Recipes & Religion: Feast on both food and faith

"Sacred Feasts

From a Monastery Kitchen,"

by Brother Victor-Antoine

d'Avila-Latourrette

In the grocery produce area, without looking at the signage, can you spot the leeks?

Although I'd heard of leeks, I'd never known what a leek was -- or even what a leek looked like -- until a recipe in "Sacred Feasts From a Monastery kitchen" called for them.

Our neighborhood supermarket had a small stack of the onion-family root veggie -- imagine a tall onion about half the height of a softball bat.

They helped to make the most delicious soup, if I do say so myself.

Leeks from the garden of Our lady of the Resurrection Monastery in upstate New York find their way into a number of the dishes that Brother Victor-Antoine d'Avila-Latourrette shares in his latest collection of recipes and reflections.

With the feasts of the church and the saints' days as his structure, Brother Victor-Antoine cooks his way through the calendar, walking us through his rationale for preparing specific dishes. Easter and Christmas get the attention they deserve, of course but not forgotten are the small feasts that require the serving of St. Bernadette's Creamy Rice Pudding, for example, St. James Egg and Avocado Salad and St. Nicholas Bread.

Reviewing books for a blog on www.TheCatholicSpirit.com has never led me to cooking before. But how do you review a cookbook without testing a few recipes?

Soup for a saint

The St. Joseph Leek, Potato and Squash Soup intrigued me. For the monks, the March 19 Feast of St. Joseph is cause for a more festive meal than usual fare, coming during Lent as it does, and Brother Victor-Antoine pulled a number of veggies from the monastery cellar to fashion a soup he named in honor of the saint of the day.

That's why I had to buy the leeks.

The recipe also called for onion, garlic, potatoes, and acorn squash, but truth be told I skipped the squash; never could warm up to the taste.

Thanks to watching my mom and wife, I make a pretty decent vegetable beef soup when the spirit moves me, but I've never made a soup in which you put the cooked ingredients into a food processor or blender to puree.

The result was an amazingly flavorful, tasty soup.

My wife suggested "doctoring" it with a bit of chicken bouillon, and that made it just about perfect.

Simple-to-follow recipes

I figured I'd better try a dessert recipe, too, and thanks to the prolific apple tree in our yard I didn't have to shop for the filling for the "Apple Dumplings German Style" that Brother Victor-Antoine prepared for late October.

If I acknowledge that I downed five of the six apple-filled pastries, will that be evidence enough of how good they were? And why we just joined a gym?

The recipe was so simple even a journalist couldn't screw it up.

That's the case with most of the dishes in this 208-page hardcover work from Liguori Publications.

Some ingredients may be new to less-veteran cooks, but the step-by-step directions are thorough, clear and specific, often taking the time to explain the required technique known to good chefs but not by us some-time cooks.

You should know that the monastery diet is primarily vegetarian. Just a few of the dishes offer adding meat as an option. The monks east out of their garden and buy locally grown produce from the farms nearby. And hearty soups are a mainstay of the monastery diet.

But the French background and training of Brother Victor-Antoine pope out in hi use of wine in many of the dishes he's gathered for the feasts of the church year.

More than a cookbook

What makes "Sacred Feasts" valuable is that as good a chef as Brother is, he's also a wonderful teacher about both Catholic traditions and Catholic beliefs.

Remember ever observing Candlemas?

Today the Feb. 2 feast is called the Presentation of the Lord, but Brother takes advantage of the day's former title to wax prosaic (pun intended!) on the central place of candles in the liturgy, reminding how the candle symbolizes Christ's presence in our midst.

Throughout "Sacred Feasts" there are these little catechizing moments, simple words of wisdom to remember and to share, reflections on the faith to nourish the conversation around our own dinner tables.

He explains that we fast during Lent primarily to enable us to better contemplate the suffering of Christs and actually participate and share in that immense sacrifice Jesus made to atone for our sin, but also to help us remember the pain and need of others, especially the poor and suffering.

Reading cooks will find out why we bless our food before meals, learn to see the maturation of the fruit and vegetables as seasonal blessings from the Lord, and absorb the legacy of the saints in the church calendar.

Lovely woodcuts of monastery life and interesting quotes in the book's margins spice up the pages, too.

Together with flavorful recipes, sprinkles of faith formation and Catholic identity building, "Sacred Feasts From a Monastery Kitchen" is a filing package, so much more than a cookbook. -- bz

Fun Christmas reading: Garrison Keillor clones Lake Wobegon in North Dakota

"A Christmas Blizzard,"

by Garrison Keillor

Nobody's literary comedy stands a snowball's chance in Honolulu against Garrison Keillor and his takes on communities in the northern clime.

"A Christmas Blizzard" is just 180 pages long, but it's as fun and funny a 180 pages as anything you'll ever read, with a moral worth remembering and celebrating throughout the year.

This time the creator and host of public radio's "A Prairie Home Companion" has found Lake Wobegon-like characters in Looseleaf, North Dakota, and he brings a prodigal native son back to his home town just in time for Christmas and a typical northern plains white-out.

Main character James Sparrow fell into a lucrative business that made him the wealthy CEO of a Chicago beverage company. He's rich enough to not want to spend time doing anything at Christmas that he doesn't want to. What he wants to do is take his private jet to his palatial Hawaii second home and look at the calming waves of the Pacific.

A tug of the heart strings -- or is is a guilty conscience? -- has that private jet flying into good ol' Looseleaf instead, and stranding Sparrow in a town with wacky but lovable relatives, fruitcake townfolk from his past, and even quizzical story walk-ons, like the busload of psychoanalists who are afraid to fly!

No scripted storyline here

If you think this is going to fall into that simplistic story genre of the guy who doesn't like Christmas celebrating like no one else on the big day -- well, maybe.

Keillor puts so much that's laughable in his fictional characters -- pieces of the human condition that you'll identify in your own family, friends and acquaintance, and may yourself, plus identifiable references to real people and real events -- that the storyline almost becomes secondary to the eccentric population of Looseleaf and how rich Mr. Sparrow comes to terms with them -- how they impact him and how he touches their lives.

Finally, throw out anything you ever learned about the Greek dramas and "deus ex machina" endings.

In this Viking novel, Keillor out-deus-ex-machinas any contrived ending you could ever imagine. What a fun read! -- bz

What's in a name? A lot, if it's yours!

"My Name is Sangoel,"

written by Karen Lynn Williams

and Khadra Mohammed,

illustrated by Catherine Stock

Shaquille O'Neal was the name that broke the ice.

Across the United States a great angst was fomenting as families with non-traditional ethnic backgrounds named their children what to many "American" ears were strange sounding names.

Remember hearing folks ask "Why can't they give their kids a 'normal' name?"

Recall being stymied in trying to pronounce unique names, those with unique spellings, and especially names from other cultures?

