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Awash in irony, Kirstin Valdez Quade's debut novel, The Five Wounds reads like a prose poem. Its descriptive details develop the characters slowly, gradually revealing the plot in which a [...]

On June 4, 1989, at approximately 1 a.m., Chinese government troops began firing on the protesters at Tiananmen Square. No one is sure of the number of demonstrators present. Nor [...]

Heather McHugh is the only writer in America who loved the nuns--or so she thinks. Since writing her last book, Upgraded to Serious, McHugh, a former chancellor of the Academy [...]

You can say almost anything about Jesus Christ, according to Dorothy L. Sayers, but you cannot say that he is dull. Nor can you find the murder of God tedious. [...]

At a time when people thought a woman's place was in the home, Grace Holmes Carlson (1906-1992) thought her place was on a picket line protesting for the rights of [...]

WAGING PEACE: ONE SOLDIER'S STORY OF PUTTING LOVE FIRST By Diana Oestreich published by Broadleaf Books; 240 pages; $24.99 Diana Oestreich was brought up to be patriotic and religious with [...]

In a sense, this book began as a moment of inspiration when, during prayer, Pope Francis felt that God wanted him to say that 'there should be an alliance between [...]

Nonviolence makes sense. Or as peace activist John Dear puts it in one of his many statements quoted throughout The Two Hands of Yes and No: 'We don't kill people [...]

INVISIBLE AMERICANS: THE TSASK COST Of CHILD POVERTY By Jeff Madrick Published by Knopf, 240 pages, $25 In 1962, Michael Harrington, an alumnus of the Catholic Worker, published The Other [...]

SECRETS WE KEPT: THREE WOMEN OF TRINIDAD By Krystal Sital Published by W.W. Norton, 352 pages, $25.95 'Trinis' do not tell people that the island's name is an historical hoax, [...]

Jesuit Fr. Gregory Boyle spreads the Gospel notion of Jesus Christ's radical kinship with humanity and says we should do likewise. That's the message of his eye-opening new book, Barking [...]

FORTY AUTUMNS: A FAMILY STORY OF COURAGE AND SURVIVAL ON BOTH SIDES OF THE BERLIN WALL By Nina Willner Published by William Morrow Paperbacks, 416 pages, $15.99 AMONG THE LIVING [...]

WOMEN ROWING NORTH-NAVIGATING LIFE'S CURRENTS AND FLOURISHING AS WE AGE By Mary Pipher Published by Bloomsbury, 262 pages, $27 'There's young old age' when older people can mostly do what [...]

During Lent, Trappist Fr. Thomas Merton was irate when the Passion was read in what he described as an 'extremely trite and pedestrian English version,' albeit one approved by the [...]

THE CIVIL WARS OF JULIA WARD HOWE By Elaine Showalter Published by Simon & Schuster, 320 pages, $17 Most people know Julia Ward Howe (1819-1910) as the author of 'The [...]

Most people know the life story of Francis of Assisi (1181-1226), mystic, miracle worker, founder of the Franciscan Order, and Roman Catholic saint. At least, they think they know his [...]

Alan Lightman, professor and author of more than 15 books, including the best-selling novel Einstein's Dreams, says he is not a believer in God. But he wishes he were. If [...]

If all goes as planned, the Basilica of the Sagrada Familia, begun in Barcelona, Spain, in 1882, will be completed in 2026. The edifice will reach 558 feet into the [...]

FAITH & JOY MEMOIRS OF A REVOLUTIONARY PRIEST By Fr. Fernando Cardenal, SJ Published by Orbis Books, 254 pages, $29 Instead of cozying up to the rich and powerful, Nicaraguan [...]

SUCH GOOD GIRLS: THE JOURNEY OF THE HOLOCAUST'S HIDDEN CHILD SURVIVORS By R.D. Rosen Published by Harper, $25.99 [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] R.D. Rosen's compelling new book begins when Selma is 5. [...]

MULOSZ, A BIOGRAPHY By Andrzej Franaszek Published by Harvard University Press, 526 pages, $35 Czeslaw Milosz did not consider himself to be a Catholic poet. But in his later years, [...]

THE HOME THAT WAS OUR COUNTRY: A MEMOIR OF SYRIA By Alia Malek Published by Nation Books. 354 pages, $27.99 Since the Arab Spring, more than 11 million Syrians have [...]

THE HUNDRED YEAR WALK: AN ARHENIAN ODYSSEY By Dawn Anahid MacKeen Published by Mariner Books, 368 pages, $15.95 One and one half-million Armenians living in the Ottoman Empire were killed [...]

THE MOTH SNOWSTORM: NATURE AND JOY By Michael McCarthy Published by New York Review Books, 272 pages, $27.95 After his mother's nervous breakdown and hospitalization, Michael McCarthy shut himself off [...]

LIVING WITH A DEAD LANGUAGE: MY ROMANCE WITH LATIN By Ann Patty Published by Viking, 256 pages, $25 Ann Patty was 58 years old when she lost her job. As [...]

