BOOKS

PITTSBURGH (CNS) — Regina Munsch hopes her children’s book, “Growing Up Catholic in Pittsburgh,” finds its way into “church bags” throughout the region.

One thing that we Catholics can always count on is paradox. Our faith is not simple and no Catholic should ever say so because of the great complexities.

Unless you lived under a cabbage leaf for the past 30 years or so, you already know that the Mother Angelica (1923-2016) of this book’s title was the founder of the Eternal Word Television Network. As such, she became the first Catholic media personality to garner the attention of the public in anywhere near the numbers racked up by the late, much-admired Archbishop Fulton Sheen in the mid-20th century.

I’m having a crisis of literature. For the second month in a row, I am reviewing a book by a non-Catholic pastor. This one, “A Second Day: a Hopeful Journey Out of Suicidal Thinking,” by Fe Anam Avis.

An atheist begins to question things as events of life unfold. Finally, she visits old friends and finds them all profoundly different than they had been, not realizing that the difference is within.

We all love journey stories, especially those that tell us how someone got to where they are and those that remind us of our own journeys.

We can still remember the photos and the videos of a woman without fear who went into the poorest places of the poorest and lifted the most downtrodden to a place of dignity.

Many of these things are almost automatically accepted by many of us because progressive society rains the blame down like God did water for Noah.

Abortion is the hot-button issue of the day. Who among us can rationally argue that the protection of human life — at its core and despite wars of politics or economics — is NOT inherent to human nature? Why do we have so many ERs? Why do we condemn murder, manslaughter and cannibalism?

After reading something from the author, students wrote to them about how the work personally impacted them.