIDS crisis
In his book “Hidden Mercy: AIDS, Catholics, and the Untold Stories of Compassion in the Face of Fear,” Michael O’Loughlin has named some of the hidden glories of the Catholic Church’s responses to H.I.V./AIDS in the 1980s and 1990s in the United States.