Book Review

It seems like quite a while since Mark Shea first mentioned he was writing a book on Mary. I remember his long blog vacation as he went to full time work on it and had been patiently waiting for the release. I have thoroughly enjoyed all of Mark’s other books which were usually in the frame of an Evangelical finding the truth of Catholic teaching.

When it was announced that it would be issued as three books I was somewhat disappointed. I imagined that they would be pamphlet sized works. It turns that indeed these are three volumes each running close to 200 pages. I then wondered how he was going to pull off an apologetics works of this size that was readable. As a convert I have been exposed to plenty of apologetics works concerning Mary and have listened to untold hours of Catholic Radio/TV. As an ex-Atheist coming into the Church, Mary was not a problem for me really. Once you get over the “There is a God” and the fact that the Church teaches the fullness of the truth, understanding the Church;s view of Mary’s role is not that hard to see. I have also heard plenty of testimonies of ex-Protestants and the difficulties they had with the Marian aspects of the Church. But I had some trepidation of this book just being for Protestants.

What Mark Shea has done in this three volume set is really quite amazing and it certainly deserves a much wider audience than only Protestants trying to comes to terms with Marian doctrine. He doesn’t just come in with scripture versus blazing, but spends the necessary time setting up the context. Mark as an ex-Evangelical understands the mind blocks that prevent many Protestants from seeing the true role of Mary. But even if you show Protestants the parallelism of the verses on the Ark of the Covenant and the verses on Mary and how they match in so much detail, it certainly won’t convince them. They have been taught a tradition that minimizes Mary even to the extent of her only being an “incubator.” The prejudice against the Marian doctrines was built up over time after the Reformation and mostly as a separation against Catholics. As so many have shown, including Mark Shea in this book. the Protestant reformers had no such animus against Mary. What he has concentrated on is removing those philosophical road blocks and handling all the arguments that get in the way.

Mark Shea’s own journey included having all of the common biases against the Blessed Virgin Mary and his coming to question so many of the underpinnings of what he believed. The first book discusses a lot of what Mark calls “psuedo-knowledge” those bits of information that everybody believes is true, but are in fact nowhere close to being true. Psuedo-knowledge is a blockage to so many things. Protestant pseudo-knowledge such as how the Catholic Church Paganize Christianity is very prevalent. Though I guess this bit of false knowledge is also part of the secular and even Catholic circles. I remember an uncle of mine who is not a Christian and a bit into the new age telling me all about how Catholics stole things from Pagans and that Christmas was based on a Pagan feast. This pseudo-knowledge was really quite exciting for him to tell me even though I was a young atheist who had no idea what a Catholic was in the first place. One of the most interesting parts of this work is how Mark discovered while researching that it was the Pagan feast that came after Catholic’s already celebrating Dec 25th as the Birth of Christ and was likely a case of Pagans trying to usurp a Christian feast. What Mark shows is most interesting is not proving the day Jesus was born on, but why the very early Church thought he was born on this date. The whole idea of Catholics baptizing Pagan things has merit in the small things such as wedding rings and evergreen trees but in the big things such as the Church’s theology an her Marian doctrines there is no merit or connection at all. Mark in his many examples amply demonstrates this in the first volumes as his prepares the way to going deeper into the Marian dogmas.

The second volume deals with the four Marian dogmas and spends considerable time on them. I have often heard how these Marian dogmas protected the Incarnation. I had also heard that these dogmas were declared at the time when there was some controversy concerning Jesus or when the Church considered them a proper cure to a current error – and not just theological errors. The details of just how true this is is staggering. So we get both a history and context for these dogmas, but also answers to the common objections to each of these dogmas.

The third volume deals with the devotional aspects. Getting to the point that you accept the Marian dogmas does not mean that you instantly are ready to jump into the Marian aspects of the devotional life. Problems bringing belief into practice is something shared by more than just converts. Marks advice in this area is quite sensible. He goes on to devote some time to the Rosary along with providing some thoughts/meditations on each of the mysteries. Of course any book addressing Marian devotion has to look at some of the oddities that make the news such as the Virgin Mary in the grilled cheese sandwich. This chapter shows just how sensible the Church is when it comes to private revelation and the simple fact that even when the Church does “bless” some particular apparition it is only to say that it is “worthy of belief” and no Catholic is required to accept them. The following appendices provide a list with a narrative of some of these apparitions “worthy of belief.”

