Category: Book Review

The Saints and Social Justice by Brandon Vogt: A review.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • August 5, 2014 • Book Review; Church Social Teaching

 

Glenn Beck­’s pan­ic attacks aside, the Church is cer­tain­ly “down with this whole social jus­tice thing” because “social jus­tice” is a Catholic con­cept in the first place. Those be our words. And the rea­son you should read Mr. Vogt’s fine book is that it very skill­ful­ly helps us to dis­tin­guish between “social jus­tice” in the true, Catholic sense and “social jus­tice” in the false, polit­i­cal­ly exploita­tive sense. For just because a false and athe­is­tic polit­i­cal ide­ol­o­gy has dem­a­gogued the poor does not mean that we have no real oblig­a­tion to the poor.

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The New Evangelization, sans puns: Scott Hahn’s “mission manual.”

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • August 1, 2014 • Book Review

 

Read­ers who expect with each new book to find Scott Hahn’s trade­mark puns in the sub­ti­tles won’t find them here. I admit that was the first thing I noticed about Evan­ge­liz­ing Catholics. It was a bit dis­ap­point­ing — but only bit; it’s a good book. The life of the mind is not in the pun. (Some­one once told me, with a grave shake of his head, that Dr. Hahn’s puns will only get him more time in Pur­ga­to­ry.) The title of his new book—Evan­ge­liz­ing Catholics — might make one think that it is all about whip­ping pick-and-choose Catholics into shape.

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Three books by priests from OSV.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • June 17, 2014 • Book Review

 

Fr. Mitch Pacwa’s name on a book is its own proof. Protes­tants who are attract­ed to the Church, but who find Mary an intractable stum­bling block (I did) will be helped great­ly by read­ing Fr. Mitch Pacwa’s book. Bible study class­es will find this book a use­ful text. Indeed, Fr. Pacwa seemed to have had such an audi­ence in mind, since the book comes with ques­tions for review and dis­cus­sion, as well as places to write study notes. Catholics who sim­ply want to under­stand Mary bet­ter, and grow deep­er in their rela­tion­ship with her, will also find this book incred­i­bly valu­able.

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The Last Confession of the Vampire Judas Iscariot: A review of the debut novel by David Vermont.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • April 15, 2014 • Book Review

 

I am impressed by a nov­el of the wan­der­ing Jew that avoids its clichés. Judas is not Cain; nor is he aim­less, but he has a pur­pose. He is not just try­ing to keep him­self alive by blood. He seeks some­thing from John Vian­ney, from Max­i­m­il­ian Kolbe, from Ray­mond Bre­viary. It is only Fr. Bre­viary, in the end, who under­stands what will both defeat Judas and give him what he is real­ly seek­ing. He is able to do so because he is the first to devel­op a rela­tion­ship with Judas. Mr. Ver­mont uses all these tra­di­tions, but his nov­el is not defined by them. It reorders genre for its own par­tic­u­lar pur­pose.

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The Catholic Men’s Bible: Devotional, call to holiness, and study Bible.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • March 24, 2014 • Book Review

 

Fr. Lar­ry Richards, who is known for teach­ing Catholic men how to be men and Catholics, has come out with a study Bible (the NAB trans­la­tion) specif­i­cal­ly for men who want to live their faith more ful­ly. If you belong to a men’s group at your parish, or if you just want to search more deeply for the holi­ness to which God has called you as a man, while mak­ing an ana­lyt­i­cal study of the Bible, this is the one you must own. In addi­tion, spread through­out the text, are 88 mini-essays on top­ics of par­tic­u­lar rel­e­vance to Catholic men. No. 27, for exam­ple, reminds men that fam­i­ly comes first.

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Even my book reviews worry Protestants, and other quick takes: 7QT XVIII, seriatim.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • March 21, 2014 • Apologetics; Book Review; Seven Quick Takes

 

Some peo­ple think that com­box­es are their blog. You know, like this guy. (I’m guess­ing it’s a guy; who knows; I could be wrong.) He was so out of sorts at my review of Devin Rose’s The Protestant’s Dilem­ma that he couldn’t wait long enough to start his own blog to respond, so he wrote a blog arti­cle in the com­box at Free Repub­lic. (He post­ed a link to it in my com­ments, which is the only rea­son I know of it.) Have you ever seen any­one attempt to refute a review, rather than the actu­al book? I’m not sure whether to write a review of the review of the review.

