NCR Book Club Column

By Dennis Coday, NCR staff writer

Confronting Power and Sex in the Catholic Church Reclaiming the Spirit of Jesus By Bishop Geoffrey Robinson; Foreword by Donald Cozzens Liturgical Press, 320 pages, $24.95

Days before Australian Bishop Geoffery Robinson was to begin a U.S. tour promoting his book about church reform, Confronting Power and Sex in the Catholic Church: Reclaiming the Spirit of Jesus, the Australian bishops’ conference released a statement saying they had found “doctrinal difficulties” with the book.

Here’s a Catholic News Service story:

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By Dan McAloon, Catholic News Service

SYDNEY, Australia -- The Australian Catholic Bishops' Conference has listed its concerns with a retired bishop's book that critiques sexual and authoritarian abuses in the church.

The 2007 book, Confronting Power and Sex in the Catholic Church: Reclaiming the Spirit of Jesus, was written by Bishop Geoffrey Robinson, retired auxiliary bishop of Sydney and former head of the church's abuse panel.

The bishops said that "after correspondence and conversation" with Bishop Robinson, "it is clear that doctrinal difficulties remain." Central to these, they said, is Bishop Robinson's "questioning of the authority of the Catholic Church to teach the truth definitively."

Reviewed by Rachelle Linner, Catholic News Service

DIARY OF A WITNESS, 1940-1943 by Raymond-Raoul Lambert. Translated by Isabel Best. Ivan R. Dee (2007). 288 pages $27.50

To understand a period as complex as World War II and the Holocaust we need to read both trained historians and ordinary men and women. Historians provide a broad overview and an understanding of context but it is only individuals who can communicate the intimate details of what it is like to endure the suffering of mind, body and soul that is the reality of war.

Personal narratives can elicit the empathy and identification that move the reader to compassion and insight. The two books under consideration, while not among the central Holocaust narratives, are important in fleshing out our knowledge of those terrible years.

Reviewed by John Dear S.J.

JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters by James W. Douglass Orbis Books, 544 pages, $30

This week, Orbis Books publishes one of its most significant books in years, a labor of some 15 years work by Jim Douglass. JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters tells the painful, hopeful story of John F. Kennedy's efforts to save us from nuclear war, his decision to pull out troops from Vietnam, and his call for nuclear disarmament, a vision that animated shadowy forces in the U.S. government to do away with him and his vision.

I consider Jim one of the world's leading theologians of Christian nonviolence. His brilliance is reflected in his powerful books, The Nonviolent Cross, Lightning East to West, Resistance and Contemplation and The Nonviolent Coming of God (all recently republished by Wipf and Stock).

Interview by TOM FOX

QUEST FOR THE LIVING GOD: MAPPING THE FRONTIERS IN THE THEOLOGY OF GOD by Sr. Elizabeth Johnson Continuum, 256 pages, $24.95

Sr. Elizabeth Johnson, distinguished professor of theology at Fordham University, talks with Tom fox about her new book, Quest for the Living God Mapping the Frontiers in the Theology of God. Of this book, Roberto S. Goizueta, Associate Professor of Theology, Boston College, wrote, "Karl Rahner had an abiding concern that much of Christian theology presented God ‘unworthy of belief.’ Here Johnson has given us a God truly worthy of our belief, fidelity, and love. Every word breathes with the author's own deep love of God, the church, and the world.”

Excerpts from the Fox’s interview with Johnson follow. You can listen to the full interview or read a transcript here: A God worthy of our belief.

Tom Fox: Allow me to start where many people probably start when they talk to you about your book, and that is the bad press that God has been getting recently, and even you allude to it early on in your book. Richard Dawkins, the author of The God Delusion is giving God a bad time. Is this deservedly so, given his arguments?

Elizabeth Johnson: To talk about Dawkins, and also Hitchens, Harris, the others that are writing those kinds of books, simply gets me very frustrated because the God that they are denying existence to is not the God that most Christians even believe in. …

Reviewed by RACHELLE LINNER

One Hundred Great Catholic Books: From the Early Centuries to the Present By Donald Brophy BlueBridge, 222 pages, $16

The German writer Ida Goerres uses the lovely phrase "book providence" to describe the way "certain books come into our lives at certain times for some God-given purpose." Most people can recognize this in their own experience as readers, whether in the chance conversation that leads to a previously unknown author or a serendipitous discovery made while browsing in a bookstore or library. Donald Brophy's One Hundred Great Catholic Books will surely mediate book providence for countless readers. Mr. Brophy, for many years an editor for Paulist Press, reminds us that great Catholic books are "your friends and companions on the journey." He advises, "Treasure them, hold them close."

