Books read in 2018
 
SPIRITUALITY
 
901 — Louis M. Savary and Patricia H. Berne, Teilhard de Chardin On Love. Evolving Human Relationships. Paulist Press, 2017.
903 - Kathleen Duffy, Teilhard’s Mysticism. Seeing the Inner Face of Evolution.  Orbis, 2014.
905 -William Johnston, The Mirror Mind. Spirituality and Transformation. Harper & Row, 1981.
907 — Dalai Lama, The Good Heart. A Buddhist Perspective on the Teachings of Jesus. Wisdom Pub. 1996, 1998.
930 — Anthony De Mello, Contact with God. Retreat Conferences. Loyola University Press, 1991.
931- Anselm Grun, Benedict of Nursia. His Message for Today. Linda M. Maloney, trans. Liturgical Press, 2006.
933 — James L. Connor, The Dynamism of Desire. Bernard J. F. Lonergan, SJ on the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola. The Institute of Jesuit Resources, St. Louis, 2006.
934—Harvey D. Egan, SJ, Soundings in the Christian Mystical Tradition. Liturgical Press, 2010.
935—Oscar Romero, The Violence of Love, compiles and trans. by James Brockman, Orbis, 1988.
936—Henri Nouwen, Love in a Fearful Land. A Guatemalan Story.  Orbis, 2006.
 
THEOLOGY
 
917 - John O’Donohue, The Invisible Embrace Beauty. Harper, 2004.
918 - John D. Dadosky, The Eclipse and Recovery of Beauty. A Lonergan Approach. University of Toronto Press, 2014, 2017.
919 - Joseph Martos, Honest Rituals, Honest Sacraments: Letting Go of Doctrines and Celebrating What’s Real. Wipf and Stock Pub., 2017.
 
POPE FRANCIS
923 —Pope Francis, Rejoice and Be Glad. On the Call to Holiness in Today’s World. Orbis, 2018.
 
POLITICS/UNITED NATIONS
 
875 - E. Collier and C. Strain, Global Migration. What’s happening, why, and a just response. Anselm Academic, 2017.
877-Ashley, Burke, Cardenal (eds.), A Grammar of Justice. The Legacy of Ignacio Ellacuria. Orbis, 2014.
878 - Ahern, Clark, Heyer, Johnston (eds.) Public Theology and the Global Common Good. Orbis, 2016.
896 — Alan Ryan, On Machiavelli. The Search for Glory. Liveright Pub., W.W.Norton & Co., 2012, 2014.
897 - Peter Heather, The Fall of the Roman Empire. A New History of Rome and the Barbarians.  Oxford, 2006.
 
899 – Marcus Aurelius, Meditations. Penguin Classics, 2006.
908 — Tom Fletcher, The Naked Diplomat. Understanding Power and Politics in the Digital Age. Originally published as Naked Diplomacy in 2016; William Collins, 2017.
913 — James Comey, A Higher Loyalty. Truth, Lies, and Leadership. Flatiron, 2018.
914 — Linda Fasulo, An Insider’s Guide to the UN. 3rd Edition, Yale Univ., 2003, 2009, 2015.
915—Michael V. Hayden, The Assault on Intelligence, Penguin Press. 2018.
916 - Dan Egan, The Death and Life of the Great Lakes. W.W. Norton & Co. 2017.
921- Nancy MacLean, Democracy in Chains. The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America. Penguin Books, 2017.
922 — Jeffrey D. Sachs, Building the New American Economy. Smart, Fair, & Sustainable. Columbia Univ. Press, NY, 2017.
924— Madeleine Albright, Fascism. A Warning. HarperCollins, 2018.
925—Anand Giridharadas, Winners Take All. The Elite Charade of Changing the World. Alfred A. Knopf, NY, 2018.
926 — Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom. Back Bay Books, 1994, 1995.
 

Social media is an effective tool for expressing viewpoints on issues. If there is an openness to dialogue and listening to the other, solutions and further options for consideration can be a way forward. The following video highlights the proper uses of social media, Twitter and FaceBook in particular, in activism. The first step is to discern whether or not one should become involved in activism. If so, what is the rationale and emotional base? Will one reflect through the lens of the Gospel and Catholic Social Teaching (a body of literature few know exists), or from other ground for effective criticism? Further questions need to be asked and answered. This video will at least point one into a direction to begin the process.

http://www.catholicwebsolutions.com/2017/03/07/social-action-on-social-media/

During the month of March we remember the women and their struggles for justice in the world. The UN Conference on the Status of Women (CSW) will begin next week to discuss and raise awareness of issues impacting women. Ann Garrido from CelebrationPublications.org writes in the March 2017 edition of Celebration the historical backdrop behind the March 8 International Women's Day.