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The Protestant’s Dilemma by Devin Rose: A review.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • March 18, 2014 • Apologetics; Book Review

 

If a Protes­tant look­ing into the claims of Catholi­cism were to ask me, “What one book should I read, where I can find a quick answer to any ques­tion I have?” I would tell him to read Devin Rose’s new book The Protestant’s Dilem­ma. I would also rec­om­mend this book to Protes­tant apol­o­gists, even those of many years, well-skilled in polemics. It will remind them of the heavy bur­den of proof they face, and the weak­ness of their posi­tion on point after point. The truth may set them free and bring them home too. (It has hap­pened.) All this may seem like oblig­a­tory praise, but no.

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Writing negative reviews: A defense.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • February 27, 2014 • Book Review; Literature

 

Crit­i­cism would be poor­er with­out this gem from Dorothy Park­er: “This is not a book to be tossed aside light­ly. It should be hurled with great force.” Or this one from Mark Twain: “Every time I read Pride and Prej­u­dice I want to dig her up and hit her over the skull with her own shin bone.” One admires the pas­sion in those sen­tences, the evi­dence of a read­er who loves good books so much that bad books are an intol­er­a­ble offense. If I hate a book, Francine Prose says, “life is too short not to say so.” A crit­ic who is will­ing to write a neg­a­tive review is a crit­ic read­ers will trust when he writes a pos­i­tive one.

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Seven reasons to read Simcha Fisher’s book on Natural Family Planning. 7QT XIV, seriatim.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • February 14, 2014 • Book Review; Seven Quick Takes

 

If you talk to Sim­cha Fish­er, she will tell you that she did not write The Sinner’s Guide to Nat­ur­al Fam­i­ly Plan­ning to do what oth­er dis­cus­sions of the sub­ject already do well. So you will not find moral or the­o­log­i­cal argu­ment in this book; nor will you find a how-to man­u­al for using this method of post­pon­ing preg­nan­cy. “Priests are so thrilled,” she says, “to dis­cov­er that here final­ly is a cou­ple who wants to use NFP instead of con­tra­cep­tion, and there is sel­dom any dis­cus­sion of: Now what?” Sim­cha Fish­er picks up where the priest leaves off, and not with the­o­ry but prac­ti­cal wis­dom.

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Through the Year with Pope Francis: A review.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • January 20, 2014 • Book Review; Pope Francis

 

Through the Year With Pope Fran­cis is a dai­ly devo­tion­al of 365 quo­ta­tions, main­ly from his hom­i­lies and Gen­er­al Audi­ences. If you like devo­tion­als, this is the one for you. Or, if you just want to counter sil­ly claims about the pope’s rad­i­cal views, this is a resource you will want to have. If you like to have med­i­ta­tions to take with you to Eucharis­tic Ado­ra­tion, why not pick up a copy of this book? What bet­ter way to spend time before the Blessed Sacra­ment than to med­i­tate upon the Holy Father’s words and pray for his inten­tions? There’s a ple­nary indul­gence for that.

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Killing Jesus: Could Christ have spoken from the cross?

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • October 6, 2013 • Apologetics; Blind Guides & False Prophets; Book Review; Exegesis; Media Personalities

 

The best that can be said is that “slow suf­fo­ca­tion” is a debat­ed and unset­tled ques­tion even among med­ical experts. So why is Mr. O’Reilly cer­tain enough on this point that he can deny Christ’s very words from the Cross? Does he have this rev­e­la­tion from the Holy Ghost? And why would the Holy Ghost inspire Mr. O’Reilly to con­tra­dict St. Luke? Did the Holy Ghost mis­lead Luke? Did Luke mis­hear the Holy Ghost? Has the Church been mis­tak­en about the infal­li­bil­i­ty of Luke’s gospel for 2000 years? Should Mar­tin Luther have tak­en that book out of the canon too?

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