Biographies

Of all the good gifts that God gives us, perhaps none is sweeter than the gift of friendship.-Charlene Quint Kalebic When she turned forty, Charlene Kalebic realized that her life was half-lived and that the sun was setting on the lives of her parents, both in their 80's. Before time ran out, she had a strong desire to understand her father's formative years while serving in World War II as a GI. Like most men of his generation, he rarely spoke of the war; he simply referred to it as The Big One. Her father had enlisted at the age of 17, and Charlene knew there must be something from that chapter of his life that made him the person he was today. The 60th anniversary of D-Day (June 6, 1944), provided the perfect opportunity to know more about those unknown years. Hoping to discover what had formed his amazing character, she asked her father to go to Europe for the anniversary and act as her tour guide. It took only a nanosecond for him to agree. Charlene found herself on a journey of discovery into her father's past, retracing his footsteps from London through Normandy to Berlin during WWII. It was there that Charlene relived her father's faith in action-kindnesses shown, promises kept, and lifelong friendships made in the lands he was charged with liberating. To her surprise and delight, Charlene learned some of life's greatest lessons from one of the world's greatest teachers in the twilight of his life. And she came to realize that the best sermon is one without words. What had left a lasting impression on the life of her father, would forever change her own. As the sun finally set on his life, I came to appreciate my father's greatest gift: he did not tell us how to live or even how to die, but rather, he lived and he died as it should be done-and he let us watch him do it.-Charlene Quint Kalebic

On Friday, March 20, 2009, fifteen months after the City of Oakland, California, passed a law making it illegal to approach a woman entering an abortion clinic without her consent, Walter B. Hoye II went to jail for standing on a public sidewalk outside an abortion clinic with a sign saying, God loves you and your baby. Let us help you.

The ordained Baptist minister could have accepted a lesser sentence of community service, provided he agreed never to return to the clinic. But he preferred spending thirty days in the county jail to forfeiting his constitutional right to free speech and his Christian duty to offer help to women in need, most of whom were black like him. Two higher courts eventually exonerated him: one overturned his criminal conviction, and the other judged that the enforcement of the Oakland bubble law was unconstitutional.

Walter's dramatic days in prison, where he lived and preached the gospel and won the hearts of fellow inmates, are detailed in this book. The political machinations that created the bubble law and then entrapped Walter are also described, using public records. Both stories are told in the context of Walter's background as the descendant of black slaves and the disciple of his hero Martin Luther King Jr., whose niece, Alveda, has written the foreword for this book.

Throughout the modern era, Galileo Galilei has been presented as a victim of cruel torture of conscience, theological narrow-mindedness, and ecclesiastical harassment typical of a dark, closed-minded Church. Frequently portrayed as such in theaters due to prevailing political ideologies, the story of Galileo points to the long-held tension between "science and faith," "technology and ethics," and "progress and the Church."

The story of the real Galileo, however, which has not been told--until now--is sure to rock the established narrative.

Walter Cardinal Brandmüller, an eminent Church historian and expert in Galilean research, evaluates the scientific research of the recent past and exposes shocking historical errors. Uninterested in whitewashing the problematic pages of Church history, he offers a balanced view of the controversy, illuminating it through the lens of a deeper historical understanding.

Leaving no stone unturned, His Excellency separates the facts from the fiction to reveal:

Why the Inquisition became involved in Galileo's "case" and what it really determined

Galileo's multifaceted accomplishments, personality, and relationships
What famous critics, including Aristotelians, had to say about Galileo and his findings

How Galileo's case embodied the scientific revolution and its view of the Church

Whether Scripture and science should be understood separately

How to perceive Galileo within the broader cultural and historical context of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries

You will discover the various aspects and philosophical views of the Galileo controversy, including how his personal polemics at times superseded his scientific research. Moreover, you will learn about significant scientists' and theologians' arguments regarding heliocentrism and other topics.

The book includes an extensive bibliography of Galileo's works and a timeline of his life, as well as a declaration from twelve Nobel Prize-winning scientists on the necessity of dialogue between science and religion and the need for the Church's guidance.

"My Father, I put myself in your hands", wrote Charles de Foucauld in his journal. "Whatever you make of me, I thank you, I am ready for everything, I accept everything, I thank you for everything."

