The Best Catholic Writing

The critically acclaimed Best Catholic Writing series continues with contributions from Joseph Bottum, Robert Ellsberg, John Garvey, Dawn Eden, and twenty-two other essayists, poets, scholars, and... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0829426116
• ISBN13: 9780829426113
• Release Date: August 2007
• Publisher: Loyola Press
• Length: 241 Pages
• Weight: 0.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.8" x 7.8"

Customer Reviews

Great Catholic Writing

This series, which began in 2004, is an excellent collection for every Catholic home, or anyone interested in short fiction or essays on the Catholic Faith.

"...love, love, love, love, love."

The final paragraph of Brian Doyle's tender, emotional introduction to THE BEST CATHOLIC WRITING 2007 exudes, "So let us go, then, you and I, and forge a new thing....I believe, the key to the moral evolution of the human race, the idea that fell again and again from the lips of the gaunt, dusty man with starlight in his veins: love, love, love, love, love." THE BEST CATHOLIC WRITING 2007, comprised of twenty-six selections -- all of which deserve their places in this anthology -- pours out love in myriad streams and diverse messages. Inevitably, every reader will pick favorites. Among mine were the following: -- "The Amish Way: 'Imitation of Christ at Its Most Naked' ," by Rod Dreher In a short essay, Dreher pays tribute to the power of forgiveness as lived by the humble people whose children were murdered in a one-room schoolhouse in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. Both the subject and the writing grip the soul. -- "How to Understand Transubstantiation," by Terence L. Nichols A professor of theology in Minnesota, Nichols tackles that difficult, murky doctrine that when bread and wine are consecrated by a priest they become the body and blood of Christ. He proposes an adjustment in interpretation, namely that these elements become incorporated into the glorified body of the Lord, analogous to the way, for instance, a protein molecule is incorporated into the human body after being ingested. He suggests this understanding also better "parallels what actually happens to believers in heaven and in the Eucharistic celebration." Nichols follows through his thesis with intellectual vigor and integrity. -- In "Why Protestants Can't Write," Peter Leithart, a Protestant minister, postulates that sacramental theology is the backbone of memorable Christian fiction and contends that therefore Catholic authors possess the advantage, the high ground. To illustrate his contention, he discusses Flannery O'Connor's works and her analysis of what constitutes substantive literature. O'Connor did not aim for edification but for truth and for an opening to a "transcendent horizon," however fleeting that glimpse might be. "A Sin," by Brian Doyle occupies less than two full pages of type, but it penetrates unerringly. Whether one has children or not, the plight of a father who has lost his temper with his son is universally empathetic. And Doyle's lament that he does "not know how sins can be forgiven"..."how foul can be made fair" reminds us all, when forgiveness arises anyway, of the ineffable bounties of love. Definitely recommended.