Then came the personable, photogenic and talented basketball player named Shaquille. Our ears started to get used to the sound of a name that wasn't Tom or Dave, Jennifer or Jane.

The need for open-mindedness about unique names multiplies as refugees from around the world continue to flee war, hunger and oppression in lands where many names offer a test to American ears.

Authors Williams and Mohammed give us a different perspective on the phenomenon. In this colorful children's book, readers learn what it's like to be the African boy from Sudan who finds no one in his new country can pronounce his name.

Too different to even try

After his father is killed in war, Sangoel lives in a refugee camp until the day he and his mother and sister can emigrate to the United States.

Everything is new in this new land, and although he is only eight Sangoel is the man of the family, he takes responsibility to help his mother and sister make their way.

As the first-born son who as Dinka tradition has it is named after his father, his grandfather, and his ancestors through the ages, young Sangoel heeds his grandfather's parting words: "You will be Sangoel. Even in America."

That proves to be quite the challenge.

Hanging on to his name with pride, the boy despairs that no one in the United States -- not the social worker helping his family resettle, not doctors, not teachers, classmates, coaches or soccer teammates -- can rightly say his name.

Some don't even try -- an experience with which many an American with an ethnic last name can surely identify and empathize. People see an "ski," a "wicz," an accent mark or an apostrophe in a name and they don't even attempt to sound out a pronunciation.

In this beautifully illustrated work from the collection of Eerdmans Books for Young Readers, Sangoel's creativity enables him to teach others to say his name correctly -- and to be accepted in his new environment without leaving behind the heritage of his native homeland.

Reading "My Name is Sangoel" -- pronounced "Sun-Goal" -- makes for a teachable moment, an opportunity to address at least one prejudice our nation of immigrants can live without. -- bz

Art books captures angels captured by heavenly artists

"The Glory of Angels,"

by Edward Lucie-Smith

Seraphim, cherubim, archangels and guardian angels.

That's the sum total of my knowledge of angels before working my way through Edward Lucie-Smith's huge, beautiful coffee table book.

Its pages are filled with so much about angels I never knew.

"The Glory of Angels" covers the waterfront about the heavenly host. Readers will find there is a hierarchy or "order" of angels -- and archangel is only one category. Each level of angel supposedly has a job to do. This pecking order, if you will, appears in neither the Hebrew Scriptures nor the New Testament, but only shows up in the 4th century, so take that as a word to the wise.

On the other hand, there are numerous references to angels in both the Hebrew Bible and in the New Testament, and this book reminds us of a number of them through use of well-placed and eye-catching quotations from the Psalms, Genesis, Revelation and St. Paul's letters. There are pertinent quotes as well from artists, saints and historic figures.

But the written copy or text is really secondary in "The Glory of Angels." The text simple is the skeleton for the real flesh of this book.

This is one marvelous gathering of stupendous art.

Works by the masters

Lucie-Smith may have captured on these pages a majority of the world's great renderings of angels in art. Paintings, frescoes, tapestry, sculpture, bas relief, icons, stained glass, mosaics, even dishes and jewelry -- they're all here, and by scores of the most famous artists across the ages.

A Tiffany window, color-bursting modern works by Kandinsky, Kim, Gauguin, Dali and Chagall, pieces by masters such as Rubens, Giotto, Bernini, El Greco and Manet.

Caravaggio, Rembrandt, Titian all have their own version of God's angel stopping Abraham as he's about to sacrifice his son Isaac.)

One of my favorites is the beautifully framed Nativity done by Della Robbia in brilliant white marble on a stunning blue field. In it, God the Father and a host of angels want from above as the Virgin prays over the Christ Child in the manger.

Images both familiar and fresh

Readers with even a slight connection to religious literature will immediately recognize the sword-bearing angelic figure as the Archangel Michael. More than half-dozen images depict the warrior angel, the best being a two-page spread that carries the near-science fiction scene of "The Fall of the Rebel Angels" that Pieter Bruegel the Elder painted in the 16th century. The characterization of the bad angels turning into grotesque beasts rivals anything from the cantina scene in "Star Wars," and a golden-clad Michael is prominent in the center of the action.

Gabriel appears in any number of renderings of the Annunciation. The angels often come in dreams -- to Jacob and St. Joseph, for example --and they come from scores of countries, including China, Japan, Senegal, India and Ethiopia. Angels even illustrate pages of some copies of the Muslim Qu'ran.

Not a believer in angels?

The 192-page Collins/Design large hardcover offers a chapter titled "What Angels Do For Us" that invites readers to walk through works of art that show that, in the authors words, "we perceive things through our encounters with angels that might otherwise be hidden from us." A handful of works bring guardian angels into the picture, saving mostly children from danger, but adults as well.

The coolest: "Cowboy Angel" complete with chaps, by Delmas Howe. The most different: Rom Mueck's "Angel," an elfish male sans clothing perched atop an old stool.

In a wonderfully designed and elegantly printed book, two elements stand out. The first is the interesting way the art is identified, with caption information about title, artist and era available on the page or nearby and clear via a numbering and icon system.

The second is a superb index -- slugged "Picture Resource" -- with thumbnail versions of each work, the page on which it appears, the title, artist, time frame, current location, medium and genre.

That alone turns a gorgeous coffee table book into an invaluable art resource. -- bz

Help for teaching siblings they don't have to be rivals

"Brown Bear, White Bear,"

written by Svetlana Petrovic,

illustrated by Vincent Hardy

The four-year old and the two-year old sat beside me, their eyes glued to the pages as grandpa read this cute little story.

Neither granddaughter moved a muscle until story's end.

That's a good children's book.

The gist of the tale is that two grandmothers who compete for little Alice's favor both gift her with bears. The bears, however, don't get along with one another any better than the grandmas do as they vie to see which one of them Alice likes best.

Their teddy-bear version of sibling rivalry escalates to the point where young Alice needs to give both a time out -- something the pre-school set will understand -- and some good lessons follow.

'Adult rivalry' too

As much as this is a children's book, adults who pay attention while they are reading it to youngsters have a good chance of picking up on the silliness of their "adult rivalry" for the affection of a child.

And I couldn't help but wonder if Ellie (age 4) and Sarah (age 2) could transfer the bears' poor behavior toward one another to the way they themselves sometimes treat each other. That's going to take some work by adults.

But repeated readings are going to help with that, and sure enough, as soon as we turned the last page of this colorful Eerdmans book the plea came up: "Read it again, grandpa."

That's a good children's book. -- bz

Advocate for the abused shares a great message in a very few words

"Beyond the Mirror,"
by Marlene Jezierski

"You can't do anything right."
That's a typical verbal abuse.
Marlene Jezierski has heard that and much more from women and men and children who are victims of domestic violence. Not all the bruises of domestic abuse show on the outside of the body.
As she put it, "I wrote the book because I saw a knowledge gap in the area of violence in the home. While beatings and sexual assaults are understood and recognized, the subtleties of psychological abuse are not."
Her little book is just 36 pages, but it's plenty to touch your heart.