St. Francis of Assisi loved animals and seemed to have a special affinity for larks. But there's no record of his preaching to the birds. Ditto the story of Francis [...]

THE FAMILY TREE: A LYNCHING IN GEORGIA, A LEGACY OF SECRETS, AND MY SEARCH FOR THE TRUTH By Karen Branan Published by Atria Books, 304 pages, $26 At the end [...]

DIMESTORE: A WRITER'S LIFE By Lee Smith Published by Algonquin Books, 224 pages, $24.95 Before Lee Smith became a writer, she was an avid reader, encouraged by her mother, who [...]

THE GIVENNESS OF THINGS: ESSAYS By Marilynne Robinson Published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 304 pages, $26 GIRL IN GLASS: HOW MY 'DISTRESSED BABY' DEFIED THE ODDS, SHAMED A CEO, [...]

A HOUSE OF MY OWN: STORIES FROM MY LIFE By Sandra Cisneros Published by Knopf, $28.95 Her first novel, The House on Mango Street, with its rhythmic and evocative blend [...]

AUGUSTINE: CONVERSIONS TO CONFESSIONS By Robin Lane Fox Published by Basic Books, $35 Augustine: Conversions to Confessions may be informative to the nth degree, but it's not dense. Robin Lane [...]

THE TASTE OF SILENCE: HOW I CAME TO BE AT HOME WITH MYSELF By Bieke Vandekerckhove Published by Liturgical Press, $17.95 I LEFT IT ON THE MOUNTAIN: A MEMOIR By [...]

'Those who have left Catholicism outnumber those who have joined the church by an almost four to one margin.' That's just one of the many gloomy statistics cited by Tom [...]

THE RAGE AGAINST GOD: HOW ATHEISM LED ME TO FAITH By Peter Hitchens Published by Zondervan, $22.99 Like many self-righteous adolescents, Peter Hitchens, brother of well-known contrarian Christopher Hitchens, had [...]

MISSOULA: RAPE AND THE JUSTICE SYSTEM IN A COLLEGE TOWN By Jon Krakauer Published by Doubleday, $28.95 Missoula is home to the University of Montana, a highly-regarded state university that [...]

IT RUNS IN THE FAMILY: ON BEING RAISED BY RADICALS AND GROINING INTO REBELLIOUS MOTHERHOOD By Frida Berrigan Published by Q/R Books, $17.50 [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The best parts of Frida [...]

MICHELANGELO AND THE POPE'S CEILING By Ross King Published by Bloomsbury, $18 [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] THE SMILE OF A RAGPICKER: THE LIFE OF SATOKO KITAHARA--CONVERT AND SERVANT OF THE SLUMS OF [...]

Robert Blair Kaiser is an award-winning journalist known for his excellent coverage of the Second Vatican Council. A former Jesuit, he has written extensively about the church's liberal and conservative [...]

As Margery Kempe, Henry Benjamin Whipple, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer saw it, silence in the face of evil was just plain wrong None of them has been declared a saint. But [...]

In the United States, a woman is assaulted by her husband or male partner every nine seconds. Of those who assault their partners, 65 percent also physically and/or sexually abuse [...]

Memoirs are often driven by questions. The question can be simple or complex. But as these three bestselling authors can attest, the answer is never easy to come by. ASTONISHED: [...]

Colleges aim to teach students to think critically and to become lifelong learners. Yet they often turn a blind eye to hookup culture even though it goes against the raison [...]

One out of every three people raised Roman Catholic in the United States no longer identifies himself or herself as Catholic. Why? According to Professor Margaret Nutting Ralph, some do [...]

FIRE IN THE ASHES: TWENTY-FIVE YEARS AMONG THE POOREST CHILDREN IN AMERICA By Jonathan Kozol Published by Crown Publishers, $27 What happens to the children of poor, uneducated parents who [...]

When the Second Vatican Council ended on Dec. 8, 1965, Pope John XXIII, who convened the council in 1962, had died. A new pope, Paul VI, with more traditional views, [...]

As Rodney Stark sees it in The Triumph of Christianity, several factors enabled an obscure Jewish sect to become the world's largest religion. Here are some: Jesus Christ admonished his [...]

DATING GOD: LIVE AND LOVE IN THE WAY OF St FRANCIS By Daniel P. Horan, OEM Published by St. Anthony Messenger Press, $14.99 Franciscan Fr. Daniel R Horan offers a [...]

Touching on the many facets of confessing, Paul Wilkes seeks to redefine the subject. Although he discusses the sacrament of reconciliation, this isn't a particularly Roman Catholic book or even [...]

IN THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW: ON THE FOUNDATIONS OF RELIGIOUS BELIEF By James L Kugel Published by Free Press, $26 James L. Kugel, a Harvard Hebrew scholar, thought he [...]

They're in their 60s, retired or ready to retire, and wondering what to do with the rest of their lives. That challenge faces the first wave of 76 million Baby [...]