All of my hesitations about a three volume apologetics book set on Mary were dispelled. Mark’s writing is informative and much of it with a smile behind it. His writing is not adversarial in any way and so any Protestants reading his book will not get any sense of “us against them.” Like so many ex-Catholics, Mark is quite positive about his time as a Protestant, but is also very good at showing the cracks that he started to see when he questioned some basic assumptions or psuedo-knowledge. So I think these are great books to read both as an apologetics work and/or spiritual reading.

I ordered the books via his site and they are also available via Catholic Answers.

As a definite fan of Fr. Dwight Longenecker’s books and of course his blog I was delighted to receive his new book The Gargoyle Code from him Though I was even more delighted in reading it. In fact I started reading this 110 page book and pretty much continued until I had finished it.

Fr. Longenecker new book is in the tradition of the Screwtape Letters. His previous books have all been solid spiritual reading where at times we would get a glimpse of his Chestertonesque humor. His blog has amply shown his ability for humor and this book is a great combination of humorous spiritual reading. One minute you are seriously laughing at something and the next minute you are evaluating your own spiritual life.

As in the Screwtape letters we have a Demon tempter training a newer tempter in how to keep their “client” on the right path to Hell. The language is quite sarcastic and rude as they discuss their human clients and the ups and downs of their tempting success. The clients in this case are an older ultra-traditionalist who can do nothing but count liturgical abuses and having no real prayer life and a young man who is fine with his modern parish with awful music and bland progressive homilies as he check marks just going to Mass on Sundays.

The original Screwtape Letters were brilliant and I think Fr. Longenecker has pulled off equal brilliance. Having a specifically Catholic context really improves the concept and offers excellent spiritual advice at the same time. Somehow the setting of satire really drives the message home in a way that other forms of spiritual reading don’t. I highly recommend this book to give you both laugh-out-loud lines and much to reflect upon.

The book can be obtained via his site.

When I first saw mention of “Diagnosis Critical: The Urgent Threats Confronting Catholic Health Care” by Leonard J. Nelson III on Amy Welborn’s blog I knew this was a book I wanted to read. The issue of Catholic Health Care has certainly emerged on this blog as I have covered stories regarding this important subject. There are plenty of comparison between Catholic health care and the Catholic education system with the decline of so-called Catholic identity. But as this author points out in his conclusion the Catholic health care system has faired better in this regard for the most part. Not that there are not major ethical problems which are certainly pointed out.

The title of the book certainly gives it an urgency about the seriousness of some of the real problems. Though this is not a book containing chapter after chapter of horror stories of bad things going on in Catholic health care. The author who is a professor in a school of law and an expert surrounding healthcare law goes way beyond just detailing problems.

In fact the book take as systematic approach and starts with moral theology and especially the Catholic natural law tradition. He gives a good overview of this in regards to health care along with a history of the applicable theology. As you would expect there is coverage of the theologians who have departed from traditional moral theology into relativism, proportionalism, and consequentialism which has caused damage to the culture of life in this area.

In the area of bio-ethics they have tried to create a system apart from natural law that develops a consensus in the secular world. There is of course no such consensus and this area of ethics has turned more and more into defending the indefensible. The Pope in his latest encyclical addressed the problem in this area where ethics has come to mean something entirely unethical

Eventually, those who dissented from Humanae Vitae realized that the traditional natural-law approach did not approved a satisfactory basis for their dissent and began to develop alternative approaches. Building on the principle of double effect, they developed a new approach that deemphasized the application of absolute moral norms.

