Death Comes to the Archbishop - 12/28/2015 - Joint Discussion

If enough people are interested, we could compare with Willa
Cather's Shadows on the Rock set in 18th century Quebec it could be
interesting to compare and contrast the two.

Free Ebook
http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks02/0200761h.html

Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather, 1927 - 11/3/2015 - Joseph Burkett

Two Reviews from amazon that have my curiousity peaked...

222 of 236 people found the following review helpful

A Litmus Test--Agreed!

By JK on October 24, 2001

Format: Paperback

After reading with fascination the prior forty-plus reviews, they would appear to fall into three categories: juveniles who were forced to read the book for school, giving the book the lowest possible ratings. PC-types who judge both the writing of the book and the actions and beliefs of the characters by today's standards--such smug intolerance! Thirdly, those who love literature for its own sake, belonging to the community that has made this one of the classics in American writing.
I admit, I am part of the third group. I fell in love with the writing of Cather as a teenager. To date, I have found no other author who can illustrate the great expanse of America and the vision of our ancestors in the way she could. Being set in New Mexico, the feeling of expanse of the American West permeates every page. I agree with another reviewer that this book is the writing equivalent of O'Keefe.
While I can understand the young ones criticizing the book after being forced to read it, I don't understand adults who were dissatisfied. Was this their first Cather? Hopefully not (I'd recommend starting with "Song of the Lark" or "O Pioneers". Her writing is not an unknown quantity.
I've read the book many times over the past thirty years, and it's not a book for those who like to have their plots laid out for them. The plot is obscure, as Cather leaves the main story line with chapters diverging like side trails off a main path. Though not hard to read, it's not a book for those in a hurry. It's best being read in a comfy chair on a rainy afternoon next to a window. The sense of timeliness, of the stretching on into eternity, is seldom better conveyed than in this book.Read more ›

2 Comments  Was this review helpful to you?  YesNo  Report abuse

92 of 96 people found the following review helpful

Number One on my Top 10 list

By T. J. Mathews VINE VOICE on October 20, 2000

Format: Hardcover

Willa Cather's works are more reminiscent of paintings than books. They are better described by words such a `warm', `vibrant' and `rich' than by `suspenseful', `fascinating' or `page-turner'. In "Death Comes for the Archbishop" she does to New Mexico with black ink what Georgia O'Keefe needed a whole palette of colors to do.
"Death Comes for the Archbishop" is a multidimensional work skillfully woven together. On one hand Cather tells the story of New Mexico in the early days of its occupation by the United States and of the clash of two cultures trying, sometimes unsuccessfully, to get along.
On the other hand it is a portrait of a life. It is the story of Father Latour, a French priest sent to Santa Fe by the church to serve as an impartial intermediary between the protestant Anglo government and the Mexican Catholic population. He leaves behind all that is dear to him and dedicates himself to a life of service in a distant outpost far from what he must have considered civilization.
While it's true that the book may be `episodic' or `anecdotal', few of us recall our own lives as a smooth, day-to-day rendering. What we remember are the high points and low points of our lives, and so it is here. This is, after all, the story of the life, and death, of a man.
If you read books just to find out how they end, I'll save you the trouble. He dies. But if you read to experience the world through the heart and eyes of a great author, this book is for you. And once you read it you will find that, for you, Father Latour, hasn't really died. He'll stay with you forever.

1 Comment  Was this review helpful to you?  YesNo  Report abuse

Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light: The Private Writings of the Saint of Calcutta edited by Brian Kolodiejchuk - 10/23/2015 - Corey Morgan

Discussion started with the comment, "apparently in order to be a saint, it's, not enough to just be holy, all your private writings need to be made public.

Frank comments about struggling with faith and being dwarfed by Blessed Teresa's holiness yet still experiencing similar spiritual dyness and lack of God's presence.  DIfference is she had an intimate relationship with God at first then it was removed and in her obedience, B.Teresa continued in faith even though she did not feel.

I wonder how an atheist would view B.Teresa's doubt. no soul no voice....

Discussion moved to whether it is precarious or essential to base you faith on the transmitted history of Jesus.

Love in the Ruins By Walker Percy - 8/28/2015 - Joe Kolesar

Lively Discussion. Percy's Story was entertaining and humorous 

From Wikipedia: The novel investigates and satirizes many facets of American society, including religion, sexuality, medical and scientific ethics, and race relations.

Amazon Review: Percy brilliantly describes and satirizes the competing elements in this American Apocalypse - the country club conservatives, the "groovy" priests, the religious Right and Left, the technocrats, the sexologists, the racists, the Black revolutionaries, the drop-outs, and the sinister but bungling government bureaucrats who have their own vision of a "Brave New World."

From its masterful opening pages (which, contrary to another reviewer, I think are just about the best writing I've seen in modern American literature) this book will outrage partisans of the Left and Right while giving hope to those who try to occupy the "radical center" where the human spirit is defended against the predations of all the "isms" of the modern world.

