Recently in Reviews Category

I'm currently 37,000 feet above the United States, just crossing the Sabine River out of Texas. This is my first flight aboard an EMB. This American Eagle-operated airplane was 13 rows with 3 seats in each row with no first class- for those who wouldn't like to fire up the calculator, that means 39 plus a crew of 3 or 4.

To pass the time, I'm doing a few different things. First, I'm doing homework. I've written most of a film review for my Studies of U.S. Poverty course and now I'm writing a blog entry. While the blog entry would usually be personal time for me, my Collaborate Technologies course asks a few blog entries from me. While doing all of this, I'm listening to old Busted Halo podcasts. Busted Halo is a young adult website produced by The Paulist Fathers.

I've somewhat read the print material on Busted Halo and to be honest, it has never jumped up to the top of my bookmark list (or now my del.cio.us links or a feed on Google Reader). Everything on there seems to be great; just never really called out to me. By virtue of working for the Paulists through the University Catholic Center, I've been able to meet a good number of people involved with Busted Halo and I've even been recruited to help with their Word on the Street segment (I still need to produce something! Fr. Dave Dywer, CSP (NYD, since he's the Fr. Dave in NYC) if you're reading, I haven't forgotten about it yet!). My boss, Fr. Dave Farnum, CSP (TXD as NYD has referred to him), recently traveled to a preaching conference and walked away after talking to NYD with the idea of podcasting some of the homilies from the University Catholic Center.

I figured, what the heck, if I'm going to start producing podcasts for Fr. Dave and the UCC, I should listen to some of the Busted Halo podcasts. I downloaded all 73 released episodes and I'm currently listening to the 4th episode- I'm impressed.

In terms of new media- Internet-accessed media, EWTN has been the big fish in the Catholic pond. EWTN is a fine network and produces quality Catholic content. The downside to EWTN's content is that there is a high assumption that you're already well-formed in the Church. A random member of the intended audience has probably been Catholic for sometime, attend Mass every Sunday if not more often, may have a decent understanding of Catholicism and Catholic tradition. If you're on the fringe of the Catholic Church or not even in the Church at all, there is a high barrier of entry presented by EWTN.

I've really enjoyed the Busted Halo podcasts so far as that barrier of entry is eliminated. The assumption made by NYD and Mike is that if you're listening, you're seeking to grow closer to God and are open to the Catholic tradition. Now, this is not to say that these podcasts contain only very superficial material. This was my fear and it was proven incorrect.

Some of the topics they have touched upon is the role of fundamentalism in today's political landscape in an interview with former President Jimmy Carter, explaining some of various saints and holy people (St. Nick, Dorothy Day and others) without shying away from some of the darker aspects of these individuals background, looking at parishes across the United States that have young-adult programming. NYD went into the need for confession, including why when a Catholic is under serious (mortal) sin he or she should abstain from Communion.

In other words, I think anyone could listen to these podcasts and be able to follow what is going on without a problem. At the same time as an amateur Church expert, I enjoy listening myself and have found these podcasts useful and interesting.

At 116 short pages, Christianity and the Crisis of Cultures, written by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger shortly before he became Pope Benedict XVI, is one of those books you could just scream through in a day or two, which is what I did. It's a highly rewarding read with plenty of valuable insights and eye-opening observations about faith, morality, the human person, reason, etc.

One of the running themes of the book is the proposition known as Pascal's Wager. Ratzinger observes that in a declining Western culture, the solution that could save it is his proposition that society live as if God did exist, even if evidence may not satisfy the Enlightenment rationalist philosophy which dominates today.

And this is the interesting take on Pascal's Wager that had never occurred to me before. I had always thought of Pascal's Wager as a way of living with the afterlife in mind: that just in case there is a God who will actually care about whether we place our faith in him, we had better do so in order that we might go to heaven. But Benedict's application of Pascal's Wager has little to do with the last things. His proposition is surprisingly practical: that it be applied not (just) in order to sure up a reward in the hereafter, but in order to keep the household of mankind on earth from collapsing.

These and other insights abound in Ratzinger's tome, and its easily readable in a single weekend. Check it out.

Behold the Pierced One, by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, is a collection of Christological meditations which he wrote in 1981 (my birth year) while Prefect of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith. At 128 pages it’s highly readable and replete with the kinds of insights we’d expect from a future pope.

The following are just a few of the reflections that I took from the book, but I want to make clear to everyone that my reflections will hardly do justice to this great work by the man who is today the Holy Father. In short, this book is a gem: read it.

The book, as this layman reads it, speaks about Christ in two ways: first at the person of Christ himself, and then at how what we know about Christ himself translates into the lives of Christians who are called to imitate him and communicate him to others. First and foremost in the cardinal’s reflections is the observation of the centrality of prayer in the life of Christ. Ratzinger calls our attention to Jesus’ “constant communication with the Father,” making the simple and powerful observation that “Jesus died praying.” And for us Christians, it is not merely that we should pray ourselves, but that we must “participate in his prayer” if we are to know and understand him.

The cardinal goes on to observe that participation in Jesus’ prayer necessarily means a communion with all others who do so as well, and this communion is the “Body of Christ,” “the Church.”

At some points in the book Benedict even resembles the teaching and language of John Paul II (which is interesting considering it was written near the beginning of JPII's pontificate). For example at one point he observes that “when the human will is taken up into the will of God, freedom is not destroyed; indeed, only then does genuine freedom come into its own.” In my ongoing reading of Ratzinger, this is turning out to be a shared theme of his and John Paul II’s. This makes sense as it is perhaps one of the most important messages that the Church can speak in today’s dictatorship of relativism: that freedom is not advanced when people make themselves the authority on good and evil. It is only when man submits to the Source of freedom that real freedom can be obtained.

I've already excerpted the book a couple of times on this blog, but I tell ya folks, I haven't even scratched the surface. Highly recommended.

The Power and the Glory, by Graham Greene, is a story of an old "whiskey priest" trying to escape capture in old southern Mexico. The State had outlawed God. Churches were closed and destroyed. Priests either had to marry, by law, or be killed, almost all opting for death. The Padre finds himself being the only priest, surrounded by the spiritual needy and the demons of his own life, trying to make sense of everything.

I found this book to be a quick read that I found to be thought provoking. I've heard much about this work before sitting down and reading it. I expected the internal conflict within the priest to be greater than what it was. His struggle, while very real, was a struggle between his thought and his action. His thought did not seem to battle itself–he seemed clear that he was a bad priest, that is, a horrible priest not worthy of the title. However, through his actions, he helped the faith of the people whom he admitted he failed in saving.

Looking at the whole of the book, it reminds us that martyrs may not be the ones you expect. Those who are completely unsure of his place in life or of his faith may be asked to sacrifice it all. Those who continue the walk of Christ despite the painful death it will cause is a martyr. They may be lacking in faith and devotion, but there is something holy in the unexpected martyr that, in many cases, speaks loudly to people facing the same crisis of faith.

The work is very good, but I cannot give it five stars. To get five stars, a book has to keep me thinking about it days after I finish reading it. This one was close, but not quite.