The Cathoholic

Learning to Die in Miami by Carlos Eire

Learning to Die in Miami is one of the most memorable books I've read in years. It's a story about an 11-year old Cuban boy sent with his brother on the United States' Operation Pedro Pan airlift to Miami after the Cuban revolution. They were among 14,000 Cuban children who left their homeland, while their' parents were still in Havana. Carlos and Tony Eire must take care of themselves when the two young boys are placed under the guardianship of abusive foster parents. Carlos, the narrator, is hilariously funny, enlivening this often harrowing narrative that turns into a deeply moving conversion story. I reviewed the memoir for the Washington Times. Eire won the National Book Award for his earlier memoir about his childhood in Cuba: Waiting for Snow in Havana.

On Purpose: How Great School Cultures Form Strong Character

Samuel Casey Carter's new book, On Purpose: How Great School Cultures Form Strong Character, offers broad principles, case studies and great snapshots of schools that succeed in providing all kinds of students with an engaging, purpose-driven education. Here's my review in The Weekly Standard. On Purpose is the culmination of Carter's work at the Center for Education Reform, a Washington, D.C. education reform advocy group that has collected a goldminen of information on what makes schools great.  Carter first grabbed the attention of eduction reformers when he wrote No Excuses: Lessons from 21 High=Performing, High=Poverty Schools, which  repudiated the long-standing argument that poor children couldn't excell.

Never Let Me Go

When Kazuo Ishiguro's novel, Never Let Me Go, was published in 2005, i consumed it in one sitting. The story about a seemingly idyllic British boarding school, charged with the education of human clones, was absolutely enthralling. Like Ishiguro's novel, The Remains of the Day, Never Let Me Go is also sturctured to slowly reveal an evil reality cloaked in what appears to be humdrum daily rituals. Now the film version of Never Let Me Go is in U.S. theaters for a limited engagement and should not be missed. My commentary addressing some of the moral and cultural issues raised by Ishiguro appeared today on Headline Bistro. I applauded Carrie Mulligan's performance as "Kathy H.", the narrator and a central character. As usual, Mulligan is suburb.I note in my commentary:

For some of us, Kathy’s struggle exposes the moral contradictions inherent in our present use of contemporary reproductive technologies: methods of assisting fertility or curing diseases that are predicated on the destruction of human life. Kathy’s plight reveals the tragic limits of good intentions and the seductive power of scientific breakthroughs that give us power over life and death. Reflecting on Hailsham’s failed mission, we may find ourselves re-examining the culture’s incremental tolerance of attacks against nascent human life, from legal abortion to the laboratory creation of embryos destroyed during research.  Once moral absolutes are discarded, utilitarian equations, which employ a cost-benefit analysis to establish the value of individual lives, seem too fragile, or adaptable, to prevent future abuses of reproductive technologies.

Ishiguro acknowledges this grim truth, though he doesn’t belabor it. Indeed, some will reach very different conclusions about the moral dynamics at play here. After all, many desperate patients and their families have already accepted the necessity of employing embryo-destructive research to advance future cures. But Kathy’s story will move some complacent bystanders to grapple directly with the first of many difficult questions: Now that human cloning is achievable will it inevitably become desirable?

Go see the movie, and after you do, get the book. Kathy H. will haunt you.

The End and the Beginning: Geoge Weigel on the Record

The End and the Begining: Pope John Paul II -- The Victory of Freedom, the Last Years, the Legacy, George Weigel's sequel to his memorable biography of the late pontiff, was released today.  Weigel shared his thoughts with me in an interview posted on the National Catholic Register, where he discusses the key issues and unexpected developments that make his latest book so engaging.

What is the value of time for a biographer, even one who knew the flesh-and-blood man he is writing about?

Weigel: Obviously time gives one some emotional distance on the person about whom one is writing. But in my case, the most important “time factor” was the fact that I came into possession, after the Pope’s death and through the courtesy of Polish academic colleagues, of a cache of remarkable materials from the files of the Polish secret police and communist-era foreign ministry, the East German Stasi, the KGB, the Hungarian secret police, and the White House, none of which had been previously available. Those materials allowed me to explore the communist war against John Paul II in considerable (and dramatic) detail; some have said that the first third of The End and the Beginning reads like an espionage novel. And I expect there’s something to that.

In another exchange, Weigel addresses the pope's two-track strategy for dealing with communist regimes:

John Paul II sought to transform the Holy See’s policy of Ostpolitik by creating the foundation for the nonviolent overthrow of the Soviet empire. Yet he appointed Cardinal [Agostino] Casaroli, a strong advocate of Ostpolitik, as his secretary of state. Why did he do that, and what does that decision reflect about his approach to foreign policy? Other examples?

