I Believe: The Promise of the Creed
by Pope Francis (Orbis Books / Alban Books, £14.99)
This is the American translation of a book which originally appeared in German in 2015. It has been edited by Stephan von Kempis, who has picked out from a wide range of the Pope’s writings and talks, passages that deal with the Creed, to create from them a unified presentation of the Pope’s view of the that prayer, what is and what it does for us.
Basically the Creed is a confession of faith, but as the editor observes, in some Christian traditions faith is interpreted as leading to material success in life. But that is, he suggests, very far from the truth as Pope Francis sees.
The presentation parses the Creed, text relating to each phrase being introduced by a note about its origin and occasion.
The result is rather like attending a retreat with the Pope, for each step presents an aspect or an insight of the faith that the whole expresses. The Pope far from seeing a reward coming at the end, suggests that it is the journey itself and what it reveals of divine and human truth that is the true reward.
Saints for the Journey: Inspiring Lives from Every Age
by John Murray (Messenger Publications, €9.95)
The author is a parish priest in Northern Ireland, and this little book is a follow up to his earlier one, Saints of Our Times. The pieces in it already appeared in the Sacred Heart Messenger and many will be glad to have them in a more permanent form. In his selection he mangos to encompass both the familiar, such as Bernadette and Columban, and the unfamiliar and surprising, such as Kateri Tekakwitha, the native American saint, and Giuseppe Puglisi, the Sicilian priest murdered by the Mafia in 1993.
The pieces are short, but concentrated, and will provide ideal daily reading for many. Certainly a book which deals with Julian of Norwich and John Wesley can be said to touch life and faith at many points.
The Church Cannot Remain Silent: Unpublished Letters and Other Writings
by Oscar Romero (Orbis Books / Alban Books, £16.99)
The Pope’s life and his views on religion and the world have been shaped, as so many commentators have observed, by the conditions prevailing in Latin America countries, such Argentina and El Salvador.
The experiences of Church and people in that continent are far removed from the often too comfortable ease in which some Catholics in the USA and in Europe – and indeed our own little island – live out their lives.
The often foolish fears expressed about the radicalism of priests as pastors in Latin America reveal a certain shallowness of experience. In those countries the Church, though long established, remains a Church of Apostles and Martyrs (to adopt the title of Daniel-Rops’ history of the early Church).