When he was killed by bandits in 1916, the French aristocrat-turned-monk was virtually unknown. Over the course of a century, however, the radiance of Foucauld's hidden life has spread more and more, and the Church now recognizes him as a saint.

His youth and early adulthood read like a novel--the loss of his parents; his education in Paris, where he abandoned the faith of his childhood; his military career in French Algeria; and his exploration of Morocco. After a conversion at the age of twenty-eight, Foucauld was charged with a desire to surrender himself completely to God, leading him eventually to a life of prayer in the Algerian desert. There he devoted himself to adoration of the Blessed Sacrament and charity toward his Muslim neighbors--even to the point of death.

Jean-Jacques Antier describes Foucauld's dramatic, inspiring life in a vivid narrative style. He based his biography on the man's writings and correspondence as well as interviews with numerous people who knew him.

Illustrated with sixteen pages of photos, and indexed.

A popular Anglican apologist, scholar, poet, novelist, and dramatist, C. S. Lewis never became Catholic. And yet a great number of Catholics have a profound love for Lewis and have been formed by his great works.

Chronicles of Faith: A Catholic Perspective on C. S. Lewis is a wonderful introduction, or re-introduction, to this outstanding literary and spiritual figure. Bishop Fintan Monahan guides the reader through the life and work of Lewis, from his childhood in Northern Ireland and his experiences of loss and war at a young age to his years as an academic in Oxford and his career as a world-renowned author.

In a unique and accessible way, Chronicles of Faith explores the twists and turns of Lewis's spiritual journey, through which he was transformed from a young man of lost faith to a man of deep faith. This book also explains why Lewis's writings, both fiction and spiritual, continue to resonate and inspire Catholics, and other Christians, today.

What is Catholic Traditionalism? Under what historical and cultural circumstances has it appeared? Why do some devout, knowledgeable Catholics embrace the paradoxical position that remaining true to Tradition entails deserting the official, traditional structure of the Church? Most importantly, what steps can be taken to help restore unity in the Body of Christ?

Matthew Arnold, a Catholic convert, answers these and other questions about Catholic Traditionalism. His moving first-hand account powerfully demonstrates how a faithful Catholic's legitimate desire for a reverently celebrated liturgy led him to tolerate the irregular situation of Holy Mass celebrated validly, but illicitly, outside the diocesan structure. His compelling testimony also explores how the licit celebration of the Extraordinary Form of the Mass, also known as the Traditional Latin Mass, can have a positive impact on the life and the liturgy of the Church.

Told in the context of Arnold's personal witness and spiritual journey, this book concisely documents the century-long movement to reform the liturgy. This candid, poignant, and often humorous book exposes the spiritual peril at the heart of radical Traditionalism while remaining compassionate toward the legitimate aspirations of Traditional Catholics.

Fifteen years into his Papacy, and on the eve of the third millennium, Pope John Paul II goes to the heart of his personal beliefs and speaks with passion about the existence of God; about pain, suffering, and evil; about "salvation"; and about the relationship of Catholicism to other branches of the Christian faith. With the humility and generosity of spirit for which he is well known, John Paul speaks forthrightly to all people. (Religion--Roman Catholic)

Listen and attend with the ear of your heart. - Saint Benedict.

Dolores Hart stunned Hollywood in 1963, when after ten highly successful feature films, she chose to enter a contemplative monastery. Now, fifty years later, Mother Dolores gives this fascinating account of her life, with co-author and life-long friend, Richard DeNeut.

Dolores was a bright and beautiful college student when she made her film debut with Elvis Presley in Paramount's 1957 Loving You. She acted in nine more movies with other big stars such as Montgomery Clift, Anthony Quinn and Myrna Loy. She also gave a Tony-nominated performance in the Broadway play The Pleasure of His Company and appeared in television shows, including The Virginian and Playhouse 90. An important chapter in her life occurred while playing Saint Clare in the movie Francis of Assisi, which was filmed on location in Italy.

Born Dolores Hicks to a complicated and colorful Chicago family, Mother Dolores has travelled a charmed yet challenging road in her journey toward God, serenity and, yes, love. She entered the Abbey of Regina Laudis in Bethlehem, Connecticut, at the peak of her career, not in order to leave the glamorous world of acting she had dreamed of since childhood, but in order to answer a mysterious call she heard with the ear of the heart. While contracted for another film and engaged to be married, she abandoned everything to become a bride of Christ.

