If war is hell a literary corollary might be that every society touched by warfare needs its own version of Virgil or Dante to journey to that hell and return to tell the tale In her collection of short stories Anthonia Kalu plays such a role with respect to the Nigeria-Biafra War of 1967-70 Thi

For Eugene Kennedy Cardinal Joseph Bernardin of Chicago 1928-96 is an exemplar of the paschal mystery ldquo Joseph Bernardin rsquo s life tells us what happens when a man accepts the destiny that is given to few on behalf of us who are the many to recreate the central motif of Christian spirit

Ernest Hemingway rsquo s famous comment about taking up a collection and sending John O rsquo Hara off to Yale once for all may have been a cheap shot but it was one O rsquo Hara rsquo s boorish streak nearly begged for In his unorthodox yet enlightening new biography Geoffrey Wolff makes the case

In 1995 in Amazing Grace The Lives of Children and the Conscience of a Nation Jonathan Kozol opened a window on the rock-bottom housing health care and schooling of the Motts Haven enclave in the South Bronx His focus was on children facing the worst possible odds His purpose as declared in t

Pierre Toussaint was born a slave in Haiti on the B rard plantation known as L rsquo Artibonite According to the most recent chronology the year was 1781 The young Toussaint was spared the grueling toil of work on the fields His labor was in the household where he learned to read and write Fr

With clarity and candor Dean Hoge a professor in the department of sociology at The Catholic University of America in Washington D C and Jacqueline Wenger a graduate student and licensed clinical social worker communicate and interpret extensive data about generational changes in the priesth