Life as a prisoner
Open "Beyond the Mirror" to any page as I did when this little tome arrived and you'll know the hurt, the diminution of spirit, the sadness and the fear of those who don't see any way out of a life that has become a prison.
One page had me.
Jezierski has turned what could be prose stories of victims of physical and emotional abuse into mostly brief, one-page poems that tug at your heart. It's beautiful poetry about a dreadful reality.
What she enlightens readers about is psychological torture:
Degrading statements.
Accusations.
Looks that kill the spirit.
Checking of the car odometer when the spouse leaves on an errand and returns home.
Isolation from friends, often from the rest of the world.

Tentacles reach out
A wake-up call may be in how the meanness and belittling is passed on to the children and to the extended families as well. Another may be the revelation that abusers perpetrate acts of cruelty and violence on family pets to instill fear in the people they live with. One poem quotes the spouse who killed and mutilated the family dog: "If you ever leave, that is what will happen to you, and they will never find the pieces."
And there's a great piece titled "Why on Earth Does She Stay?"
It's a collage of all the bad advice offered from family, clergy and co-workers, all the threats from the abusers, all the fears of the victims.
Yet sprinkled here and there throughout are glimmers of hope:

• The 6th grade boy who doesn't like himself when he realizes he's imitating the abusive father he's coming to hate.
• The peace for mother and child when a friend is able to secret them away to a shelter for victims of domestic abuse.
• The school counselor who is helping the love-misled teen to understand balance in relationships, healthy love, boundaries and obsessive control.

Being part of the solution

A final ray of hope shines in examples Jezierski gives of the support and good advice that comes from true friends, caring health care professionals, enlightened policies at medical facilities, even strangers who witness or overhear abuse and have the courage to speak up and intervene.

Not to be forgotten are clergy who do real pastoring by letting victims know, "Your husband broke the marriage covenant the first time he abused you. God doesn't want anyone to be abused." -- bz

N.B. -- Marlene Jezierski, a retired emergency nurse who lives in Blaine, MN, is an educator and consultant on family violence prevention. As an advocate for victims she has testified before Congress on the impact of violence on women's health. She conducts seminars on physical and emotional domestic abuse, speaks to church groups and teaches classes to interested groups. She expressed the hope that readers of "Beyond the Mirror" will be energized to volunteer or somehow be involved in the cause about which she is so passionate. "My mission," she noted, "is to help raise awareness and engage the community to become part of the solution." Although donations are accepted, copies of "Beyond the Mirror" are available at no cost through the author at beyondTmirror@aol.com.

Nothing border-line about history behind border lines of U.S. states

"How the States Got Their Shapes,"

by Mark Stein

Intrigued by the title every time I saw this book in the offerings of www.historybookclub.com, I finally had my resistance broken down when it went on sale.

Who knew how interesting the stories would be about how the borders of our states were drawn. There's a lesson in U.S. history on every page, and the tight yet thorough, informative yet not academic writing style even makes it a fun read. Superb maps make all the difference, too.

Author Mark Stein uses a similar tease to introduce each of the states -- for example, "Why is there a semicircle at the top of Delaware?" -- and most pique the curiosity just enough to get you to the 6-7-8 pages on most of the states.

A story -- and a good one -- lies behind nearly every state in this 304-page Smithsonian Books publication.

If you've ever wondered why the Four Corners area where Colorado, Utah, Arizona and New Mexico meet is the only place in the country where that happens, the answers include lost or inebriated surveyors, wily members of Congress, royal decrees from English kings, and of course religious prejudice, among others.

Watch our for those Catholics!

You probably recall from your grade school history classes that Britain's King Charles I, a Catholic, created Maryland to provide a place in the New World for England's Catholics.

The Dutch ("which is to say, Protestants," Stein noted) had already begun settlements in the area and they "feared what life for them might be under the rule of Maryland's Catholics."

Ruling that the area mapped out as Maryland was "only intended to include land uncultivated by Christians," a hunk of territory was then lopped off to create Delaware. Stein explains:

"This may sound like a loophole to get the king off the hook, but, in fact, the second paragraph of Maryland's charter states that this land was being granted to start a colony 'in a country hitherto uncultivated, in the parts of America, and partly occupied by Savages, having no knowledge of the Divine Being.' Nasty words by today's standards, but it did the trick."

Somewhat the same thing happened down on Maryland's southern border. The piece of land that extends between the Atlantic Ocean and Chesapeake Bay now called the Delmarva Peninsula (Delaware, Maryland and Virginia, get it?) was originally Virginia's, but when King Charles created Maryland, the Virginia colonists already there took issue.

Stein pointed out the anti-Catholic attitude of the day: "If these Virginians (which is to say, Protestants) were now to be within the jurisdiction of Maryland (which is to say, Catholics), what sort of treatment could they expect?"

The king went with a compromise to keep the peace, and now three states share a finger of land.

Similar state and even national borders were impacted by religious differences and fears, and not only involving Catholics. They are relatively few, though, compared with the way state borders were draw for political and commercial reasons.

Method in the madness

Rivers form natural boundaries, and access to water and waterways come into play of course. It's the little niches of states -- like Minnesota's Northwest Angle that juts through the 49th parallel that makes up most of the U.S. border with Canada -- that make for informative, interesting reading.

Slavery has a role, too, as does "acquiring" land from Native peoples -- or pushing them off it.

For some reason I hadn't been aware of one factor about how the states got their shapes: equality. Congress, as it drew borders, was highly conscious of forming states that were relatively the same in area so that each would be likely to have an equal say in the federal government.

That said, Congress in the past isn't all that different from Congress today, and the pieces of state lines that skirt around a town or angle off a north-south or east-west axis or don't line up with a neighboring state might have a very practical rationale behind them. Or a very political one. Or a very profitable one, profitable for someone.

Finding out what happened in each state is like taking the best kind of history class. -- bz

If you rue the abuse and misuse of the English language, you have a friend and an advocate for making a difference

"Caring for Words in a Culture of Lies,"
by Marilyn Chandler McEntyre

Humankind's ability to use words to express, describe and explain is a gift from God, ergo humans should practice stewardship with language in much the same way we are challenged to care for the Creator's gifts of water, earth and other resources.

"Like any other life-source," McEntyre posits, "language can be depleted, polluted, contaminated, eroded and filled with artificial stimulants."

If we are good stewards of language, we'll recognize its value and commit ourselves to protect and preserve it, use it well and battle those who would use language for ill ends. Caring for words, this California college professor states, is a moral issue; conversation is "a life-sustaining practice, a blessing, and a craft to be cultivated for the common good."

The enemies in this war for words are many:

• Propaganda;
• spin;
• ad hominen arguments;
• smear campaigns; distortion;
• lies;
• euphemisms;
• overgeneralizations.