Founded in 1983 by a poor Italian nun, Mother Elvira Petrozzi, Comunita Cenacolo began in an abandoned old house in Saluzzo, Italy. Today, with over 2,000 members worldwide, the community is a free, fully residential Catholic program for people seeking to overcome substance abuse.

This is Mother Elvira's story of her community's founding and growth and of the powerful principles that guide its uniquely successful programs.

In these fascinating pages, popular author and speaker Deacon Harold Burke-Sivers tells the gripping story of Augustine Tolton, who valiantly overcame a series of seemingly insurmountable challenges -- birth into slavery, his father's death, abject poverty, and even being denied acceptance by every Catholic seminary in America -- to become the first black American priest.

Despite the hardships placed on Fr. Tolton by a culture rooted in racial hatred, he became a tireless messenger of the Gospel, plunging into the Deep South where segregation was decreed by harsh laws, penetrating even the hardest of hearts with the richness, beauty, and truth of the Catholic Faith.

He was a beacon of hope to black Catholics in the 19th Century who were trying to find a home in the American Church. He was a visionary who saw beyond race and politics, teaching that the Catholic Church wants to free us not just from slavery, but from slavery to sin.

Amidst great persecution, Fr. Tolton showed us that being configured to Christ means emptying ourselves so that God can fill us, exposing the weakest parts of who we are so that God can make us strong, becoming blind to the ways of this world so Christ can lead us, and dying to ourselves so we can rise with Christ.

All who seek to be formed more perfectly to Christ have a role model in Fr. Tolton, a persevering and holy man who sought above all the salvation of souls.

"'Jesus, where are you?' I prayed every night as I wept . . . I felt I had failed as a priest, for I had preached love and the people made genocide. . . .Then I heard God speak to me. Jesus wanted me to use these experiences to evangelize later. It was then that I knew my life would be spared. God would make a way."

During the 25th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide, Fr. Ubald Rugirangoga tells the dramatic story of how he survived while losing more than eighty of his family members and 45,000 of his parishioners in the killings. In the aftermath, Fr. Ubald experienced a renewed sense of purpose as a minister of reconciliation and a healing evangelist in his homeland and around the world. In Forgiveness Makes You Free, he offers five spiritual principles that can help those traumatized by the past to experience healing and peace in Christ.

In 1994 the world looked on in disbelief and horror as Rwanda erupted in violent bloodshed. All across the landlocked African country, militant Hutus rose up to exterminate the Tutsi population, including women and young children. One hundred days later, a million bodies littered fields, streets, and even churches. Now, on the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Rwandan genocide, a powerful testimony emerges of the power of God to bring peace and reconciliation into hearts full of fear and hate.

In Forgiveness Makes You Free, Fr. Ubald Rugirangoga shares his own dramatic story of how he survived the genocide and its traumatic aftermath. He testifies about how God spared his life so that he might help others with deep physical, emotional, and spiritual wounds to experience peace and healing. In retelling the story of how he forgave the man who killed his family and cared for the man's children while he was in prison, Fr. Ubald demonstrates how showing mercy can facilitate true forgiveness even in the most painful circumstances of our lives.

Throughout the book, Fr. Ubald teaches about five spiritual keys that draw us to Christ, the only source of lasting peace:

be thankful and have faith

choose to forgive

denounce evil

decide to live for Jesus

claim the blessing

Each chapter combines Fr. Ubald's story with reflection questions that guide readers along their own path of healing: from fear to faith, from shame to freedom, from isolation to reconciliation, from resentment to mercy, and from conflict to peace.

The final chapter offers a guided meditation to help those who need to experience the power of God to release those held in bondage by fear and hate and to find the secret of peace. An appendix contains information about "The Mushaka Reconciliation Project," a catechetical tool that has been used successfully by parishes in Rwanda, and could easily be adapted by parishes in the United States, to mediate reconciliation between individuals and groups who have become estranged by violence, trauma, and ethnic or cultural divisions.

Sohrab Ahmari was a teenager living under the Iranian ayatollahs when he decided that there is no God. Nearly two decades later, he would be received into the Roman Catholic Church.

In From Fire, by Water, he recounts this unlikely passage, from the strident Marxism and atheism of a youth misspent on both sides of the Atlantic to a moral and spiritual awakening prompted by the Mass. At once a young intellectual's finely crafted self-portrait and a life story at the intersection of the great ideas and events of our time, the book marks the debut of a compelling new Catholic voice.