International Women's Day has its roots in the women's suffrage movement for women in the U.S., Russia and Europe in the early 1900's.  The March 8th date was established in 1917 when Russian women, against the backdrop of World War I, chose to protest and strike for "Bread and Peace." The day was first observed by the United Nations in 1975 during the International Women's Year. Its purpose is to draw attention to the gender inequalities that persist between men and women in terms of educational access, working conditions, pay and fundamental human rights, while at the same time celebrating the contributions women have made.

When I first arrived at the United Nations, I was surprised to see the statue of St Michael slaying the dragon. I wondered why such a structure was on the grounds of a secular institution like the UN.
Today I stumbled on an explanation that I discovered from the UN Visitor's Guide. The title of the art work is "Good Defeats Evil" and it is a gift from the Soviet Union in 1990 and the artist is Zurab Tsereteli. The description from the UN site is as follows:
   [The statue] is a vivid symbol of the post-Cold War period as the dragon is created from fragments of Soviet and United States nuclear missiles destroyed by a 1987 treaty.
If one looks closely to the dragon figure, missile parts make up its body. In other words, the dragon represents war, especially nuclear war. This message comes when both North Korea and Russia have launched missiles in the past few days, where Russia has clearly violated the 1987 treaty.
We might ask ourselves what are our thoughts about war? What sort of burden of guilt and responsibility do I carry when there is a war? (See The Wars in the World website--www.warsintheworld.com--currently lists sixty-seven wars in progress.) I conclude with a poem from "Target Equals City" by the social critic and Trappist monk Thomas Merton:

There is one winner, only one winner, in war.
The winner is war itself.
Not truth, not justice, not liberty, not morality.
These are the vanquished.

(Photo by Robert Dueweke, United Nations, NY)

Last week I attended a conference on child soldiers sponsored by the International Peace Institute (IPI) (ipinst.org) here in New York. The title of the conference was "Child Protection in Areas of Armed Conflict." A "checklist" for child protection and those involved in mediation was made available for review and comments.

The United Nations Agenda 2030 of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) highlights markers for creating a better world. SDG #5 on Gender Equality highlights the importance of this issue. Sr. Justine Gitanjali Senapati, CSJ, a co-worker in our New York office, has written an article on inequalities affecting women and girls. Read the article here.

 POLITICS, WAR
836 - (Kindle edition) Dominic Arcamone. Religion and Violence. A Dialectical Engagement through the Insights of Bernard Lonergan. Pickwick Publ., 2015.
837 - (Kindle edition) John Raymaker with Ijaz Durrani, Empowering Climate-Change Strategies with Bernard Lonergan’s Method. University Press of America, 2015.
848 - K. R. Himes, Drones and the Ethics of Targeted Killing. Rowman & Littlefield, NY, 2016.
849 - Oliver O’Donovan, The Just War Revisited. Cambridge, 2003.
850- “Augustine as ‘Father of Christian Political Activism.’” Secr. of Justice and Peace. Curia Agostiniana, Rome, 2001.
854-Jean Edward Smith, Bush. Simon & Schuster. 2016.
860 - Rosa Brooks, How Everything Became War and the Military Became Everything. Tales from the Pentagon. Simon & Schuster, 2016. (Kindle edition).
866 - Thomas Hager, The Alchemy of Air. A Jewish Genius, a Doomed Tycoon, and the Scientific Discovery That Fed the World but Fueled the Rise of Hitler. Broadway Books, NY, 2008.
 
 
UNITED NATIONS
838- (Kindle edition) United Nations commemoration, Dag Hammarskjold. Instrument, Catalyst, Inspirer. NY, 2012.
856—Kevin Rudd, UN 2030: Rebuilding Order in a Fragmenting World, Chair’s Report, ICM/IPI,
August 2016.
857— Pulling Together: The Multilateral System and Its Future, Report of ICM, IPI, 2016. (Follow-up report of c.856).
864 - Thomas G. Weiss and Sam Daws (eds.), The Oxford Handbook on the United Nations. Oxford University Press, 2007. (partially read)
 
