Summer reading: Book brings new information to arguments against capital punishment

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In the foreword to "Where Justice and Mercy Meet," Sister Helen Prejean, the Sister of St. Joseph of Carondelet famous for "Dead Man Walking," promises that readers will learn new information in every chapter.
She is not exaggerating; every chapter drives home with documented data the need to abolish the death penalty once and for all in the United States. The text examines the death penalty from every conceivable angle, presenting arguments from history, sociology, Supreme Court decisions, economics, Scripture, church teachings, international thought and stories. The information is profoundly impressive and should convince even the most ardent supporters of the death penalty to change their position.
The intellectual arguments against capital punishment are laid out clearly and logically; it would be difficult, if not impossible, to argue against them.

Summer reading: Dialogues between rabbi, new pope tell much about church's future

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The publication of a book of informal yet profoundly thoughtful dialogues between a cardinal and a rabbi was a rare event when this book was first published in Buenos Aires in 1995. When the cardinal became Pope Francis, "On Heaven and Earth" became a historic document, the first such open-ended dialogue between a pope and a rabbi in the history of Judaism and Catholicism.
Both then-Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio and Rabbi Abraham Skorka are scholars, not only in theology and rabbinic studies, respectively, but in science. It is natural that their discussion revolves around the classic issues of faith and reason, religious truth and scientific inquiry.
The authors take a pastoral view, concerned with the day-to-day problems and dilemmas, hopes and fears shared by all of us as ordinary human beings.

Summer reading: Storyteller McKenna challenges readers to really hear, live Gospels

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Megan McKenna is convinced that "the word of God in the Gospels" encounters strong resistance in the faith community. Over time, we have become "adept at using the Gospels to subvert Jesus' revelation of God among us and what is demanded of those who follow in Jesus' footsteps," she writes.
McKenna is a widely known Catholic author, lecturer, theologian and storyteller. With this, her 50th book, she encourages believers not to "short-circuit the power of Jesus' words." A quotation she includes from Trappist Father Thomas Merton helps to illustrate her purpose.
Father Merton once wrote: "Let us not be too sure we know the Bible ... just because we have learned not to have problems with it. Have we perhaps learned ... not to really pay attention to it?"