And many more.

Better solutions than "whatever"

For some years "Valley girls" were mocked for initiating sentences with the word "like," yet the angst that "like" creates for stewards of language may be small beer compared with the aggravation that follows the current non-response that supposedly answers all difficulties: "Whatever."

McEntyre offers three prescriptions against the disease that afflicts the English language: 1) Deepen and sharpen our reading skills; 2)Cultivate habits of speaking and listening that foster precision and clarity; and 3), Be makers and doers of the word, which she describes as "to indulge in word play, to delight in metaphor, to practice specificity and accuracy, to listen critically and refuse cliches and sound bites that substitute for authentic analysis."

She blames text messaging for rapidly eroding spelling and punctuation skills while training users to trade precision for speed.

In much the same way the earth's resources are being depleted, so too she charges "the rich soil of lively discourse is being depleted."

You only need to have what you thought was a relevant discussion be concluded by a "whatever" to find you agree.

Love words, challenge lies

To counter the erosion, if not the near criminal loss of vocabulary, McEntyre presents a dozen strategies for those who would be stewards of words. "Love words" is the first.

Her text itself makes that easy to do and inspires one to follow her suggestion to look at words -- not through them -- and to search for ones that are "intriguing, complex, haunting, curious, interestingly ambiguous, troubling or delightful."

"Tell the truth" is another strategy, and anyone who ever heard the deaths of innocent civilians described as "collateral damage" understands the moral implication behind that misuse of words.

As McEntyre puts it, stewards of words need to be inquisitive about what they read or hear:

"The process by which things come to us are often deliberately hidden or left unmentioned so as not to draw attention to the less savory aspects of process like pollution, abusive labor practices, fuel consumption, dangerous pesticides, unfair treatment of animals, insider trading."

Her solution?

"Humbly inquiring what the user means, and then listening," then calling liars into account -- especially when their lies threaten the welfare of the community."

There is so much more in the 234-page Eerdmans paperback.

Take Professor McEntyre's advice. Read paragraphs and re-read them.

"Taste" words.

Chew on them.

You'll find you are satisfying a hunger you may not have known you had. - bz

Brown's "The Lost Symbol" pulpy and preachy

"The Lost Symbol,"

by Dan Brown

Can the writing style of a novelist get boring by just the third book?

I'm sure Doubleday is going to sell enough copies of Dan Brown's latest puzzler to wallpaper every monument and public building in Washington, DC inside and out. However.

Although I really liked "The Da Vinci Code," "Angels & Demons" wasn't that good and didn't hit the charts until Da Vinci made the author famous, and frankly "The Lost Symbol" got to be 500-plus pages to fight through.

By chapter 126 I was struggling to stay awake, and there were seven more chapters and an epilogue to go.

First-time readers of Brown may find the sleuthing of main character Robert Langdon fun to follow, but readers of Brown's first two Langdon novels are likely to see the tramping about Washington in search of clues as formulaic -- way too similar to the tramping about Paris and Rome in those earlier works.

Throw in the usual gruesome deaths and violent tortures, Brown's usual mysterious society -- this time the Masons -- and you've got your typical pulp novel. Of course that doesn't make for a 500-page book, so Brown does readers the real disservice of going way too deeply into explanations about ancient philosophies, symbols, religions, languages, sciences, archeology, plus off-the-chart mind-over-matter silliness, all of which seems like filler in what should be an action-packed story.

Anti-religion once again

Catholics and others who practice a traditional life of faith will notice that Langdon, Brown's protagonist, continues in this latest novel the insidious assault on organized religion and its traditions that he put forward in "The Da Vinci Code" and "Angels & Demons."

Brown does his best to work in subtle jabs at the Catholic Church in particular and other faiths as well, questioning the veracity of truths they teach in some cases, in other times bluntly alluding to what he paints as errors.

An example is a passage half-way through the novel. You need not even know the context to see what I mean:

"Then he discovered the writings of Aleister Crowley -- a visionary mystic from the early 1900s -- whom the church had deemed 'the most evil man who every lived.'"

Really Mr. Brown? Two sources I read credit the British press -- not "the church" -- with calling Crowley "The Wickedest Man in the World." And your brief reference to him as "a visionary mystic" hardly do justice to the depraved person Crowley was.

Interested readers should Google Aleister Crowley to see what kind of person Brown is holding up to his readers as he puts down "the church."

Minus the overbearing scientific explanations and the graduate-school lessons in antiquities, "The Lost Symbol" might almost be a decent page-turner of a story. But then Brown succumbs to the temptation to get preachy.

Much of the reading satisfaction that was to be savored gets sucked right out. -- bz

Bishops are people, too! Who knew?

"Effective Faith,"

by Bishop Thomas J. Tobin

I've just read Bishop Thomas Tobin's book for the second time, and I liked it just as much as I did the first time.

I'd only spent a handful of hours in the bishop's company a few years ago, but I was invited to read a proof of a collection of newspaper columns that he'd written for diocesan newspapers in Ohio and Rhode Island.

What I said about the writing of the Bishop of Providence then ended up as an endorsement on the back cover:

"Bishops are people, too! Who knew? Expecting a book by a bishop to be dry and theological? 'Effective Faith' . . . is the antithesis. Meet a down-to-earth, self-effacing human being who happens to be a Catholic priest and bishop."

Teaching without preaching

I added at the time that this collection of columns deserves a wider audience, and I'm glad that Seraphina Press from Minneapolis has made that possible with this easy-reading, 175-page paperback.

What the bishop does best is take the news of the day -- the topics real people are talking about -- and make them the perfect subject matter to grab readers' attention and engage them in the lessons that life keeps teaching him.

That means writing about sports, about casinos, about how life changes, about all the "stuff" in his life and ours and the need to get rid of some of the baggage.

One of my favorite chapters is "The Gospel at 30,000 Feet," where he describes getting the third-degree about the church from a non-Catholic seat-mate on an airplane. The questioning is priceless!

There's a beautiful chapter about his interior thoughts as he held the baby he'd just baptized and pondered the world she would find on her journey.

"Ashley's World" lets us all into Bishop Tobin's world, if you will, and the questions we all have about what the future holds.

The chapters are short, worth savoring one a day for 40 days, worth reading and spending time reflecting on our own view of life, faith, the issues of our day and our own little world.

Nice job, bishop. -- bz

Quotes show comments in past were as nasty as today's

"Distory,"

by Robert Schnakenberg

Don't believe the voices clamoring about our 21st-century society being exceptionally rude and willing to belittle others more virulently than ever.

"Distory" proves that people -- especially some in high office -- have been saying ugly things about the rest of God's children for a good long time.

When Charles the Fifth led the Holy Roman Empire, he slammed an entire country: "I speak Spanish to God, Italian to women, French to men, and German to my horse."

