Book Reviews

One question readers might have after reading “Antoine Frederic Ozanam” is this: When will this man be canonized a saint?

“Francis: The People’s Pope” (Seven Stories Press), a graphic biography by journalist and cartoonist Ted Rall, is, in its way, a celebration of the current successor of St. Peter.

The U.S. government, which once made guarding the well-being of children a top priority, has now abandoned their interests in favor of the sexual wishes of their parents, according to a new book by law professor Helen M. Alvare.

New York Times columnist Ross Douthat has become one of the leading Catholic commentators on the Francis papacy, and this book, being released around the papacy’s fifth anniversary, serves well as both an overview of the pope’s accomplishments and a sometimes critical commentary on them.

Edith Stein, who eventually became Carmelite Sister Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, is not well known as saints go but is becoming better known as a fascinating figure of 20th-century Catholicism through books like this one.

Journalist Curt Brown has authored a new book on this interesting year in Minnesota history, focusing mainly on individual stories and the communities that were greatly impacted during these hard times.

The book, “Abducted in Iraq,” tells the painful, day-by-day story of those days and of Auxiliary Bishop Sirop Hanna’s survival — his physical survival, to be sure, but the survival too, indeed the flourishing, of his faith under the most senselessly hurtful circumstances.

Speaking during a question-and-answer session in Rome March 1 after the presentation of the book, “A Pope Francis Lexicon,” Cardinal Farrell said that a greater role for women in the church “is going to take more than just issuing a decree.”