River of Fire: My Spiritual Journey Sister Helen Prejean (Hodder & Stoughton, £16.99) Helen Prejean is the well known author of that massive success as book, film, and even opera, Dead Man Walking (1993). She is one of the most powerful advocates for the abolition of the death penalty, not just in the US, but…
Mainly About Books by the Books Editor In times of crisis it’s natural that people should look to their Faith for reassurance. During the days of the ‘mad cow disease’ (Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease) the prayer in time of plague associated with St Roch was much sought. Now, with a new kind of plague striking fear into…
A selection of books for Easter by the Books Editor This year, as Eastertide approaches, our society is faced with the uncertain outcome of what would once have been seen as a plague. These days we try in a way to tame it by calling it a “pandemic”: giving it a scientific name is…
The Noble Martyr: A Spiritual Biography of St Philip Howard by Dudley Plunkett, with a foreword by the Duke of Norfolk (Gracewing, £9.99) This book is published at a very timely moment. With Hilary Mantel’s final novel in her Tudor trilogy, The Mirror and the Light, climbing up the best seller lists, it is good…
Murillo: The Prodigal Son Restored text by Aoife Brady and Muirne Lydon, with an introduction by Sean Rainbird (National Gallery of Ireland, €19.95) Murillo: the Prodigal Son Restored Exhibition, National Gallery of Ireland, Hugh Lane Room (Room 31), runs to 30 August 2020. Free entry The National Gallery since its foundation has been…
The other week we reviewed in these pages an interesting, indeed important, book about new development of church architecture in Germany and Ireland after World War II. Of course, after the massive destruction during World War II when a large swathe of Northern Europe, from Brittany to Byelorussia, from the port of Brest to the…
Modern Religious Architecture in Germany, Ireland and Beyond: Influence, Process and Afterlife since 1945 Lisa Godson & Kathleen James-Chakraborty (Bloomsbury Visual Arts, £44.95/$US80.00) This collection of 11 articles derives from a conference held in Newman House in Dublin back in 2014. Alas, for the general reader concerned with religious architecture it is written in the…
Newman’s Oxford: The places and buildings associated with Saint John Henry Newman during his years in Oxford 1816-1846 by Fr Jerome Bertram FSA (Gracewing, £6.99) The canononisation of John Henry Newman will open the way to many more popular accounts of parts of his life. In this very appealing brochure Fr Jerome Bertram, a priest…
Womb with a Window: Ethical Reflections on the Personhood of the Unborn Through Scripture and Science by Msgr Dr Antony Perumayan (Shanway Press, £12.00; contact 15 Crumlin Road, Belfast, Antrim BT14 6AA; email infro@shanway.com; tel: Northern Ireland 028 9022 2070) The reverend author of this book is the National Co-ordinator of the Syro- Malabar Church…
Ampleforth College: The Emergence of Ampleforth College as the ‘Catholic Eaton’ by Peter Galliver (Gracewing, £12.99) Ampleforth College in Yorkshire over the past centuries as often been called ‘the Catholic Eton’, though this title might well be disputed by those who went to Stonyhurst. However, this short book is subtitled ‘We must look to…