This paragraph is a very good synopsis of what has happened in theology by dissident theologians throughout the world and not just in health care. Once you separate theology from absolute moral norms than it is no surprise they find reasons that evils such as abortion, contraception, euthanasia, doctor-assisted suicide, and sterilization

He spends five chapters on moral norms that ends with a discussion and history of Ethical and Religious Directives (ERDs) used in Catholic health care settings. The discussion of ERDs is actually very interesting to see how they responded to changing medical technology. They have remained consistent with the teaching of the Church. What has not been consistent is personnel in health care following them.

Again and again throughout the book we are treated to the history behind Catholic health care and I thought this was one of the most important parts to understanding how we got to where we are today. He devotes some time to talking about the transition from hospitals mainly run and staffed by a religious order to the situation we see today where there is some connection to the founding order, but is mostly run by lay people who often are not even Catholics. Plus you have all the mergers and takeovers by Catholic health care systems of secular assets and the problems that has occurred. A couple of chapters detail specific Catholic health care systems and problems that resulted when local bishops and/or the Vatican complained about evils such as surgical sterilization and even abortion occurring at these acquired assets.

There is much in the state of Catholic health care that frankly angers me. Often it seems that some are seeking loopholes instead of following the moral law. While surgical abortion is for the most part not occurring in Catholic hospitals, it has in the past along with other morally dubious practices. But in the area of surgical sterilization they seem to be gaming the system by referring people to other centers or in one case having a hospital within a hospital on the fifth floor of one institution that did it for them. Sterilization is mutilation and destroys a functioning part of the body. There is no medical need for direct sterilization. But it seems like this is a wink-wink situation where “Hey we don’t do this because we are not suppose to, but we will help you out in getting it done.” So much for teaching the Gospel and an actual teaching opportunity of explaining why sterilization is gravely evil. The same goes for contraception and euthanasia where some Catholic health care have formally cooperated with evil.

As this book and in fact the daily news demonstrates is that we are being attacked both from without and within. No we aren’t ready to run to the catacombs, but the government and other outside groups are doing what they can to make Catholic health care not a whit different from secular health care. From within we are being attacked by dissident theologian and those who follow them. Some specific cases of government interference is also covered in this book and goes through some famous cases where legislatures tried to force their will on Catholic institutions by mandating contraceptive coverage or in myriad other ways. Increased pressures by the Culture of Death are certainly trying to force Catholic hospitals into gravely evil areas and the same goes for individuals with the attacks on conscience clauses.

I think we will only see more of these problems especially with the push for national health care. The author makes note of how these mandates for services not allowed under the ERDs is moving ahead and says “Despite these possibilities, Catholic organizations have continue to be strong advocates of a governmental system of universal health care.” When it comes to providing for our neighbor in terms of the Gospel – the government is not our friend. The USCCB calling for national health care even with the caveats they mention is very shortsighted in my opinion. This is not subsidiarily in any way and only funnels our health care dollars through the government so that there will be even less to pay for actual health care. It also opens up our non-profit hospitals for even more attacks at they try to standardize everything. It would be rather ironic if Catholics were forced out of the hospitals considering we were the ones that created them in the first place.

Well I don’t want my review to be longer than the book. But the subjects covered and the thorough way they are covered really makes me want to write about them. This is such and excellent book in so many ways and is not just gloom and doom. There is a lot covered even interesting information about Catholic health care in regards to canon law. For anybody wanting to learn more about Catholic health care from the morality and history on I can’t think of a finer book to recommend. This book is quite well researched and footnoted and the notes take up over a hundred pages at the end.

This review was written as part of the Catholic book Reviewer program from The Catholic Company. Visit The Catholic Company to find more information on Diagnosis Critical.

I get a somewhat steady requests to do book reviews from publishers and authors. Not a large volume by any means, but enough that I turn some down. One publisher must not have done any research about my blog when I got a request once to do a review on some new-age style Mary Magdalene book. I recently got a request to review a book and when I saw in the summary it was a historical novel involving the Crusades and Templer Knights I though this was one I would give a pass to. I certainly love historical novels and the subject matter of the Crusades is quite interesting. The poor Templer Knights though have been have received about every possible slander from the mild to wacky conspiracy theories. I love books involving swords just as much as the next guy, but am not interested in Templer bashing or some view of the Crusades such as we might see on the History Channel.