Nineteenth-century Speaker of the U.S. House of Representative Thomas Reed blasted congressmen of his time with the cutting remark, "They never open their mouths without subtracting from the sum of human knowledge."

And author Charles Dickens once called Henry VIII "a blot of blood and grease upon the history of England."

The whole book is like that, a series of quotations by individuals who have taken the kidgloves off and vented about another.

Insults through the years

Because the quotes are organized into chapters of insults by and about a) Americans, b) Brits, c) military figures, d) other nations and e) miscellaneous, and because they are listed chronologically, "Distory" can claim to teach us a bit of history as well.

Robert Schnakenberg subtitles this St. Martin's Press work "A Treasury of Historical Insults."

"Treasury" might not be the choice of nouns that polite folks would have used. In fact, some of the remarks are clever and witty. Others plain mean and graceless.

But I found it valuable to read the American chapter from beginning to end. It was a refresher course in history -- and a mostly witty one at that. I learned, too, what some of the great names in history felt about others of their time, perspectives that weren't in my elementary or high school history books.

Guess about whom pamphleteer Tom Paine -- the lauded author of "Common Sense" -- called "treacherous in private friendship . . . and a hypocrite in public life"?

Would you believe George Washington?

John Quincy Adams termed Andrew Jackson "a barbarian who cannot write a sentence of grammar and can hardly spell his own name."

General George McClellan called Abraham Lincoln "nothing more than a well-meaning baboon."

Teddy Roosevelt said that William McKinley "has a chocolate eclair backbone."

Press no shrinking violets

Media are often accused of being much more mean than their predecessors, but Baltimore Sun columnist H.L. Mencken was as nasty as they get when it comes to insults. He wrote this about Franklin D. Roosevelt:

"If he became convinced tomorrow that coming out for cannibalism would get him the votes he sorely needs, he would begin fattening a missionary in the White House backyard come Wednesday."

Journalist Hunter S. Thompson at the end of the 20th century had a poison pen as well. Thompson on Richard Nixon:

"He was a foul caricature of himself, a man with no soul, no inner convictions, with the integrity of a hyena and the style of a poison toad."

And Gerald Ford said, "Jimmy Carter wants to speak loudly and carry a fly swatter."

Brits: Masters of the 'craft'

Our friends across the pond, of course, have made political insults a science. Politico John Bright in the 19th century said of prime minister Benjamin Disraeli: "He is a self-made man and worships his creator."

Disraeli came back with this about the man who was both his predecessor and his successor, William Gladstone: "If Gladstone fell into the Thames, it would be a misfortune. But if someone pulled him out, it would be a calamity."

My favorite quotations, however, are this clever bit of repartee between playwright George Bernard Shaw and Prime Minister Winston Churchill.

Shaw: "I am enclosing two tickets to the first night of my new play, bring a friend -- if you have one." Churchill replied: "Cannot possibly attend first night, will attend second -- if there is one." -- bz

When baby No. 2 comes along...

"Not Yet, Rose,"

written by Susanna Leonard Hill,

illustrated by Nicole Rutten

"Is the baby here yet?"

Every parent who has another baby on the way will empathize with the answer "Not Yet, Rose."

Better yet, parents will want to read it to their toddlers -- and because the story is so right on, they won't mind reading it over-and-over -- fact-of-life for parents of toddlers -- because it offers such teachable moments.

Teachable moments for adults are there, too, for those able to get past the exasperation of their child/children and see the book's parents as role models worth emulating.

Sibling rivalry is most likely going to happen later, for sure, but Hill's gentle touch is sure to ease the mind of many a first-born as they wonder about their own life after the baby comes out of mommy's tummy.

Will my life change? Will it be the same?

Do I want a brother? Would a sister be better?

Maybe I don't want a brother or a sister at all!

Rutten's illustrations with their soft palate and warm tones create just the right atmosphere for cuddling up with this wonderfully done book from Eerdmans.

Baby No. 2 on the way? Buy this book. -- bz

Minnesotan Leif Enger has winner in 2nd novel, too

"So Brave, Young and Handsome,"

by Leif Enger

Come along with two delightful characters, Monte Becket and Glendon Hale, on a journey that's a classic American tale and a wonderful, satisfying read.

Becket is the author who hit it big with his first novel but can't seem to come up with winning story idea No. 2.

Hale -- is that his real name? -- is an old man building a boat on the shores of Minnesota's Cannon River, but he's a bit mysterious about his past.

Together they go off in search of -- just what is it this unlikely pair are looking for as they head west?

What they find is an adventure every step of the way, a surprise around the corner of every chapter.

Seemingly inching their way across the country during the time of train travel and the early days of the automobile, the duo encounter amazingly unique characters, and Enger's way with words makes a reader feel as if they can picture each one and just have to know how these folk will impact the quest of Becket and Hale.

No sophomore jinx

Enger, who lives in Minnesota, resembles his author character Becket only that they both write. After hitting a literary grand slam with his debut novel "Peace Like a River," this second novel -- now out as a Grove Press paperback -- is every bit as good.

Enger is a wordsmith, plain and simple. When one of the side characters departs from this life, Enger puts it this way:

"Death arrived easy as the train; Hood just climbed aboard, like the capable traveler he was."

Never in your life would you think of the situations Enger places his protagonists, and just when you think you've figured out what's going to happen next something totally unexpected either pushes our intrepid heroes further along the trail or postpones their journey for some ungodly reason.

With choices to be made at every intersection, "So Brave, Young and Handsome" s a novel filled with moral dilemmas.

What our travelers decide in each instance makes for fulfilling reading, and a hunger for more from Mr. Enger. -- bz

Be inspired to put love into action

"Love is a Verb,"

by Gary Chapman

"Love has to be more than something we feel," Gary Chapman writes. "It has to be something we do. We have to demonstrate it concretely."

And inspiring story after inspiring story, that's what "Love is a Verb" reminds.

Chapman of course became somewhat of a celebrity with the publishing of "The Five Love Languages," which sold 5 million copies.

Here he offers 40 "love stories" by a whole gamut of people who share their real-life experiences of love in action -- often not what you and I -- or they themselves -- expected.

Many are by writers who have a vital faith life, so they not only know how to tell a story but they get -- and pass along -- the spiritual they find in the episode they share about.

Chapman, a Baptist pastor in North Carolina, makes each story a teachable moment by adding a "love lesson" at the end of each piece.

Read a story a day

This is not a book to read from cover to cover.

You could, of course. The brief chapters -- the longest may be seven or eight pages and most are four or five -- make for quick, easy reading.

Better to savor the piece and its lesson a day at a time.

In fact, don't start at the beginning. When your -- um, "loveliness"??? -- needs a pick-me-up, crack open this 248-page Bethany House book and start reading a chapter wherever your fingers take you.

Let the stories soak in.

Then get to work.

