Patrick Madrid Recommended Books

Was Pope Pius XII a Nazi Sympathizer?For almost 50 years, a controversy has raged about Pope Pius XII. Was the Pope who had shepherded the Church through World War II a Nazi sympathizer? Was he, as some have dared call him, Hitler's pope? Did he do nothing to help the Jewish people in the grips of the Holocaust?In a thoroughly researched and meticulously documented analysis of the historical record, Ronald Rychlak has gotten past the anger and emotion and uncovered the truth about Pius XII. Not only does he refute the accusations against the Pope, but for the first time documents how the slanders against him had their roots in a Soviet Communist campaign to discredit him and by extension, the Church.Let those who doubt but read Rychlak, follow his exquisitely organized courtroom-like arguments. What Professor Rychlak brings to the forum are facts, not rhetoric, dates, not conjecture, evidence, not slander.... The world owes Ronald Rychlak a debt for bringing the truth to light. ---Rabbi Eric A. Silver"In his well-crafted pages ... the portrait that emerges is one of an extraordinary pastor facing extremely vexing circumstances, of a holy man vying against an evil man, of a human being trying to save the lives of other human beings, of a light shining in the darkness."--John Cardinal O Connor (1920-2000) Archbishop of New York (from the Foreword to the first edition)"I have read many books on Pius XII, and this is by far the most dispassionate in laying out the context, relevant facts, accusations, and evidence pro and con. The book is highly engaging because it is filled with so many little-known facts. The research has been prodigious. Yet the presentation is as down-to-earth as it would have to be in a courtroom.... This is a wonderfully realistic book." ---Michael NovakGeorge Frederick Jewett Scholar in Religion, Philosophy, and Public Policy,American Enterprise Institute"Despite his many brilliant accomplishments, perhaps no modern-day leader of the Catholic Church has triggered more controversies than Pope Pius XII. Some historians have argued that, in light of the Church s concerns about Communism, he was pro-Nazi during the 1930s. He has been accused of signing the Reichskonkordat as a signal to Adolf Hitler of Rome's favor; of dissuading Pope Pius XI from condemning Kristallnacht; and of remaining silent in face of proof that the Holocaust was taking place.In this valuable book, Professor Ronald Rychlak sets the record straight. He paints a vivid picture of the social, political, and religious background against which the papacy of Pius XII took place. In so doing, Rychlak shows him to have been a man of singular wisdom and courage.Eugenio Maria Giuseppe Giovanni Pacelli was a brilliant student as a young man, fluent in several languages, with doctorates in theology and canon and civil law. He was elected to the papacy just six months before Germany's invasion of Poland sparked the Second World War in Europe."Rychlak has buried the myth under an avalanche of facts and demonstrated that Pacelli's reputation deserves to be what it was during the war when the New York Times more than once praised him as a lonely voice crying out of the silence of a continent. Rychlak has done more than anyone else to set the record straight." --Professor Robert George McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence Princeton University

This book is for anyone who has ever wept and wondered, "Why?" Peter Kreeft observes that our world is full of billions of normal lives that have been touched by apparently pointless and random suffering. This account of a real and honest personal quest is both engaging and convincing. Written from a deep well of wisdom derived from experience and careful observation, Making Sense Out of Suffering is a book for empty hearts, not full ones. Read it if you are hungry for insight into the mystery of suffering. A Servant Book.

Charles Rice, professor of the jurisprudence of St. Thomas Aquinas for the last twenty years at Notre Dame Law School, presents a very readable book on the natural law as seen through the teachings of Aquinas and their foundations in reason and Revelation. Reflecting on the most persistent questions asked by his students over the years, Rice shows how the natural law works and how it is rooted in the nature of the human person whose Creator provided this law as a sure and knowable guide for man to achieve his end of eternal happiness. This book presents the teachings of the Catholic Church in her role as arbiter of the applications of the natural law on issues involving the right to live, bioethics, the family and the economy. Charles Rice has produced a firmly grounded and accessible handbook which touches on the most important topics regarding natural law that will benefit readers of all backgrounds.

Michael O'Brien presents a thrilling apocalyptic novel about the condition of the Roman Catholic Church at the end of time. It explores the state of the modern world, and the strengths and weaknesses of the contemporary religious scene, by taking his central character, Father Elijah Schäfer, a Carmelite priest, on a secret mission for the Vatican which embroils him in a series of crises and subterfuges affecting the ultimate destiny of the Church.Father Elijah is a convert from Judaism, a survivor of the Holocaust, a man once powerful in Israel. For twenty years he has been "buried in the dark night of Carmel" on the mountain of the prophet Elijah. The Pope and the Cardinal Secretary of State call him out of obscurity and give him a task of the highest sensitivity: to penetrate into the inner circles of a man whom they believe may be the Antichrist. Their purpose: to call the Man of Sin to repentance, and thus to postpone the great tribulation long enough to preach the Gospel to the whole world.In this richly textured tale, Father Elijah crosses Europe and the Middle East, moves through the echelons of world power, meets saints and sinners, presidents, judges, mystics, embattled Catholic journalists, faithful priests and a conspiracy of traitors within the very House of God. This is an apocalypse in the old literary sense, but one that was written in the light of Christian revelation.