Walker Percy died over a decade ago, leaving a small but dedicated readership. A dilettante whose interests ran from medicine and psychiatry (Percy was an M. D.) to semiotics, philosophy, and religion, we remember Percy for his slightly cantankerous (but never malicious) outlook on modernity and the human condition.
"Love in the Ruins," written in '71, imagines a U.S.A. in which prevalent (and sometimes contradictory) trends run to their illogical extremes -- political association becomes fragmented to the point of neo-tribalism, mainline churches become secularized to the point of banality or fixated to the point of intolerance, and psychological treatment grows increasing manipulative. Into this world he drops Dr. Tom More, "bad Catholic" and the inventor of the Ontological Lapsometer. The Lapsometer measures the degree to which a soul has fallen, the degree of estrangement and alienation it has attained. One particular sickness it detects is angelism/bestialism -- the tendency to go from spirit-like abstraction to animal appetite with little moderation. Like all technologies, the Lapsometer becomes a means of social and spiritual manipulation, and Dr. More and his device set in play a story that leads the world to the brink of apocalypse.
By turns desperate and hilarious, this readable novel holds up well today. I also recommend "Lost in the Cosmos," which contains many of the same ideas, but in more of a tragi-comic essay form.

Into the Wild By Jon Krakauer - 6/2/2015 - Ben Tokar

Interesting Body mass graph.
http://www.tifilms.com/wild/call_debunked.htm



Sisters book - Trouble family
http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wild-chris-mccandless-sisters-journey-escape-traumatic-childhood/story?id=26743275

The Children of Men, by P. D. James - 5/15/2015 - Clint Hepler

Discussion covered the following topics:

Raise Men Like Gods and they will become devils
Extinction of humanity seems like a rift with God. 

Procreation is central to the Catholic Faith.

Amish families - Monastic-like life.


From Wikipedia

The Children of Men is a dystopian novel by P. D. James that was published in 1992. Set in England in 2021, it centers on the results of mass infertility. James describes a United Kingdom that is steadily depopulating and focuses on a small group of resisters who do not share the disillusionment of the masses.

The book received very positive reviews from many critics such as Caryn James of The New York Times, who called it "wonderfully rich" and "a trenchant analysis of politics and power that speaks urgently".^[1] The academic Alan Jacobs said, "Of all James’ novels, The Children of Men is probably the most pointed in its social criticism, certainly the deepest in its theological reflection."

Lord of the World, by Robert Hugh Benson - 3/27/2015 - Justin Mikula and Zeb Bartels

Hi Joe, if we still don't have a book for next time I saw this about an interesting book Pope Francis is recommending. A revealing book recommendation from the Pope Sounds like it zeroes in on the issue we seem to come to with every book, the perils modernism.

				A revealing book recommendation from the Pope Twice now, Pope Francis has recommended Robert Hugh Benson's apocalyptic novel, Lord of the World. It’s interesting that an English novel—written more than a cen...
				View on www.catholicculture.org	Preview by Yahoo

from wikipedia

According to his biographer, Fr. Cyril Martindale, Mgr. Benson's depiction of the future was in many ways an inversion of the science fiction novels of H.G. Wells. In particular, Benson was sickened by Wells' belief that Atheism, Marxism, World Government, and Eugenics would lead to an earthly utopia. Due to his depiction of a Wellsian future as a global police state, Benson's novel has been called one of the first modern works of dystopian fiction.

Writing during the pontificate of Pope Pius X and prior to the First World War, Monsignor Benson accurately predicted interstate highways and passenger air travel using an advanced form of Zeppelin called the "volor". However, he also presumed the survival of the British Empire and predominant travel by rail. Like many other Catholics of the era in which he wrote, Monsignor Benson shares the political and economic views of G. K. Chesterton and Hilaire Belloc.

Papal Statements[edit]

Pope Francis

On February 8, 1992, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger criticized U. S. President George H. W. Bush's recent speech calling for "a New World Order" in a speech of his own at the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore. In his discourse, the future Pope explained that Monsignor Benson's novel described "a similar unified civilization and its power to destroy the spirit. The anti-Christ is represented as the great carrier of peace in a similar new world order."^[60]

Cardinal Ratzinger proceeded to quote from Pope Benedict XV's 1920 encyclical Bonum sane: "The coming of a world state is longed for, by all the worst and most distorted elements. This state, based on the principles of absolute equality of men and a community of possessions, would banish all national loyalties. In it no acknowledgement would be made of the authority of a father over his children, or of God over human society. If these ideas are put into practice, there will inevitably follow a reign of unheard-of terror."^[60]

In a sermon in November, 2013, Pope Francis praised Lord of the World as depicting, "the spirit of the world which leads to apostasy almost as if it were a prophecy."^[61]

In early 2015, Pope Francis further revealed Benson's influence upon his thinking by telling a plane load of reporters. At first apologizing for making "a commercial", Pope Francis further praised Lord of the World, despite its being "a bit heavy at the beginning". Pope Francis elaborated, "It is a book that, at that time, the writer had seen this drama of ideological colonization and wrote that book... I advise you to read it. Reading it, you'll understand well what I mean by ideological colonization."^[62]

Psalms and Canticles: Meditations and Catechesis on the Psalms and Canticles of Morning Prayer by Pope John Paul II - 1/23/2015 - Wayne Hepler

Discussion:
How to deal with confliction.