That was until I saw one of the supporting reviews for the book.

Nathan Sadasivan has a rare, raw talent and Crown of the World is a rip-roaring success. A saga of Christendom told with a breadth of historical knowledge and a depth of empathy and understanding, this novel transports us to a time of turbulence and faith. A work of such accomplishment from a writer of such youth is simply astonishing. I hope and pray that this is the first of many more to follow. –Professor Joseph Pearce, Ave Maria University, author of The Quest for Shakespeare

If I can’t trust Joseph Pearce on the literary merits of a book I can’t trust anybody. After receiving and reading “Crown of the World–Book 1: Knight of the Temple
” I am very glad that I did not reject this book to review.

The novel takes place in the time between the 2nd and 3rd Crusades in the Holy Lands and the lands around it. The story revolves around Godfrey de Monteferrat a young Templar Knight. Godfrey is as idealistic as they come wanting to become a great hero. He has grown up hearing the stories of the heroes in the Crusades along with the stories of the saints. He puts his idealism into practice, but the character is not drawn as a stereotype. This is a deeply layered person with his own struggles. Though he is also no dark hero or anti-hero which we get way too many of today in our fiction and our movies.

The characters around him including the historical figures are richly drawn and just about everything in the novel fascinates. Now I am certainly no Crusades scholar and my knowledge extends to what I have read in books such as the excellent ones by Thomas F. Madden. That being said I found nothing out of place in the novel historically which seems to get the era right. This is such an interesting time in history with all the political intrigues and the battles themselves. For the most part the Crusades were a history of inept leaders and betrayals and you certainly see that in the story.

In a novel involving the Knight Templars you would expect battle scenes and this book does not disappoint in the descriptions along with the strategy involved. Yet the book goes way beyond being just a military novel. There is a serious spiritual dimension to it that is not just knock-you-over-the-head piety. The author also gives you a good understanding of the times without lengthy character exposition explaining everything to you.

It is rather cliche to say you had a hard time putting a book down, but I guess I will cliche away and say just that. I read the near 300 page book over the weekend and certainly felt that bittersweet feeling you get when you reach the end — which was certainly climatic. The last part of the book involves Godfrey’s involvement protecting a very young Baldwin who later becomes Baldwin IV of Jerusalem. Since this book is the first book of a trilogy I really look forward for the next book – which can’t come soon enough in my opinion.

One of the most surprising aspects of this book is that it was written by a nineteen year old who started working on it at 15 while being homeschooled. The novel has every mark as being written by a seasoned author and none of the marks as being written by a beginner. To put it simply this is one of the most enjoyable books I have read.

I am not one much for reading a book of essays. I have a different opinion when it comes to reading a book of essays by Scott Hahn that mainly address scripture. “Spirt & LIfe: Interpreting the Bible in Ordinary TIme” sounds like a mouthful, but it is quite accessible. In other words if I found the book easy to read while at the same time learning a lot, I think most people would have the same experience.

Those familiar with Scott Hahn will be use to the threads that he ties his works together. In fact if you play along with the Scott Hahn drinking game (Take a sip every time you read the words “Covenant”), you will be quite soused. So you will see common themes in this essays and they are common because they are so integral to understanding scripture.

One of the essays I enjoyed most was “The Person and Prayer of Jesus. Reflections on the Biblical Christology of Pope Benedict XVI. Yeah another mouthful, but lots of interesting insights on the scripture worldview that so informs the Pope’s writing.

As is often the case with Scott Hahn’s writings his love for Scripture and the Church is quite infectious. You get carried away with him in the excitement of these topics. For those displeased by Scott’s propensity to pun you will be happy with these essays since he does not do so here. For those like myself who like his puns, oh well.

This review was written as part of the Catholic book Reviewer program from The Catholic Company. Visit The Catholic Company to find more information on Spirit and Life.

As a fan of G.K. Chesterton and his works I was quite interested to receive The Inconvenient Adventures of Uncle Chestnut. The book is geared towards children to introduce them to the personality and thoughts of this great writer. The personality of Chesterton which is larger than life in the first place fits right into a story for children.

