"How great," wrote St. Francis de Sales, "is a good priest." Fr. Arne Panula was a good priest: holy, humble, cultured, and human. It takes a writer as skilled as Mary Eberstadt to capture the beauty of a good and holy priest preparing for a good and holy death. In this book, she has done exactly that. Do not miss the prophetic witness of Fr. Panula, captured in the prophetic prose of Eberstadt.
"From Fire, By Water: My Journey to the Catholic Faith" Sohrab Ahmari, 2019
The story of an Iranian immigrant, who discovered in America first nihilism, then communism, and then eventually the Lord. Ahmari's memoir took me to places I have never been, and gave me a fresh look at people and places that seemed very familiar. Most especially, Ahmari's book explored a restless human heart, searching and seeking, until, quite unexpectedly, coming to rest in the Lord.
"With God in Russia" Fr. Walter J Ciszek, SJ, 1964.
As a young priest, Fr. Walter Ciszek wanted to preach the Gospel behind the Iron Curtain. He spent more than a decade in Soviet labor camps, preaching and witnessing to the Gospel in extraordinary ways. His story is the story of the Lord's Providence, and one man's fidelity to Christ.
I asked CNA reporters and editors to suggest the best books they read in 2018. Here are some of their suggestions, in no particular order:
"The Other Francis: Everything they did not tell you about the pope" Deborah Lubov, 2018
"Life and Love: Opening Your Heart to God's Design" Terry Polakovic, 2018
"Why Liberalism Failed," Patrick Deneen, 2018
"By Man Shall His Blood Be Shed," Edward Feser, 2017
"A Canticle for Leibowitz" Walter Miller Jr., 1984
"The Magnolia Story" Chip and Joanna Gaines, 2016
"In Sinu Jesu" A Benedictine Priest, 2016
"Crossing to Safety" Wallace Stegner, 2002
"Gilead" Marilynne Robinson, 2006
"Building the Benedict Option: A Guide to Gathering Two or Three Together in His Name" Leah Libresco, 2018
"A Call to a Deeper Love: The Family Correspondence of the Parents of Saint Therese of the Child Jesus" Louis and Zelie Martin
"Hillbilly Elegy" J.D. Vance, 2016
"My Squirrel Days," Ellie Kemper, 2018
"The Buried Giant" Kazuo Ishiguro, 2016
Every Sacred Sunday Mass Journal
"I'll Be Gone In The Dark: One Woman's Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer" Michelle McNamara, 2018
"The Power of Silence" Cardinal Robert Sarah, 2017
"Deaconesses: An Historical Study" Aime G Mortimort, 1986
"The Idea of a University" John Henry Cardinal Newman, 1852
"Don Quixote" Miguel de Cervantes, 1605
J.D.Flynn served as Catholic News Agency's editor-in-chief from August 2017 to December 2020.