Biographies/Autobiographies

Deacon Harold Burke-Sivers tells the gripping story of Augustus Tolton, who valiantly overcame a series of seemingly insurmountable challenges - birth into slavery, his father's death, abject poverty, and even being denied acceptance by every Catholic seminary in America - to become the first black American priest.

Captured by a Russian army during World War II and convicted of being a "Vatican spy," Jesuit Father Walter J. Ciszek spent twenty-three agonizing years in Soviet prisons and the labor camps of Siberia. Only through an utter reliance on God's will did he manage to endure the extreme hardship. He tells of the courage he found in prayer--a courage that eased the loneliness, the pain, the frustration, the anguish, the fears, the despair. For, as Ciszek relates, the solace of spiritual contemplation gave him an inner serenity upon which he was able to draw amidst the "arrogance of evil" that surrounded him. Ciszek learns to accept the inhuman work in the infamous Siberian salt mines as a labor pleasing to God. And through that experience, he was able to turn the adverse forces of circumstance into a source of positive value and a means of drawing closer to the compassionate and never-forsaking Divine Spirit.

He Leadeth Me is a book to inspire all Christians to greater faith and trust in God--even in their darkest hour. As the author asks, "What can ultimately trouble the soul that accepts every moment of every day as a gift from the hands of God and strives always to do his will?"

Paul Wilkes has been a writer/journalist, a TV producer, a monastic, a hedonist, a friend of the famous, a family man, and ultimately a true prodigal son. With In Due Season, Wilkes, one of America's most respected writers on religious belief and spirituality, details his search for God--from his working class upbringing in Cleveland to giving up everything he owned and living with the poor to his hedonistic life among the rich and famous. Wilkes's inspiring life story is one of abysmal failure and ultimate triumph, of a faith in God, battered and tried in the crucible of his experience.

Paul Wilkes wanted to be like social justice advocate Dorothy Day, and spend his life with the poor. He wanted to be like Thomas Merton, and spend his life behind monastery walls in prayer. He failed on both accounts. He only became himself.

One of America's most respected writers on religious belief and spirituality, Paul Wilkes's search for God begins in a poor, working class family in Cleveland and winds through lonely nights in a factory, working his way through college; a surprising confrontation during the Cuban Missile Crisis; a torrid romance on the Indian Ocean; acceptance into an Ivy League school; and into the perfect marriage, which would fail.

A man who seemingly had everything, one day he took scripture literally and gave up everything he owned to live with the poor. But then, in a dizzying turnabout, he became a person he eventually could no longer recognize in the mirror. He spent his summers in the Hamptons and lived the life of the man about town--single, facile, popular, hollow. He knew Andy Warhol, Truman Capote, and Kurt Vonnegut, but not himself. He sat at the feet of the Dalai Lama. He was an avowed hedonist. He lived as a hermit at a Trappist monastery. He found true love and ran from it. He was a true son of the Church and a sinner beyond anything he might have imagined.

Paul Wilkes' life is one of abysmal failure and ultimate triumph, with a faith in God battered and tried in the crucible of his life.

Literary Converts is a biographical exploration into the spiritual lives of some of the greatest writers in the English language: Oscar Wilde, Evelyn Waugh, C.S. Lewis, Malcolm Muggeridge, Graham Greene, Edith Sitwell, Siegfried Sassoon, Hilaire Belloc, G.K. Chesterton, Dorothy Sayers, T.S. Eliot and J.R.R. Tolkien. The role of George Bernard Shaw and H.G. Wells in intensifying the religious debate despite not being converts themselves is also considered.

Many will be intrigued to know more about what inspired their literary heroes; others will find the association of such names with Christian belief surprising or even controversial. Whatever viewpoint we may have, Literary Converts touches on some of the most important questions of the twentieth century, making it a fascinating read.

Emil Kapaun--priest, soldier and Korean War hero--was a rare man. He was awarded posthumously the Medal of Honor, the nation's highest military award, and is also being considered by the Vatican for canonization as a saint.

Just as remarkable are the many non-Catholic witnesses who attest to Father Kapaun's heroism: the Protestants, Jews and Muslims who either served with the military chaplain in the thick of battle or endured with him the incredibly brutal conditions of a prisoner of war camp. These Korean War veterans, no matter their religion, agree that Father Kapaun did more to save lives and maintain morale than any other man they know.

Then there are the alleged miracles--the recent healings attributed to Father Kapaun's intercession that defy scientific explanation. Under investigation by the Vatican as a necessary step in the process of canonization, these cures witnessed by non-Catholic doctors are also covered in this book.

In tracking down the story of Father Kapaun for the Wichita Eagle, Wenzl and Heying uncovered a paradox. Kapaun's ordinary background as the son of Czech immigrant farmers in Kansas sowed the seeds of his greatness. His faith, generosity and grit began with his family's humility, thrift and hard work.

PRO-LIFE CHAMPION is the untold story of Monsignor Philip J. Reilly, who, almost single-handedly, reclaimed the pro-life movement from a course of violence by setting it on a path to prayerful, non-confrontational witness to the sacredness of human life. In the course of rescuing the movement from an untimely death at the hands of pro-choice politicians, he has counseled thousands of distraught women on the street and trained hundreds of like-minded individuals to do the same, thereby saving an estimated hundred thousand lives. As for the salvivic effect of his intervention on the souls of countless parents bent on destroying God's greatest gift, it is beyond telling. The Helpers of God's Precious Infants, which he founded in 1991, has chapters in forty-five American states, as well as thirty foreign countries. This is the story of a Latin teacher and prep school principal who sacrificed an academic career in order to answer God's call, a man who risked his life in order to awaken people to the devastating effect of destroying innocent human beings. With Scripture as his sword -- "Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you" (God to Jeremiah) and Isaiah's rhetorical question, "Can a mother be without tenderness for the child of her womb?" -- he organized police-protected prayer vigils led by Catholic cardinals with up to 2500 participants at a time. He has been on the receiving end of rotten eggs, vitriolic invective, and a $117 million law suit. Six times arrested (before opting for non-violence), he has likewise been dragged into court scores of times without ever losing his sense of humor. One of the organizers of the first March for Life in Washington, D.C., he counts among his students Joe Scheidler, founder of the Pro-Life Action League, and David Bereit, founder of 40 Days for Life. Frederick Marks, who holds a Ph.D. degree in history from the University of Michigan, has written an account of the life of Msgr. Reilly that is both gripping and scholarly, based, as it is, on seventy hours of interview time with its subject. This is more than a biography. It sets the work of a distinguished prayer warrior against the broader backdrop of the pro-life movement in general, taking the reader all the way from Colorado's decision to become the first state to legalize abortion down to the present.

Thomas Merton was the consummate post-modern holy one: flawed, anti-institutional, a voice for the voiceless. But he was also a classical traditionalist: centered, obedient, in search of stability. He was a religious thinker of remarkable insight, a social commentator of courage and conviction, and a writer of startling virtuosity. Michael W. Higgins recounts the life of this insatiable wanderer. He explores the various layers of influence and evolution in Merton's thought and spirituality. This book tells the remarkable story of a life that remains to be understood from its beginnings and long after its premature ending.