Four chapters tell the story of a young man’s relationship and his adventures of everyday life with his Uncle Chestnut. Where the book succeeds is in describing the real Chesterton’s relationship with children. While he and his wife Francis never had any children of their own he spent plenty of time with children telling stories, putting on puppet shows, and not doubt teaching them his own upside-down perspective of life. His absentmindedness is of course portrayed and of some of the funniest stories about him involve this, such as telegraming his wife asking her where he was suppose to be.

Trying to give a Chestertonian outlook and a book to children is not the easiest task, I think for the most part the book does so in the limited aspects of his thoughts the book uses in the stories. I do like how this is done in a manner that is not artificial and I think that children would learn something from it. The last chapter in this short book was especially good in this regards. The stories do not really address Chesterton love of paradoxes to explain things, though it is understandable in a book of this type. There is certainly Chesterton’s view of looking at things in a different way and to see the seeming ordinary and average as part of the adventure of life.

At the end there is a short biography of G.K. Chesterton along with a couple pages of selected quotes.

The book is written as if Chesterton is living in the present day so there are some references to modern culture used to make the points. As someone who has read much about him along with his writings it was rather disconcerting since I always frame him in the time he lived in. I can certainly recommend this book as an introduction to G.K. Chesterton for children. The problem is once you get them interested what can you have them read of his works? The Father Brown Reader: Stories from Chesterton would be a good followup.

One caveat, two spelling errors in the book mar an otherwise good resource. Update: Apparently this was fixed in editions available now.

Paul Nowak’s web site.

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Alphonse is the story of eight lives that intersect because of an attempted abortion. Why “attempted?” Because while there are no angels or demons on either side, there is definitely a monster in the middle: Alphonse.

Rendered “grotesquely abnormal” by his unwitting mother’s use of controlled substances, he is both sentient and freakishly coordinated. He is also deeply wounded, twisted by fear and rage after the attempt on his life – and bent on revenge.

But violence begets violence. Alphonse is pursued even as he is pursuing, and haunted by the insistence of his only friend that there is another way…

Thus is the premise for Alphonse: Untimely Ripp’d, the first issue in a five-issue comic miniseries from writer Matthew Lickona and artist Chris Gugliotti. Matthew Lickona is known for his book “Swimming with Scapulars” and I must say I am impressed with the first issue of this graphic novel. Probably isn’t for everybody since it is kind of a firm noir graphic novel, but I found the story so far quite interesting and not what you would expect. Available at alphonsecomic.com

I just finished Bless Me, Father, For I Have Kids
” by Catholic author and humorist Susie Lloyd. My cheeks still ache since I think I was grinning the whole way while reading it. I hadn’t read her previous book “Please Don’t Drink the Holy Water”, but after reading her latest I will have to look it up.

Family life is certainly provides a rich vein to tap when it comes to humor and Susie milks it for all it’s worth. Here descriptions of family life will be familiar to many, especially those with large homeschooling families. The book is make up a short chapters which provide great bites for those busy parents that find little time to read. The first chapter describes her experience of having a boy after having seven girls in a row and the adapting this takes. Regardless though of what aspect of family life she is writing about it is invariably funny from the difficulties of getting kids to do chores in the kitchen to teaching them to drive I found myself often smiling and emitting a chuckle or two along the way. Her humor reminds me of Catholic humorist Tim Bete and I consider that quite a compliment.

Though she also writes about some annoyances such as what happens when you have a large family and dare to take them out in public. Funny how somebody could load their face with iron studs and have their underwear showing and nobody would dare to go up to them and criticize them for it. But have more than the customary amount of children and people you don’t even know will come up to you and be quite rude in their comments. Others have called them the procreation police, but her and her husband handles these pundits of procreation quite nicely.

I certainly recommend Bless Me, Father, For I Have Kids.

Disclosure: The book was sent to me for review from the author.

There are not exactly too many books that could be subscribed as a ecclesiastical thriller. The new book by Piers Paul Read called “The Death of a Pope” is certainly part of that small genre, but not limited by that.

