March 2011

The premise of Michael Novak’s No One Sees God is an interesting one. In his book, he brings out that fact that even Christians acknowledge that there can be an experience of darkness within our knowledge of God. Atheists, of course, are also in the dark about God, and so Christians and atheists therefore are not total opposites, but simply experience that darkness differently, or to different degrees.

Anne Rice is an author best known for her series of novels about vampires. A few years ago she came back to her Catholic faith (a process some people call “reversion”, to distinguish it from “conversion”) and wrote a historical novel about Jesus entitled Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt. I never read that book, but the sequel (published in 2008 in hardcover, 2009 in softcover) was eventually sent to me for review. The original book, I understand, was about the child Jesus, including his stay in Egypt as a refugee.

Some time ago I was contacted by Joseph Martos, a professor of sacramental theology, to review “The Sacraments: An Interdisciplinary and Interactive Study”, one of his latest contributions to the field. One of his earlier books, Doors to the Sacred, has been a widely-read work in the same area of research. As I also teach sacramental theology here in Montreal, I of course readily accepted to receive a copy, as I am always happy to engage the subject matter and learn something from a colleague.

While it may come as a surprise to some people, the Catholic faith includes a belief in ghosts. Now I know what some of you might be thinking: “Angels and demons I knew about, Father, but ghosts?” Still, if you consider that a ghost supposedly is the disembodied spirit of a dead person — then sure, Catholics believe in ghosts, because the word ghost, from the German word geist, simply means “spirit”.