Because love is a verb. -- bz

Baseball-lovers novel hits a home run

"Battle Creek,"
by Scott Lasser

Baseball -- my first love -- is the setting that attracted me to this 10-year-old novel, but it's the people on the team -- their dreams, their lives, their loves and their losses -- that make "Battle Creek" a winner in the field -- the field of literature.

Author Lasser has the inside stuff of the diamond down pat -- the thinking of pitchers and hitters, the managerial strategy, the nuts and bolts of the game. But he's even better at the inside stuff of life, the moral dilemmas that real people face off the field, the decisions that we all have to make and the impact that they have on us and others.

"Battle Creek" walks us through a season in the lives of amateur players and their coaches, a group of once-weres, coulda-beens and wannabees, and a talented group at that. Can they capture that elusive national championship? Can they do it without resorting to spitballs? Can they do it while finding satisfying relationships off the field?

What are they willing to do to get where they want to go -- both on the field and off?

It's a guy's book, to be sure, a baseball-loving guy's book. And, if you ever played the game beyond tee-ball, there's an interesting insight into just why it is we love this game. -- bz

Catholic values pop out of major novelist's mystery

"Where Are You Now?",

by Mary Higgins Clark

With more than 30 titles under her belt, Mary Higgins Clark knows how to write a mystery.

In "Where Are You Now?" she pulls out the expected array of clues and characters.

The story-line starts 10 years after a college senior disappears. Once again on this Mother's Day he calls home. His attorney sister decides to try to locate him, but the police detectives she turns to quickly make a connection: the brother may be their best suspect in a murder and the disappearance of three young women in the same New York neighborhood.

All the good mystery pieces are there: the passionate protagonist, the love interest that may or may not be true, the greedy landlord, the nervous apartment caretakers, the demented perpetrator, the likable victims, the suspicious chauffeur, the pain of post-abortion trauma.

What?

A major American novelist works the pain of post-abortion trauma into a book that a major publisher -- Simon & Schuster -- prints and promotes?

Catholic writer includes her values

Okay, I'll be clear: "Where Are You Now?" is not a mystery about abortion.

It's just that the way abortion usually is found in mainstream publishing is that it is extremely one-sided, treating the taking of the life of the in utero baby either casually and matter-of-factly or sympathetically toward the pregnant woman with no regard whatsoever for the other living being in the picture.

It's usually "Abortion? Nothing to it. Get it done and get on with your life."

Author Mary Higgins Clark has found a way to live her Catholic faith in the marketplace in which she is one of the high-ranking celebrities.

And it's a good read!

Like all good, page-turner mysteries, Clark works interesting characters through clues and dead ends, throwing suspicion on a number of them, challenging readers to ponder motives and to try to guess "who-dun-it."

Oh, did a mention the kindly and wise old Irish monsignor? -- bz

Look and learn about the places you've read about in the Bible

"Oxford Bible Atlas,"

Edited by Adrian Curtis

If you've never been to the Holy Land or other places mentioned in the Bible, this is the book to take you there in absentia.

If you've been to any of those ancient sites, this Oxford University Press large-format paperback is the book to rekindle memories.

It was nearly 50 years ago that the Oxford Bible Atlas first appeared in print, and this fourth edition blossoms like none of its predecessors thanks to color photography throughout. As you might imagine, satellite photos of the Dead Sea, the River Jordan, and that portion of Earth from Egypt to the Arabian Penisula weren't in that first edition in 1962.

As Adrian Curtis explains, the primary aim of the atlas is to provide the reader with an awareness of the world in which the biblical stories are set. Aerial photographs do what one's imagination never can to show what the hills of Galilee, the road from Jerusalem to Jericho and the City of Jerusalem are really like.

While many of us are accustomed to looking at an atlas for directions, the Oxford Bible Atlas does so much more, offering not just geography and history but archaeology and geology, too. There is as much text and photography as there are maps.

We don't just see where Babylon is on the map, for example, but we learn how the exile of the Jews there came about.

Curtis, a Methodist lay preacher, is an excellent teacher with a background as a lecturer on the Hebrew Bible for 40 years at the University of Manchester in Great Britain.

You can very easily sit down with the atlas and read it as any other work of nonfiction, chapter by chapter. It would be great for Bible study, small group, faith sharing or adult faith formation purposes, reading a chapter a week. Most chapters are just a few pages, with full-page maps included, and they tend to read chronologically.

Where did the Ephesians live?

While many are likely to have a fairly good idea where Damascus is (in Syria, north and east of Israel), how many times have those of us in the pews heard the lector proclaim names of biblical places such as "Cappadocia" or "Ephesus" (Paul's epistle to the Ephesians!) and not had a clue that both are part of modern-day Turkey?

A couple of the later chapters offer a real education in archaeology, including a two-page spread on ancient writing systems.

I enjoyed reading and finding my way along on the maps, but I could see where others might enjoy and learn about biblical lands just by looking at the many photos and reading the captions. That alone is an education.

Bravo to all involved in bringing Bible places to life. -- bz

Sea-going adventure keeps you turning pages

"Blindfold Game,"

by Dana Stabenow

"Blindfold Game" has been out for three years now, but if you're looking for a good read and a glimpse of life in some new places, find it and take it to the beach.

The bulk of the action takes place aboard U.S. Coast Guard vessels in the Bering Sea. That's that cold and rough-water part of the Pacific Ocean between Alaska and Russia, and Dana Stabenow's thriller puts readers right into the salty spray.

The scene: Terrorists are taking aim at an Alaskan city with a rocket filled with deadly chemical substance.

CIA agent Hugh Rincon and his off-at-sea-too-often Coast Guard officer wife Sara both get pulled into the effort to prevent the attack.

It's only partly romance, but a better-than-average yarn. Stabenow's an Alaska native, so her descriptions of her home state include an authentic love of the land.

Landlubbers will enjoy learning something about life at sea and an arm of our services that doesn't get all that much ink. -- bz

Small-town editor, big-time stage

"Picking the bones of Eleven Presidents and Others,"
by Jerry Moriarity

The subtitle of Jerry Moriarity's self-published collection of notes and anecdotes identifies it as a work "By a Journalist with Presidential Credentials."

That's both the good news and the bad.

Working for and editing small-town newspapers like the Star-Courier in Kewanee, Ill., Moriarity was able to get press credentials to cover presidential events -- including White House press conferences. Over a 40-year newspaper career, that gave him the ability to collect a double-handful of interesting stories about U.S. presidents from Truman through Bush II.

You got to hand it to the guy, a self-proclaimed Irish Catholic Democrat who lives half the year on Little Pine Lake near Perham, Minn.: He was there, he was paying attention, and he kept great notes. Along with those interesting anecdotes, Moriarity pulled together a fun and insightful bit which he called "creating an ideal president." Naming each of the 11 presidents he interviewed, he offered his opinion about the characteristic of each that he valued.
For example:

• Truman -- feisty decisiveness;
• Eisenhower -- popularity;
• Reagan -- intuition.