The Hidden Manna has become a classic on Eucharistic teaching. Now in a second edition, accompanied by a new introduction by Fr. Kenneth Baker, a new preface from the author, new material from John Paul II, and the original foreword by Cardinal John O'Connor, this in-depth study lets the breadth and richness of the Church's Tradition speak for itself.Fr. O'Connor presents and comments on substantial excerpts from the major sources of the Church's Tradition extending all the way back to apostolic times. Focusing on the doctrine of the Real Presence, he follows the earliest witnesses through the challenge in the Middle Ages of Berengarius through the Protestant Reformation and modern disputes."Father James O'Connor gives us nothing less than a comprehensive study of the Church's meditation on the Mystery of the Eucharist... The Hidden Manna is a superb work."�Cardinal John O'Connor"...We owe a debt of gratitude to Fr. James O'Connor for writing this beautiful treatise on �the Sacrament of Sacraments'. The Hidden Manna is a remarkable accomplishment of Catholic scholarship."�Fr. Kenneth Baker, S.J.

A contemporary treatment of the traditional theme of chastity that shows that a mature chastity can be loving, peaceful and fulfilled. †

Here is a story of the Lenape Indians who lived in what is now New Jersey and eastern Pennsylvania. It describes their culture, crafts, and language as no other book has done. Hunters, fishers, artisans of flint and skins and basketry, tellers of traditional tales, dwellers in a region of hills and barrens, of rivers and forests, they had developed a way of life adjusted to the world around them.In presenting the lore and heritage of the Lenapes, Dr. M.R. Harrington does so through the eyes of a shipwrecked English boy who became a captive of the Indians, and was eventually adopted into the tribe. The narrative is lively reading, and the facts on which it is based are accurate. With the accompanying Clarence Ellsworth line drawings, the reader can understand and even reproduce many of the objects the author the Lenape bows and arrows, muccasins and mats, baskets and bowls.This new edition is a reissue of an often asked for an unavailable New Jersey classic, first published in 1938.

In the second edition of this major work, Dominican theologian Aidan Nichols provides a systematic account of the origins, development and recent history—now updated—of the relations between Rome and all separated Eastern Christians. By the end of the twentieth century, events in Eastern Europe, notably the conflict between the Orthodox and Uniate Churches in the Ukraine and Rumania, the tension between Rome and the Moscow patriarchate over the re-establishment of a Catholic hierarchy in the Russian Federation, and the civil war in the then federal People’s Republic of Yugoslavia, brought attention to the fragile relations between Catholicism and Orthodoxy, which once had been two parts of a single Communion. At the start of the twenty-first century, in the pontificate of Benedict XVI, a papal visit to Russia—at the symbolic level, a major step forward in the ‘healing of memories’— appears at last a realistic hope. In addition, the schisms separating Rome from the two lesser, but no less interesting, Christian families, the Assyrian (Nestorian) and Oriental Orthodox (Monophysite) Churches, are examined. The book also contains an account of the origins and present condition of the Eastern Catholic Churches—a deeper knowledge of which, by their Western brethren, was called for at the Second Vatican Council as well as by subsequent synods and popes. Providing both historical and theological explanations of these divisions, this illuminating and thought-provoking book chronicles the recent steps taken to mend them in the Ecumenical Movement and offers a realistic assessment of the difficulties (theological and political) which any reunion would experience.

Max Sculley's definitive critique of Yoga, Tai Chi and Reiki comes with a timely warning that despite these practices' surface appeal for helping fitness, relaxation and health, they are closely linked to underlying Eastern philosophies that are incompatible with Christianity. Vatican documents, including one authored by the present Pope when he was Cardinal Ratzinger, have highlighted the spiritual dangers associated with methods of meditation associated with Eastern religions. Despite these warnings Yoga, Tai Chi and Reiki continue to be promoted in parishes, schools and religious orders. Max Sculley's detailed and well documented analysis of Yoga, Tai Chi and Reika includes gripping personal stories that bring home the dark side of these practices. This book needs to be widely circulated among teachers, clergy and religious.

The Dogma of Hell explores the basic Catholic doctrine on Hell, purposefully awakening in the reader a profound realization of its reality and eternity of horrors. Eminent French theologian Fr F X Schouppe, SJ, author of Purgatory Explained by the Lives and Legends of the Saints, has written here a similar but much smaller book.In short chapters, he has recounted numerous true stories, apparitions of the damned, and complete Catholic teaching on Hell. He clearly shows that for those who are not motivated to do good out of love of God, the fear of Hell is a legitimate and often salutary motive for avoiding sin.Although the subject matter is frightening, the ultimate purpose of this book is not to frighten souls, but to help them avoid damnation by reminding them of the pain and suffering in an eternity spent in the absence of God.