Weigel: I have long argued that the appointment of Casaroli, architect of the Ostpolitik of Paul VI, as John Paul II’s secretary of state, was an extremely shrewd move on John Paul’s part. With Casaroli as principal Vatican diplomatic agent, no communist government could accuse John Paul of reneging on Paul VI’s agreements or dramatically changing the Vatican’s policy line. Meanwhile, John Paul II himself went around and over the heads of governments with moral appeals to oppressed peoples around the world, calling them to live in the truth, which was his basic weapon against communism. It was a classic good cop-bad cop strategy.

 

 

The End and the Beginning: Pope John Paul II - The Victory of Freedom, the Last Years

George Weigel's sequel to Witness to Hope, his 1999 bestselling biography of Pope John Paul II, was released today. The End and the Beginning: Pope John Paul II - the victory of Freedom, the Last Years, the Legacy offers a penetrating reappraisal of his pontificate, but it also contains a fascinating portrait of Soviet-bloc spy agencies's efforts to penetrate Polish Catholic institutions and the Vatican. My book review in the National Catholic Register notes:

As Weigel tells it, Soviet-bloc informants had penetrated the Vatican, just as they had burrowed into Polish Catholic organizations. The new Pope devised his own solution to deal with this problem: he kept his own records of sensitive discussions and intelligence. Unlike his predecessors, he didn’t “dictate memoranda or conversations with prominent personalities or political figures … for ready reference in the Vatican’s Secretary of State. … Rather, in the evening, John Paul would go over each day’s meeting and conversation … with his longtime secretary Stanislaw Dziwisz. Dziwisz recorded all of this in a series of diaries that were kept in the papal apartments.

 

 

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo: Just reporting the facts, or exploiting women?

I recently finished reading the bestselling thriller, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. It was a fast read. But lot's of graphic depictions of sexual assaults against women and ritualized sadism left me disturbed and rather regretful that I had subjected myself to the grisly activities of a serial killer. Friends of mine have expressed the same misgivings, and some have been surprised and even angry that those who recommended the book didn't bother to mention the searing descriptions of violence directed against women. Here's my take on the book in Headline Bistro. I've seen the film, too, and reached a similar conclusion regarding its mix of fast-paced narrative and scences of sadistic violence.

Chosen, How Christ Sent Twenty-three Surprised Converts to Replant His Vineyard

I thoroughly enjoyed Chosen: How Christ Sent Twenty-three Surprised Converts to Replant His Vineyard, a wonderful book of conversion stories--the right size to read just before bed time. Here's my review in the National Catholic Register. I was surprised to discover the book included stories by two dear friends: Vivian Dudro and Susan Bujnak who live in California.

The Road: Natural Law at the End of the World.

Cormac McCarthy's The Road is not for everyone. The post-apocalyptic world it evokes is frightening,deeply haunting, and gruesome. But the narrative also affirms the immutability of the natural law, of the divine creation of the world, and of the inseparability of truth and love. I have written about The Road. Today, the National Catholic Register just posted a great reflection on the novel, which won the 2007 Pulitzer Prize, that is worth reading. When my book club read the novel, one of our members, a high school English teacher at a Catholic boys schools, planned to assign it the following year. My sister in law, who has taught English at a Jesuit boys high school, said the students were thoroughly absorbed in the book. The Road is viewed by some literary critics as one of the best works of fiction to be published in the past fifty years.  

John Paul Ii and Wanda Poltawska: The Power of Friendship

There are many compelling transcendent elements to the life of the late pontiff, John Paul II. His friendship with Wanda Poltawska is a source of great fascination for me. A Nazi concentration camp survivor who would become a close friend of the pope, from the time he served as a pastor in Krakow. While he served as her friend, confessor and guide, her insights contributed to his philosophical and theological reflections on the dignity of women and fostering a "civilization of love."

Here's my commentary in the National Catholic Register on Wanda's memoir of her four years in the Ravensbruck concentration camp during the Second World War: ...And I Am Afraid of My Dreams.

Recently, Wanda published her correspondence over many decades with the late pope. The letters have not been translated into English yet. Some members of the Polish hierarchy were angered by her move, arguing that the letters should have first been turned over to the commission reviewing documentation related to the cause for the late pontiff's canonization. However, other Polish bishops supported the publication of the letters.

While we're on the subject of the late John Paul Ii, here's my review of another memoir--A Life with Karol: My Forty-Year Friendship with the Man Who Became Pope by another close collaborator--his one-time papal secretary, Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz. According to news reports, the cardinal is among  those members of the Polish hierarchy who are not pleased about Wanda Poltawska's latest book.

Murder in Amsterdam by Ian Buruma

Ian Buruma is a very engaging and perceptive writer. You don't have to agree with the whole of his cultural analysis to enjoy reading his work.

Here's an old book review of Murder in Amsterdam published in Touchstone. It's about the roots of Islamic extremism in Europe among second-generation Muslim immigrants. Here's an another review published in First Things that I wrote while living in Japan, one of Buruma's favorite haunts. This book, The Wages of Guilt: Memories of War in Germany and Japan, compares each nation's efforts to expiate guilt--or erase the historical record--in the wake of the Second World War.