 
BERNARD LONERGAN/ECONOMICS
 
839 - Michael Shute, Lonergan’s Discovery of the Science of Economics. Univ. of Toronto Press, 2010.  (http://www.mun.ca/rels/mrs.htm).
841 - Wm. Mathews, “Lonergan’s Economics.” Method: Journal, 3:1, March 1985. http://www.lonerganresource.com/pdf/journals/Method_Vol_3_No_1.pdf
842- Paul St. Amour, “An Introduction to Lonergan’s Macroeconomic Theory.” http://www.lonerganresource.com/pdf/contributors/Colloquium_Spring_2013_-_1_-_St_Amour.pdf
843 -  R. M. Liddy, “Introduction” to The Lonergan Review, vol. II, 1, Spring 2010. (on economics)
844 - Michael Shute, “Two Fundamental Notions of Economic Science,” The Lonergan Review.
845 - Michael Shute, “Real Economic Variables,” Divyadaan, 21/2 (2010) 183-194.
846 - Eileen DeNeeve, “Bernard Lonergan’s economic thought and Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century: Similarities and Differences.
847 - Thomas Piketty, Capital in the Twenty-First Century: Similarities and Differences. Belknap Press, 2014.
851 - Tad Dunne, “Next Revolution in Ethics.” Aquinas Lecture, April 7, 2010. lonerganresource.com         http://lonerganresource.com/lectures.php?19
865-R. Doran, “Bernard Lonergan and Daniel Berrigan”, accessed here. Location in Lonergan Binder B.
 
CLIMATE CHANGE
852-J. DiMento and P. Doughman (eds.), Climate Change: What it means for us, our children, and our grandchildren. MIT Press, 2007.
853-Mark Maslin. Global Warming. A very short introduction.  Oxford. 2009.
 
SOCIAL MEDIA
859 - Robin Houghton, The Golden Rules of Blogging (& When to Break Them). HOW Books, 2013.
 
SPIRITUALITY
--840 - F. Dorff, The Spiritual Journey of a Misfit. A Personal Pilgrimage. Sunstone Press, 2015.
855—Thomas Merton, Raids on the Unspeakable. New Directions, 1964.
858 - Mark E. Thibodeaux, Armchair Mystic. Easing into Contemplative Prayer. St. Anthony Messenger Press, 2001.
867 - John Michael Talbot, The World is my Cloister. Living from the Hermit Within. Orbis, 2010, Fourth Printing, 2012.
 
 
NEXT BOOKS FOR READING
861 - Ioan Grillo, Gangster Wars. Drug Dollars, Killing Fields, and the New Politics of Latin America. Bloomsbury Press, 2016. (Kindle edition).
862 - Shadi Hamid, Islamic Exceptionalism. How the Struggle over Islam is reshaping the world. St. Martin Press, NY, 2016.
863 - Lawrence Wright, The Terror Years. From Al-Qaeda to the Islamic State. Alfred A. Knopf, NY, 2016.
William J. O’Malley, You’ll Never Be Younger. A Good News Spirituality for Those Over 60. Orbis, 2015.
 
 

As we move into the new year of 2016, I like to review the books I have read, either complete or partial, over the past year and to identify the direction I want to take with future reading. I'll start off with what I am reading now and move backwards.

BOOKS I'M READING NOW

Ahmed Rashid, Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia (2nd edition).

Stacy Schiff, The Witches: Salem, 1692. (I am living in Boston, so...why not?)

For a COMPLETE LIST of my reading:

READING 2015
 
BOOKS I HAVE READ:
 
Bernard Lonergan, Insight. A Study of Human Understanding, CWL 3, 1957, 1992.
 
B. Lonergan, Method in Theology.
 
B. Lonergan, various essays in the Collected Works of Lonergan.
 
818 - Abbot Martin Werlen, “Embers in the Ashes. New Life in the Church.” Paulist Press, 2013. Kindle edition. (NP 5).
 
820 - Neil Ormerod, et al (eds.), Fifty Years of Insight. Adelaide, 2011.
 
821 - Joseph Mudd, Eucharist as Meaning. Critical Metaphysics and Contemporary Sacramental Theology. Liturgical Press, 2014. (Kindle edition and Hardback copy).
 
822 - C. Hefling, “Lonergan’s Cur Deus Homo: Revisiting the ‘Law of the Cross,’” 145-66 in Meaning and History In Systematic Theology, ed. John D. Dadosky (Milwaukee, Wi: Marquette University Press, 2009).
 
823 - Gerald O’Collins, The Spirituality of the Second Vatican Council. Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 2014.
 
825- Pope Francis, Apostolic Exhortation, The Joy of the Gospel (Evangelii Gaudium). USCCB. 2014 and Encyclical Laudato Si.
 
826- (article) Michael G. Witczak, “The Manifold Presence of Christ in the Liturgy.” Theological Studies 59 (1998): 680-702. (filed under Liturgy as PDF).
 
827- (article) J. Michael Stebbins, “The Eucharistic Presence of Christ: Mystery and Meaning.” Worship 64 (1990) 225-36. (filed under Liturgy as PDF). (Uses Lonergan’s analysis of human consciousness).
 
829 -Ahmed Rashid, Descent into Chaos. The U.S. and the Disaster in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Central Asia. Penguin Books, 2008, 2009.
 