Jean-Marie Elie Setbon, the son of non-observant French Jews, was first attracted to Jesus when he saw a crucifix at a young age. He hid a crucifix in his room and contemplated it often, even though he knew his family would be hurt and angry if they ever caught him.

Seeing the Basilica of Sacre-Coeur from his apartment window, he was drawn to the church, where he found himself powerfully pulled toward Jesus in the Eucharist. After several years of surreptitiously attending Mass, he resolved to convert to Catholicism in spite of the scandal it would cause, but God had other plans.

Upon graduation from secondary school, Jean-Marie moved to Israel to delve deeper into the faith of his ancestors. He lived in kibbutzim, learned about the history and religion of his people, served in the Israeli Army, and attended two different rabbinical schools. Eight years later he returned to France as an ultra-Orthodox Jew.

While teaching in a Jewish school, Jean-Marie married a woman who shared his faith, and together they began raising a family; yet his yearning for Jesus remained, becoming the source of a long and difficult internal struggle.

Jean-Marie's moving and unusual conversion story is about his battle between loyalty to his identity and fidelity to the deepest desires of his heart. Above all, it is a love story between Christ, the Lover--the relentless yet patient pursuer--and man, his beloved.

Cardinal Francis E. George, O.M.I., was an exemplary pastor and heroic disciple of Christ. A native Chicagoan, he was told as a young man that he would never be a priest in Chicago because of a physical disability resulting from polio. He went on to be ordained a priest with the Oblates of Mary Immaculate in 1963. The native son was appointed as archbishop of Chicago in 1997, created a cardinal in 1998, and served in Chicago until 2014, just months before his death in April 2015.

Cardinal George was a prophetic voice in the Church -- a man able to see things as they are and from the point of view of the whole Church. His episcopal motto, "To Christ be glory in the Church," encapsulates his legacy, because every decision he made, every action he took, every suffering he endured was about serving others and pointing them to our Savior.

Most of all, Cardinal George was a Christian in every sense. He was concerned about relationships and people, not careerism or advancement. He was attentive to the poor and those on the margins. He was a man of prayer, dedicated to Our Lady, and devoted to the Eucharist. He articulated the Faith and was committed to reform. He was honest, accountable, genuine, and holy. Admired for his pursuit and proclamation of the truth and his personal witness to the Gospel, Cardinal George remains a model for discipleship and leadership.

Few episodes in the history of the papacy have caused as much sensational commentary and wild speculation as the sudden death of Pope John Paul I after a pontificate of only thirty-three days. In this short time he had endeared himself to the world for his gentle charm, his humility, and his simple and practical approach to the awesome responsibility of being the Vicar of Christ on earth. His election had raised the hopes of millions - he was a man of such radiant friendliness and obvious humanity that the atmosphere of vitality and hope that he brought to the Vatican had set the world aglow. By popular acclaim he quickly became known as 'the smiling Pope'. His untimely death would send shockwaves across the globe. Here is a thorough account of the extraordinary life of Albino Luciani (1912-1978), the first full analysis in English of his whole life -- not merely another account of the circumstances surrounding his short papacy and death - which lays to rest many popular misconceptions and a great deal of false information. By considering the Pope's whole life, in the context of change and continuity, it is possible to reach a much more mature and balanced view of his papacy and legacy to the Church. Luciani was a very private individual, but his life, actions and thought are accessible through his writings, speeches and the testimony of relatives, friends, colleagues and other critical observers. As relatively little has previously been published in English in easily accessible form, this book presents important new material to an English-speaking readership for the first time. Today the papacy remains one of the most influential, and also the most controversial, institutions in the world. The very human story of the life and times of this highly popular teacher will have a broad appeal to both lay reader and church historian, to Catholic and non-Catholic alike. The Process to have Albino Luciani declared a Saint is well advanced. God's Candidate places his life and achievements firmly on the record; as Monsignor Loris Capovilla, former Private Secretary to Pope John XXIII, said "There was more in his shop than he put in his window". Paul Spackman is a graduate of King Alfred's College, Winchester. He has written widely on history, politics and religion for International Minds and other journals. This is his first book. He is currently working on aspects of twentieth-century Soviet and Italian political and social history. Publication to coincide with 30th anniversary of election (26th August) and death