Too close to the newsmakers?

As good reading and as insightful as "Picking the Bones" is, I couldn't help but get the sense that at some point Moriarity's "covering" the presidents wasn't more about his own being near the seat of power than about reporting. I'm not sure what the editor of the Kewanee, Ill., Star-Courier gets for his readers by being at a presidential press conference.

I have a hard time with all the posed photos of a newsman and the person he is supposed to be writing objectively about.

And some of the questions that Moriarity writes that he asked those presidents made the journalist in me squirm.

There's a wonderful little story about the author being in the right place at the right time to show Sen. John F. Kennedy -- campaigning for the presidency in Peoria, Ill., in 1959 -- the way to the men's room! Moriarity says he'll direct him if Kennedy will answer a question for him. The future president comes out of the restroom and makes good on his promise to answer a question in return for the favor.

So what does Moriarity ask? "What is Peter Lawford really like?"

Yikes!

Balance, for the most part

Moriarity doesn't pull punches for the most part, telling it like he saw it. He calls Lyndon Baines Johnson "a dangerous egotistical hypocrite," but one who knew how to wield power and did some good by pushing civil rights legislation through Congress.

Moriarity himself became a bit of a celebrity by writing an editorial that called for reasonableness in judging a disgraced Richard M. Nixon. The piece was carried -- by Moriarity's count -- in 573 newspapers across the country.

The chapter on Nixon is where a touch of hypocrisy blooms. Moriarity acknowledges that he "supported Nixon," but them is critical of the folks at National Public Radio when, touring NPR studios, he sees a sign that reads "Impeach Nixon." Pretty hard to charge others with being biased when you are, too.

On balance, though, by publishing this memoir Moriarity has preserved some great anecdotes and given a glimpse of a world of reporting that is no more, for better and for worse. I'm glad he did. -- bz

Fine mystery, fine writing woven into politics surrounding fall of Communism

"Victory Square,"

by Olen Steinhauer

Characters you find yourself cheering for get involved in the chaos of an Eastern European country as its Communist government falls.

That's the storyline behind this well-written novel with flashes of -- even a foundation in -- real-life history.

There's global politics, too, and international intrigue as people on a list start dying. Emil Brod, the chief of detectives just days away from retirement, and detective/spy Garva Noukas search for answers.

Olen Steinhauer makes you care about what happens to these two, and that's key to any good novel. The plus is that "Victory Square" is as much literature as it is mystery.

What's unique in a mystery, too, is that it offers an other-than-American point of view of the global politics of that time when the Soviet empire was crumbling, and seeing historical events through others' eyes can bring clearer vision to readers.

Pick up this 355-page St. Martin's Minotaur paperback for a great read. -- bz

Talk around the dinner table? It's in the cards!

"The Meal Box,"

by Bret Nicholaus and Tom McGrath

So you want to have more meaningful conversations around the dinner table, something to counter the gobble-up-and-scatter tendency in too many of our homes?

You need "The Meal Box."

You love your faith and you want your children to love it and to grow up with the values you cherish, but you could use some tips on ways to do that without seeming like you're always preaching?

"The Meal Box" is there for you.

A product of Loyola Press, "The Meal Box" is being plugged as "fun questions and family faith tips to get mealtime conversations cookin'." It's all that and more.

Young and old can join in

Packaged like a deck of playing cards, it's a plastic box with 54 cards, each containing a question that will get just about any age-group talking at suppertime.

Here are a few examples:

• When it comes to things that make you really happy, what five things would you rank at the very top?


• Suppose you were told that you could have one wish come true -- but the wish you make would have to be for someone else, not for yourself. What would you wish for, and for whom would you wish it?


• If you could have 100 of anything right now, what would you choose?

"Food for Family Thought" -- the parenting/faith formation aids -- comes on the flip side of each card. For the three examples above, the alternate side of the cards suggest:

• When asked what it would take to get to heaven, Jesus said, "Feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, and clothe the naked." That's what parents do each day. It's a paradox that our greatest happiness comes when we freely give of ourselves. Think about that the next time you're fixing supper or folding laundry.


• Empathy is a fundamental building block for all moral growth. Make it a family value to frequently consider how your behavior and choices affect others. When your child talks about other children's experiences, gently ask, "And how do you think he/she felt about that?" This will nurture your child's capacity for compassion.


• One task of parents is to help their children develop the skills of discernment -- that is, to make wise choices. This is better taught through example and be establishing limits than by coercion and criticism.

The opposite of 'bowling alone'

"The Meal Box" questions are such a painless way for parents to connect with their children, to enrich family-time, and to counteract the tendency for family members to do their own thing and go off into their own little worlds.

The younger ones may even forget about whose turn it is to play Wii. Teens may pull the iPod earphones out for a few minutes to chime in with their thoughts.

And, if you're empty nesters like my wife and I, you may find "The Meal Box" questions adding an engaging new feature into your day. Think about talking over dinner about "What is one seemingly impossible goal that you would like to see the world achieve during your lifetime?"

You may even skip watching "Wheel of Fortune" some nights to ponder questions like that! - bz

For purchase information, go to www.loyolapress.com.

Wisconsin mom finds God everywhere -- and so will you

"When's God Gonna Show Up?"

by Marge Fenelon

Marge Fenelon will tell you she doesn't know when God is going to pop into every-day life, but she has a knack for finding the divine in just about every aspect of human existence.

Fenelon's brief, two- and three-page stories come from the things that happen in her home, in the ophthalmologist's office, as the van starts making a funny noise, you-name-it. They're often funny, mostly poignant slices of the life of a 21st-century wife and mom, and they're not unlike the incidents in your home and mine.

What Fenelon does, though, is find God lurking in the corner, creeping into mind, finding a way to influence her thinking and her actions in all those every-day moments.

Great conversation starter

Fenelon suggests you don't read this book from cover to cover but one scoop at a time -- a story a week. There is a lesson in each chapter/story, and each is worth savoring, processing, reflecting on. And those book follows the church year chronologically, with a special back section on feast days.

Each story ends with two elements to help readers get to that reflective end: They are questions -- "What does Scripture say?" and "What does my heart say?" -- that teach (the Scripture piece) and force readers to internalize the lesson.

I can see how a formal faith-sharing group could use a chapter as an easy way to get a discussion started, especially a moms' group.

But I also can see spouses sharing this book -- "Honey, you've got to read this and tell me what you think!" -- and finding their communication blossoming.

Fenelon writes a regular column for the Catholic Herald, the Milwaukee archdiocesan newspaper, and thanks go to Liguori for getting this 163-page paperback into circulation.

The best thing about "When's God Gonna Show Up?" is that reading Marge Fenelon's wonderful book, you're going to start finding God in your life, too. -- bz

Tales from Minnesota

"Pilgrims to the Northland,"

by Marvin R. O'Connell

The story of the how a Catholic archdiocese took root on the bluffs along the upper Mississippi River is chock full of stories -- stories about the people who planted those roots and those that nurtured them, stories that will enlightne you, force a chuckle out of you, perhaps even shock you.

