Arts and Culture

Possibilities, dangers of Islam’s rise in Europe

October 12, 2007

God’s Continent: Christianity, Islam and Europe’s Religious Crisis by Philip Jenkins (Oxford University Press, 340 pages, hardcover $31.95). They thought he was a cranky crackpot in his time, but Hillaire Belloc’s 1938 prophecy has come back to haunt Europe today: “Anyone with a knowledge of history is bound to ask himself whether we shall not see in the future a revival of Mohammedan political power, and the renewal of the old pressure of Islam upon Christendom.”

Documentary explores new style of mother-daughter relationship

October 12, 2007

TORONTO - Mothers moving in with their adult daughters is the focus of a TVOntario documentary being filmed.

Payback time for Choir School alumni

October 5, 2007

TORONTO - Kevin Hearn of the Canadian pop band the Barenaked Ladies, jazz singer Matt Dusk, tenors John McDermott and Michael Burgess and concert pianist Stewart Goodyear are all St. Michael’s Choir School alumni who have gone on to become successful musicians both here and abroad. As a tribute to the school for its 70th anniversary, they will all perform at Roy Thomson Hall Oct. 15 at 7:30 p.m. along with the Canada Pops Orchestra and the boys of St. Michael’s Choir School.

The reproduction industry

September 28, 2007

Everything Conceivable: How Assisted Reproduction is Changing Men, Women and the World, by Liza Mundy (Alfred A Knopf, hardcover, 406 pages. $34.95). This book tells gripping stories about virtually unregulated U.S. industries assisting human reproduction. It challenges pro-lifers to find new language for abiding concerns in rapidly changing contexts. It gives insight into probable future assaults on Canadian law.

Jesus still provocative after all these years

September 25, 2007

The One Who Is To Come by Joseph A. Fitzmyer, S.J. (Wm B. Eerdmans, 183 pages, softcover, $22.99). Of the distinguished trio of Catholic scholars (Raymond Brown, Roland Murphy and Joseph Fitzmyer) who edited both the Jerome Biblical Commentary (1968) and its successor, the New Jerome (1990), today Fitzmyer is the sole survivor, and unquestionably the éminence grise of Catholic exegetes. Almost 87 years old, Fr. Fitzmyer remains one of the most formidable scholarly minds in the field of Scripture, an expert in ancient Aramaic and Hebrew, a specialist in the Dead Sea Scrolls and the author of dozens of books on the Bible.

Bridging the Catholic-Jewish gap

September 18, 2007

Jews and Catholics Together: Celebrating the Legacy of Nostra Aetate, edited by Michael Attridge (Novalis, softcover, 180 pages, $19.95). It’s hard to imagine just how abysmal Jewish-Catholic relations were before the Second Vatican Council, but abysmal they were. Merely 40 years ago, Jews were often viewed as “Christ-killers,” condemned to wander the Earth because of their refusal to accept Jesus as the Messiah. There was also a longstanding and largely unresolved debate within Christianity over “supersessionism,” the view that the Jewish covenant with God was nullified by the covenant in Christ, thus making Judaism a false religion. Consequently, Jews were targeted by missionaries for conversion. And then there is the question, still being grappled with today, of how centuries of Christian anti-Semitism provided fertile soil for the Holocaust.

God seeks the salvation of all

September 10, 2007

Biblical Human Failures by Walter Vogels (Novalis, 176 pages, softcover, $19.95). In Biblical Human Failures, Walter Vogels takes readers on a tour of scriptural stories and characters familiar because of their compelling, visual imagery. Vogels is a wonderful guide, making sense of the labyrinth of the Old Testament and exposing depth of meaning between the lines of the sketchy details in the Gospels. His knowledge of the texts combined with his skill as a story teller makes what can be a tedious and confusing journey continually interesting and provocative. But this tour is not for the faint of heart.

Mother Teresa and the media storm

September 10, 2007

Perhaps what the headlines should have really said was “Stop the presses: Mother Teresa was human after all!” At least then they would have been truer to the underlying message in pretty much all the coverage of the new book of letters, Come be My Light, by Mother Teresa just published.

Priest paves path of non-violence

September 10, 2007

The Narrow Path, 1 hour 8 mins., directed by Gerard Thomas Straub, funded by The San Damiano Foundation. TORONTO - The Narrow Path is a documentary about Jesuit Father John Dear, a devout pursuer of non-violence. In the film he speaks about the harm invoked by violence and war and how we can become a people working toward eliminating violence around the world.

We fear poverty made visible

September 6, 2007

The Fear of Beggars: Stewardship and Poverty in Christian Ethics by Kelly S. Johnson (William B. Eerdmans, 236 pages, softcover, $24.99.) Yes, it’s judgmental, but I’ve always been flabbergasted when Christians vote Conservative. The hard, cold policies of Margaret Thatcher and, closer to home, Mike Harris, literally put vulnerable people on the hard, cold streets. One reason for such voting patterns is the fact Christianity, including Catholicism, so often fails to make the crucial links between theology and economics, between finances and ethics. Kelly S. Johnson, professor of religious studies at the University of Dayton, Ohio, ably attempts to fill the gap in her striking new book, The Fear of Beggars.