833 - Emeka Xris Obiezu, et al (eds). It is Good for Us To Be Here. Catholic Religious Institutes as NGOs at the United Nations. Xlibris, 2015.
 
835 - (Kindle edition) A. Grun, A Time of Fulfillment. Spiritual Reflections for Advent and Christmas.
 
836 - (Kindle edition) Dominic Arcamone. Religion and Violence. A Dialectical Engagement through the Insights of Bernard Lonergan. Pickwick Publ., 2015.
 
837 - (Kindle edition) John Raymaker with Ijaz Durrani, Empowering Climate-Change Strategies with Bernard Lonergan’s Method. University Press of America, 2015.
 
838- (Kindle edition) United Nations commemoration, Dag Hammarskjold. Instrument, Catalyst, Inspirer. NY, 2012.
 
-(Science Fiction) Stanislaw Lem, Solaris (Kindle Edition).
 
-Tom Diaz, The Last Gun: How Changes in the Gun Industry are Killing Americans and What it will take to stop it. The New Press, 2013.
 
-Robert Sardello, Silence: The Mystery of Wholeness.
 
-M. E. Tucker and B. T. Swimme, Journey of the Universe.
 
-R. Rohr, Immortal Diamond: The Search for Our True Self.
 
-Ramzy Baroud, Searching Jenin.  Eyewitness Accounts of the Israeli Invasion 2002.
 
-Ilan Pappe, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine.
 
-Nick Turse, Kill Anything That Moves. The Real American War in Vietnam.
 
 
PARTIALLY READ BOOKS:
 
819 - Michael Vertin (ed.), Appropriating the Lonergan Idea. Univ. Toronto, 2006. (NP 4).
 
824- Massimo Faggioli, Pope Francis: Tradition in Transition.  Paulist, 2013 (Italian), 2015 (English).
 
828 - Luciani, Palazzi, Filochowski (Eds.), A Prophetic Bishop Speaks to his People. The Complete Homilies of Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero. Vol 1 (of 6), Cycle C. Trans. J. V. Owens.
 
834 - Ellacuria and Sobrino, Mysterium Liberationis. Fundamental Concepts of Liberation Theology. Orbis. 1990, English 1993.
 
 
READING NOW:
 
830- Ahmed Rashid, Taliban. Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia. Second Edition, Yale University Press. 2000, 2010.
 
-Stacy Schiff, The Witches. Salem, 1692. Little, Brown and Company, 2015.
 
 
BOOKS FOR JANUARY-JUNE, 2016
 
839 - (BC library copy) Michael Shute, Lonergan’s Discovery of the Science of Economics. Univ. of Toronto Press, 2010.  (http://www.mun.ca/rels/mrs.htm).
 
-Thomas Piketty, CAPITAL in the Twenty-First Century. Trans. A. Goldhammer, Harvard, 2014.
 
-Steven K. Green, Inventing A Christian America: The MYTH of the Religious Founding. Oxford Univ., 2015.
 
-Robin Lane Fox, Augustine. Conversions to Confessions. Basic Books, NY, 2015.
 
831- James Whitehead and Evelyn Eaton Whitehead, Holy Eros. Pathways to a Passionate God. Orbis, 2009.
 
832 - Christian W. Troll, Dialogue & Difference. Clarity in Christian - Muslim Relations. Orbis, 2009.
 

Last week was taken up with the whirlwind tour of Pope Francis to the United States. At the cathedral in Washington DC, he canonized Junipero Serra, gave a speech to the US Congress, and gave another speech at the United Nations. The trip ended with a gathering on Family Life in Philadelphia. One of the things I take away from his trip is his call to be attentive to climate change and what we can do about it. I need to read his encyclical -- Laudato Si -- more closely and reflect on its implications. I don't think we can any longer just turn a blind eye to what is happening in our environment. With those who deny anthropogenic climate change, we all need to study the facts found in science, and then make serious decisions about our style of life.



In line with the research I am doing, I am reading the book Empowering Climate-Change Strategies with Bernard Lonergan's Method, by John Raymaker. The book gives a good overview of Lonergan's ideas of the thinking processes and how we come to making decisions. Lonergan was asked once if he were to start an institute, what would be its focus? Immediately he said it would be on "How do people change their minds?" This focus is pertinent to today since we find ourselves with a polarized politics and religion. How do we move forward to prevent further fragmentation? Perhaps we should think more in terms of collaboration and dialogue, a suggestion made by Cardinal Turkson, the one who drafted "Laudato Si," in a speech given here at Boston College last week. As the medieval adage goes: What pertains to everyone must be discussed by everyone. Global climate change might force us into such dialogue, if there is a change of mind and heart.

Another excellent article on Lonergan and climate change is by Richard Liddy. (Download here.)