Archbishop

Abstract: "IF YOU KNEW," a Waterford priest wrote Tobias Kirby, the new rector of the Irish College in Rome, on January 3, 1850, "all there is to remedy, all the evil there is to check!."' "We have not had," he further explained to Kirby, referring to the decline in clerical discipline after the famine, "a Conference here since the beginning of the distress, four years now probably-Sc but one retreat all that time & everyone doing &c thinking & speaking as it listeth him, & no one to prevent it." The occasion for this lament was the recent and encouraging news from Rome that Paul Cullen, Kirby's predecessor as rector of the Irish College, had just been appointed archbishop of Armagh and the accompanying rumor that the new primate had also been armed with the power of apostolic delegate by Pius IX and instructed to summon a national synod for the better government and regulation of the Irish Church. More than a quarter of a century after Cullen's arrival in Ireland, his cousin and protege, Patrick Francis Moran, the bishop of Ossory, was able to report to Kirby in a matter-of-fact way from Kilkenny during the course of a letter that "we ended two small Missions in two of our city Churches on Sunday last, preparatory for Christmas."2 "Nothing," he further explained, "could be more consoling than the great piety of our poor people. All without exception approached the Holy Sacraments." "At my Mass on Sunday in the Cathedral," Moran emphasized in conclusion, "there were about iooo men at Holy Communion." In the nearly thirty years that he faithfully served Rome in Ireland, Paul Cardinal Cullen not only reformed the Irish Church but, what was perhaps even more important, in the process of reforming that Church he spearheaded the consolidation of a devotional revolution. The great mass of the Irish people became practicing Catholics, which they have uniquely and essentially remained both at home and abroad down to the present day.

Abstract: Andrew Feinstein, former member of the African National Congress, investigates the secretive world of the global arms trade in his gripping new book "The Shadow World". Feinstein reveals the corruption and the cover-ups behind BAE's controversial transactions in South Africa, Tanzania and eastern Europe and the revolving-door relationships that characterise the US Congressional-Military-Industrial Complex. "The Shadow World" exposes both the formal government-backed trade in arms as well as the illicit deals and lays bare the shocking links between the two. "Essential reading for anyone who cares about justice, transparency and accountability in both the public and private spheres, and for anyone who believes that it is more important to invest in saving lives than in the machinery of death". (Archbishop Desmond Tutu). "Andrew Feinstein has written an authoritative guide to the business of war. Chilling, heartbreaking and enraging". (Arundhati Roy). "The nobility and justice of Feinstein's sentiments are indisputable. The arms trade is a loathsome commerce conducted by people who wear suits and occupy big boardroom tables, but should have trouble sleeping at night". (Max Hastings, "Sunday Times"). "Remarkable and courageous..."The Shadow World" is a heroic book by an author who, in writing it, has put himself in the firing line". (Iain Macwhirter). "Feinstein's book is a singularly powerful study, and deserves to be read by anyone who wants to see light shining on such a shadowy world". ("Independent"). Andrew Feinstein is the author of "After the Party: A Personal and Political Journey Inside the ANC", a best-selling memoir of his time as an African National Congress MP in South Africa. His journalism has been featured in the "Guardian", "Daily Telegraph", "Prospect", "New York Times", "Spiegel", "New Statesman" and "Africa Report". He appears regularly on the BBC, CNN and Al Jazeera. He is the founding co-director of Corruption Watch, an anti-corruption NGO, and chairperson of the Aids charity FoTAC.

Abstract: IN THE LATE 1 980S, at the time of the end of the cold war, Africa experienced the beginning of a second liberation, as the peoples of Africa tried to throw off the political systems that had come to serve them so badly. The struggle was not the same everywhere, but one of its common features was the significant role played by the churches. In Francophone Africa, the struggle took a particular form; citizens' groups forced the dictators to convene a national conference, at which a wide range of groups debated the nation's future. The dictators, vulnerable and deserted by their previously supportive Western backers, had to give way, at least in the short term. One of the remarkable features of these conferences was the way in which Catholic Bishops were asked to preside over them. In Benin, Mgr Isidore de Sousa, Archbishop of Cotonou, presided over the national conference, then as president of the Haut Conseil de la Republique overseeing the transition process, was the highest authority in the land for the thirteen months leading up to elections. In Gabon it was Mgr Basile Mve Engone, Bishop of Oyem. In Togo, Mgr Sanouko Kpodzro, Bishop of Atakpame, presided over the process. In the Congo, Mgr Ernest Kombo, the country's first Jesuit and Bishop of Owando, presided over the three month long national conference and then the entire transitional process. In Zaire, Mgr Laurent Monsengwo Pasinya, Archbishop of Kisangani, was elected in 1991 to preside over the national conference attempting to halt Zaire's decline into anarchy.1 In many other countries, the churches' role was just as significant, though it took different forms. For years, in Kenya, the most articulate criticism of President Moi came from individual Anglican Bishops, and later from the National Council of Churches of Kenya. In Malawi, ie whole process of opposition to President Banda's rule was begun by the 1992 Lenten pastoral of the Catholic Bishops. In Madagascar, the Council of Churches was the core of the 'Forces Vives' that led to the ousting of President Ratsiraka in 1992. And in Zambia the churches were among the most prominent local bodies involved in the transition

Abstract: Death Comes for the Archbishop sprang from Willa Cather's love for the land and cultures of the American Southwest. Published in 1927 to both praise and perplexity, it has since claimed for itself a major place in twentieth-century literature. When Cather first visited the American Southwest in 1912, she found a new world to imagine and soon came to feel that "the story of the Catholic Church in [the Southwest] was the most interesting of all its stories." The narrative follows Bishop Jean Latour and Father Joseph Vaillant, friends since their childhood in France, as they organize the new Roman Catholic diocese of Santa Fe subsequent to the Mexican War. While seeking to revive the church and build a cathedral in the desert, the clerics, like their historical prototypes, Bishop Jean Lamy and Father Joseph Machebeuf, face religious corruption, natural adversity, and the loneliness of living in a strange and unforgiving land. The Willa Cather Scholarly Edition presents groundbreaking research, establishing a new text that reflects Cather's long and deep involvement with her story. The historical essay traces the artistic and spiritual development that led to its writing. The broad-ranging explanatory notes illuminate the elements of French, Mexican, Hispanic, and Native American cultures that meet in the course of the narrative; they also explain the part played by the land and its people - their history, religion, art, and languages. The textual essay and apparatus reveal Cather's creative process and enable the reader to follow the complex history of the text.