The criteria for inclusion in the book, Mr. Brophy writes, was a work's "interest to general readers ... books that people today can actually 'read.' There was some effort made to show the wide range of Catholic writing without loading the volume down with moral or systematic theology." A variety of genres are represented, including poetry, fiction, apologetics, biography, memoirs, history, theology and, most prominently, spirituality. All the books on Mr. Brophy's list are currently available in print or online, and he includes an afterward of 50 more books he recommends and a helpful appendix with publication and translation information.

By Dennis Coday, NCR staff writer

Confronting Power and Sex in the Catholic Church Reclaiming the Spirit of Jesus By Bishop Geoffrey Robinson; Foreword by Donald Cozzens Liturgical Press, 320 pages, $24.95

From the number of e-mail queries I have received since NCR ran the story about the publication of Confronting Power and Sex in the Catholic Church: Reclaiming the Spirit of Jesus by Australian Bishop Geoffrey Robinson, I know many NCR Book Club readers will welcome this news:

Collegeville, Minn.-based Liturgical Press has obtained the North American rights to Robinson’s book, and it is now available for purchase here. Here’s a link to the book's Web page at Liturgical Press: Confronting Power and Sex in the Catholic Church.

For those eager to read the book, there is more good news. Robinson, the retired bishop of Sydney, Australia, will be on a U.S. book tour in May and June.

By SHONA CRABTREE, Religion News Service

This is the time of year when the Catholic Church enjoys the greatest growth spurt of the entire year -- an estimated 150,000 adult converts who were baptized or confirmed into the church on Easter.

A recent survey shows 44 percent of Americans now profess a religious affiliation that's different from the one they were born into.

But not everyone who flirts with change actually makes the leap, as a bumper crop of recent spiritual memoirs shows. Some who start the journey end up in new and unexpected places, while others end up exactly where they started, thankful for lessons learned.

Reviewed by Brian T. Olszewski, Catholic News Service

God's Mechanics: How Scientists and Engineers Make Sense of Religion By Brother Guy Consolmagno, SJ Jossey-Bass 233 pages $24.95

The Spiritual Brain: A Neuroscientist's Case for the Existence of the Soul By Mario Beauregard and Denyse O'Leary HarperOne 400 pages $25.95.

God's Mechanics: How Scientists and Engineers Make Sense of Religion by Jesuit Brother Guy Consolmagno and "The Spiritual Brain: A Neuroscientist's Case for the Existence of the Soul" by Mario Beauregard and Denyse O'Leary are university science courses.

In the former, readers receive the overview course, the general-interest offering that is educational and enjoyable for those majoring in science as well as those who are pursuing another field but who need a certain number of credits in science.

Brother Consolmagno's conversational tone in imparting his scholarship will put readers in the midst of a group discussion akin to the lab portion of a lecture course. In his joint roles as religious and techie, he is able to explain both, almost as though he is talking as a religious to the techies and as a techie to people of faith.

Like the professor who knows that his topic can be dry and overwhelming, Brother Consolmagno weaves humor into it. The lighter fare is appreciated amid the heaviness of science and religion.

In the second chapter, "Why God Is Useful," Brother Consolmagno sets the discussion or reflective tone with a series of questions: If God is the answer, what was the question? Why is there something instead of nothing? What do I want and why do I want it? How do I make sense of my life?

By Patricia Zapor, Catholic News Service

Politics in the Parish: The Political Influence of Catholic Priests By Gregory Allen Smith Georgetown University Press, Release date: April 15

A small study to be reported in an upcoming book on the political influence of parish priests found huge differences in the types of political messages being emphasized from one parish to another, which may come as no surprise to anyone.

But whichever subjects their priests address, said author Gregory Smith, a fellow at the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, people clearly are being influenced in their political thinking by what they hear from the pulpit and read in their parish bulletins.