New Books in Catholic Studies

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John Cornwell, “The Dark Box: A Secret History of Confession” (Basic Books, 2014)

I’ve never been in a confessional box, but I’ve seen a lot of them in films. And if the depiction of them in films is in any way a reflection of popular attitudes toward confession, then I can say with some confidence that the act has a rather poor reputation. Confessional boxes are–in my imagination, at least–dark places where dark things are admitted and, sometimes, even darker things are done. Is it a surprise that fewer and fewer Catholics confess their sins in the box? John Cornwell doesn’t...

Apr 08, 2014•59 min

Henrietta Harrison, “The Missionary’s Curse and Other Tales from a Chinese Catholic Village” (University of California Press, 2013)

Henrietta Harrison‘s new book is the work of a gifted storyteller. In its pages, the reader will find Boxers getting drunk on communion wine, wolf apparitions, people waking up from the dead, ballads about seasickness, and flying bicycles. You will also find a wonderfully rich account of three centuries of... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Oct 10, 2013•1 hr 5 min

Scott Sowerby, “Making Toleration: The Repealers and the Glorious Revolution” (Harvard UP, 2013)

We all know that the “victors” generally write history. The “losers,” then, often get a bum rap. Such was the case with King James II. He’s got a pretty poor reputation, largely due to the purveyors of the “Whig Interpretation of History.” They claimed that James II was a tyrant who tried to impose Catholicism on the United Kingdom. But, as Scott Sowerby shows in his new book Making Toleration: The Repealers and the Glorious Revolution (Harvard UP, 2013), James II was really no such thing. Actua...

Aug 23, 2013•1 hr 1 min

Mary Johnson, “An Unquenchable Thirst: Following Mother Teresa in Search of Love, Service and an Authentic Life” (Spiegel & Grau, 2011)

In December of 1975, Agnes Bojaxhiu, also known as Mother Teresa, appeared on the cover of TIME magazine with a caption that read: “Living Saints.” Mary Johnson, a teenage girl at the time, saw this cover and was drawn in by what she saw as a wonderful life of meaning, love, and service. Two years later, she had joined the Missionaries of Charity, the religious community that Mother Teresa started in 1948, and there remained for 20 years. Though she fervently wanted to be a good nun, she found t...

Nov 04, 2012•43 min

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