Another great resource for finding books: Catholic Books Review

As Carol Ann recently mentioned, it can be hard to select which books to read on a topic.  And sometimes it can be hard to even know what books are out there.  Here’s a resource to help solve both issues.

For people wanting to read all things Catholic, Pierre Hegy’s “Catholic Books Review” is a great place to start.  The website has hundreds, and perhaps thousands, of book reviews written over the years by professional academics. Pierre estimates that 80-90% of the reviews are by professional theologians, while many of the rest are by professional sociologists.

To give readers a flavor of the books reviewed, here is a short list of some of the recent titles that caught my eye (which tilts the list a bit more towards sociology):

True and False Reform in the Church by Yves Congar, reviewed by Patrick Hayes

The Christian Consumer: Living Faithfully in a Fragile World by Laura Hartman, reviewed by Marie Conn

Faith and Money: How Religion Contributes to Wealth and Poverty by Lisa Keister, reviewed by Matthew Loveland

Lost in Transition: The Dark Side of Emerging Adulthood by Christian Smith with Kari Christofferson, Hilary Davidson, and Patricia Snell Herzog, reviewed by Patricia Wittberg

Spiritual Writings. by Gustavo Gutierrez. Selected and with an introduction by Daniel G. Groody, reviewed by Andrew Prevot

Faithful Revolution: How Voice of the Faithful is Changing the Church by Tricia Bruce, reviewed by Melissa Cidade

Check it out!  http://catholicbooksreview.org/

Why are (liberal) Catholics so upset with Obama?

Why did Obama anger Catholics?  A straightforward response to this question has been provided by E.J. Dionne—the Obama administration’s failure to acknowledge Catholic universities’ and Catholic hospitals’ unique circumstances and exempt them from requirements related to contraceptive coverage was viewed as a betrayal.

In this post, however, I want to present this question as a puzzle.  In hindsight, as with most historical events, it may seem obvious that the issue would blow up the way it did.  After all, it IS what actually happened.  But I want to problematize that view by exploring why Obama MIGHT have thought that Catholics in general and, at the very least, liberal Catholics would have let this particular issue slide.
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New Translation Humor

I received this picture in an e-mail from my sister-in-law.  I’m not sure who deserves credit for creating it, but I loved it!  I have had exactly that feeling after nailing “my lines.”  Now, I just need to find a corresponding D’Oh picture for when I don’t do so well!

Mark vs. Mark: Examining longer term commitment

Here’s a key point from Mark Gray’s post (which I linked to in my earlier post):

Did Catholics Come Home bring people back to parishes? One indicator of interest from Alexa is that nearly one in five who visited the CCH website (18.3%) went looking for a Mass time by immediately visiting masstimes.org. Seven percent of CCH visitors go to divorcedcatholic.com for their next site. Also, since writing a previous blog on this topic, the CCH YouTube channel has increased its subscribers by 10% and its video views by 16%.

httpv://youtu.be/YI12UT5Ebuc

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Nineteen Sixty-four: New Year, A Bit of New Research

An initial read on the Catholic Come Home (CCH) advertisement push by Mark Gray at CARA:

Did Catholics come home?  We have no Mass attendance polling or headcount data. Yet, it is clear by some measure that the national Catholics Come Home (CCH) television advertisements had an impact in December. Evidence of the number of Catholics seeing the CCH videos, connecting with the CCH website and then some following through with seeking out parishes and Masses jumped up last month.

via Nineteen Sixty-four: New Year, A Bit of New Research.

 

Video on the Roman Missal

Since I have written several posts about liturgy and the new translation, I thought the following video might be of interest:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CvSfYgpWrb0&feature=context&context=C33b235dUDOEgsToPDskKWs0Gp-6PA6VkePC_jPXCX

This particular clip comes from a playlist of videos on The Roman Missal (http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLED68118100BB0744)

The playlist includes a series of streaming videos recorded by liturgical scholars to assist schools, parishes, and university communities in their preparation for the Advent 2011 implementation of the 3rd edition of the Roman Missal.  It was put together by the ND Center for Liturgy.  It is also accessible through the ICL you-tube channel, which I mentioned in an earlier post.  So, if you’ve already subscribed to the ICL channel, you may have already seen these- but the ND Center for Liturgy link actually provides additional information about the speakers recorded in the videos.

Links of interest

Since Carol Ann brought up Archbishop Dolan’s appointment to the College of Cardinals, I thought that I would post a link to a talk that he gave at the University of Notre Dame in December:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WSPQsQ4HiYI&context=C3a8c6cfADOEgsToPDskLN6ZH9yihH71vJ35BMAg2Z

Since the above talk is about an hour long, several short 5-10 minute clips created from it are also provided:

(Part 1) http://youtu.be/czqvMwR8IuM

(Part 2) http://youtu.be/UfYmKRmcHsY

(Part 3) http://youtu.be/jKukMGEyRMI

(Part 4) http://youtu.be/u-Uum-OLYeQ 

This talk helped kick off my colleague Mary Daly’s Project on Human Dignity.

One thing that I would like to do on this blog is to point people towards additional resources that might be of interest.  In that vein, you might want to consider subscribing to ICL’s you tube channel.  There are a number of interesting video clips from talks and lectures at Notre Dame and it is being updated all of the time.

Sociological Research on Liturgy

So, where can we find relevant empirical research on liturgy?  Since Mike McCallion was the very first person to comment on this blog, I decided that I would highlight some of his previous research on liturgy, and I am hoping that he will write about his current research in a later post.

McCallion’s dissertation research examined the implementation of the Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults (RCIA) within the Archdiocese of Detroit.  In a later book (co-authored with his dissertation adviser, David Maines of Wayne State), the lens was broadened to depict the general implementation processes that followed Vatican II liturgical reforms. Continue reading