The novel starts with a trial for a laicized priest who had been working for an international Catholic charity and had been arrested for trying to buy nerve agent. The plot builds from there in the last weeks of Pope John Paul II’s life and it follows a serious threat as you might expect from the thriller genre. The main characters follow a range mainly along a faithful Catholic and lapsed/liberal Catholic divide that includes a Cardinal, priests, a reporter, and various personnel from security agencies.

The split between faithful and less than faithful Catholics is part of the plot of the book and some of the dialogue concerns hot issues of the day such as condom use, women priests, etc. Though the book never lapses into just a vehicle for apologetics that is artificial and the issues raised are totally consistent with the plot. One thing I liked though is that the more liberal or fallen away Catholic characters were not described as unlikable stereotypes. They were treated as real people as where all the characters in the book. As you would expect from a novel published by Ignatius Press the sympathy of the book is certainly in an Orthodox Catholic direction – but again I liked it focusing on plot and characters and not making the novel a soapbox which is always a disastrous decision.

“The Death of a Pope” was a thoroughly satisfying read from the start to the end and totally satisfying how the plot resolves. While it is an enjoyable read for Catholics, the novel is quite well written and should see a large audience. The novel will be available on May 15th and has been well received by several Catholic novelists.

One book I was asked to review sounded somewhat promising of an author going around the world visiting relics in various places. Rag and Bone: A Journey Among the World’s Holy Dead, by Peter Manseau starts off rather promising as he visits Saint Francis Xavier’s to in Goa, India and even connects the issue of relics with seeing the ultrasound of his daughter. A book that explored the use of relics by various religions and even just a sociological look at relics would be at least somewhat interesting.

Unfortunately that is not the book the author wrote. There is much about relics that can lead to comical material. In Church history there have been many quite dubious relics and abuses as relic sellers would con laity and clergy. Even St. Augustine lamented about this going on in the early Church. This book seemed mainly to me to be about making fun of relics and people’s belief in them. So what you get is a chapter on Jesus’ foreskin and the various ones that had been venerated along with the history of this. Other chapters deal with other religions so we also get information about Mohammed’s whisker and Buddha’s teeth. The various pieces of the dead seemed to have been picked for chapters based on how ridiculous they were.

He did get around to the most famous relic of all – The Shroud of Turin. Since this didn’t fit his template of being ridiculous he took a different angle. One of the discoveries in most recent years is that on the shroud are contained pollens native to the area where Jesus was buried. So he advanced the idea that those pollens came to shroud from visitors to the shroud. Of course this was done without addressing any of the other facts about the shroud – as if just this one possibility was enough to dismiss it. Though since this is a comedic take on relics it is no surprise that he did not want to address the thousands of relics that do not have dubious pasts or even the miraculous stories surrounding them in modern times.

What I did find interesting was that various religious also venerated relics and what religions of parts of a religion didn’t. It might have been interesting if he had addressed the religious instinct in regards to relics even if from a secular view.

The beginning chapter on the toe of St. Francis Xavier casts this saint as a racist and proto-colonists who left India largely because of his racist views. Though the author uses much hyperbole and so sometimes it is difficult to discern when he is serious and is joking around. At one point he calls taking a relics stealing from the dead, but in relation to the rest of what he says it is again hard to tell if this is what he believes.

Each chapter of the book entails his travel to see a specific relic and the people he meets there. As a writer he is certainly capable and takes good advantage of the comedic elements and the book mainly stresses the comedic elements. When talking about the Holy Prepuce (foreskin) of Jesus he references a scriptor in the Vatican Library Leo Allatius who speculated that the Holy Foreskin may have ascended into Heaven at the same time as Jesus himself and might have become the rings of Saturn. As far as I can tell this bit is true, but he says other things in the book that make me rather dubious of his research such as saying that in modern times “mention of the foreskin became of punishable offense in ecclesiastical circles”. At another point in referencing canonization says it is something only a Pope can initiate, when of course the reality is that the local bishop is the one to initiate this. He studies religion at Georgetown so this probably explains this.

So when it comes to this book I say pass.