Marvin O'Connell tells as many as he could fit into 615 pages of this early history of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis.

Take this lovely anecdote:

When a German-speaking Benedictine priest served the fledgling Bohemian parish of St. Wenceslaus in New Prague back in 1859, a unique way to overcome the language barrier was devised so that the Czech-speaking parishioners could confess their sins via an interpreter. Father O'Connell writes:

"The priest faced the penitent, and both of them were separated from the interpreter by a thin wall. The priest enunciated in turn the Ten Commandments in German, which the interpreter translated loudly into Bohemian. The penitent either nodded -- meaning he had transgressed in that regard -- or shook his head in denial. Thus secrecy was observed and embarrassment avoided, and sacramental absolution could be duly administered."

No mere ecclesial history

There is a minimum of the kind of statistical growth numerology that populates too many accounts of church history. Instead, Father O'Connell puts the history of the Catholic Church in the United States -- and of U.S. Catholics -- into its national and international perspectives, always with human touches.

So valuable are the introductory pages to each chapter that explain what was going on in the nation -- or in the world -- at a particular juncture in time between 1840 and 1962, where O'Connell ends this work. As much as he can the priest of the archdiocese and University of Notre Dame professor emeritus helps readers understand what shaped the church that straddles the Mississippi today, and especially what -- and who -- was responsible for making that happen.

Of course bishops and archbishops play major roles, with the iconic John Ireland taking over the stage by force of length of service from the community's earliest days through the early 20th century, and by force of personality. It was Archbishop Ireland's presence on the national stage as the spearhead of Americanization -- that movement that promoted the concept that this new land of freedom was the best place for the Catholic faith to flourish, and that freedom and faith were the best of partners.

Not everyone agreed, including some in high places in the church both in the United States and at the Vatican.

O'Connell covers the controversy with balance, framing well the crucial questions that made the controversy so volatile. As European immigrants arrived, he asks,

"Did they, once landed in New York or Philadelphia, discard their language, their traditions, their folkways, in short their nationality? And did the Catholics among them, faced by a culture created and dominated for two and a half centuries by Protestant Anglo-Saxons an Scotch-Irish, discard their faith? These were the crucial questions confronting the American bishops in the 1880s. and they intertwined to form another: to what degree did the preservation of the immigrants' faith depend upon maintaining the habits and customs of the old country?"

Ireland was of the mind that immigrants had to untie the apron strings to the old country and become American in order to be respected and take their rightful place in order that their faith influence American culture.

Heroes among the priests

The challenges that had to be overcome by the area's episcopal leaders fills pages, to be sure, but O'Connell spends just as much if not more time on some of his priest heroes, people from the St. Paul-Minneapolis archdiocese who have influenced both the world and the church. He lovingly gives credit, too, to the women religious -- the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet in particular -- for their selfless service to the People of God not just in the Twin Cities but across Minnesota and the Dakotas, as the Diocese of St. Paul was originally defined.

Generous oil man Ignatius A. O'Shaughnessy is granted his due in this history, too.

But two priests capture many pages, and deservedly so, because they influenced so many others, both clergy and lay.

There is the passionate teacher and advocate for social justice, Monsignor John A. Ryan, who grew up on a farm in rural Vermillion Township and became an adviser to Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Labeled "The Right Reverend New Dealer," Ryan was the architect and advocate of social justice principles that are now woven into the texture of American life: the minimum wage, a progressive income tax, the eight-hour work day, unemployment insurance, etc.

The early adopters of the Liturgical Movement, Benedictine Dom Virgil Michel, the St. Paul Seminary's Father William Busch get well deserved notice, but historical ink tells us more about Father John Bussard, a founder of the Leaflet Missal and Catholic Digest, which in 1936 enjoyed a circulation of a million copies a month.

Bussard -- in 1938 mind you -- convinced Archbishop John Gregory Murray -- to have the altar in the lower crypt of the new Nativity of Our Lord Church in St. Paul to be free standing, so that at Mass the priest faced the congregation and the worshipers could see and follow his actions at the altar and pray with him from their vernacular missals.

Father Bussard had argued, "The one thing necessary is to unite the faithful closely with Christ. Can that ever be done by a priest who stands with his back to them and reads Sacred Scripture to a wall?"

O'Connell faithfully reports the successes and the failures of archbishops Grace, Dowling, Murray, Brady and Byrne, but it is Paul Bussard and John A. Ryan who he calls "the two most influential Minnesota Catholics" during the middle third of the 20th century.

"Their influence spread far beyond the confines of their native state. Their approach to events and their manner of dealing with challenges, no less than the theaters in which they played out their roles, were very different. But a 'golden thread of Catholic thought' did bind them together to a degree Bussard's crusade for liturgical renewal -- its insistence on the unity and participation of the whole worship community -- possessed an unmistakable collective component, which Ryan's tireless drive for social and racial justice derived directly from his conviction that Jesus had called for a communal solution to the problems of the ages."

The war that changed everything

Archbishop Murray's opposition to the Nazis is part of the history, including his invitation to his priests to volunteer to be chaplains during World War II. The archbishop promised that any curate (associate pastor) who volunteered to be a chaplain would be named a pastor after the "inevitable triumph" (Murray's words). He kept his word.

It was the aftermath of World War II that changed Catholic status in the United States, O'Connell opines.

The G.I. Bill of Rights destroyed the traditional American class system. Young Catholics who before the war never dreamed of going to college or owning their own homes took advantage of the G.I.Bill to earn college degrees and enter the professions and management ranks, "and so participated fully in the expanding economy as they moved their big, bustling families into secure new homes." O'Connell's analysis?"

"In short, Catholics achieved what John Ireland had striven so hard for: they became part of the great American middle class. And in 1960 one of their own was elected president of the United States."

Unfortunately a review can touch only a fraction of the topics and tales Father O'Connell shares, and that's how it should be. Buy the book.

At $70, this University of Notre Dame Press tome is pricey, but it's great reading. O'Connell has a marvelous literary style with clever segues and a timely sense of humor. For example, at the installation Mass for Coadjutor Archbishop Murray, there were 5,000 worshipers ("nine of whom fainted during the lengthy ceremony"), O'Connell inserts.

Some of the history is admittedly not what a public relations person might put forward, but then O'Connell's task was history, not PR, and the author doesn't shy from the seamy side of Catholic history. There were some disreputable characters in this neck of the woods over the course of the years.

The very best anecdotes are from priests he interviewed who shared the stories of their own encounters in the seminary, parish or chancery office that add in sight and color as to what Catholic life was really like.

Finally, Father O'Connell's personal memories inserted into many footnotes add humanity to this scholarly work. Don't pass them by. -- bz