Castro Valey, CA - Clifton, NJ - Troy, NY - Rome

January 23, 2020 Peace and Good, After my visit with the provincial and secretary of the California province, I flew out to New Jersey. I stayed overnight at the parish of St. John Kanty, a parish run by the friars of the Montreal Custody (for most of the people in the parish are Polish immigrants). The next morning I had a good meeting with my publisher, Catholic Book Publishing Company. I do not have a lot of time to write in these days, but they gave me a couple of possible works that I could try over these next months. On Friday evening I drove up to Troy, NY for the memorial mass of Bishop Elias Manning, a friar from Troy who served in Brazil for over 60 years and died there recently. I was representing the Minister General there. Then Saturday evening I flew back to Rome. I lucked out, for both in Neward and in London they were able to transfer me to an earlier flight, which meant I got back to Rome earlier than had originally been planned. Early Monday morning I and the rest of the definitory headed out to the Seraphicum, our seminary on the outskirts of Rome, for a workshop with the new Ministers Provincial, Custodes and secretaries who have been elected in these past few months. This is a course on how to run the provinces and what paper work and procedures must be followed. I will be flying out again on Sunday, this time to Chicago to present a workshop to our postulants. I finished some reading: American Military: from Colonials to Counterinsurgents by Wesley Clark This is a quick history of the American military, especially in its interventions in times of war. Wesley Clark, who was part of the Dayton accords that ended the war in Bosnia, and who served as the head of NATO for a number of years, is the presenter. His insights are good, but not genius. He comes from his own military background, so he tends to defend military interventions even when other scholars might question them. One good thing is that he is able to situate various intervention in their historic background, explaining why certain things were said (even when those saying them knew them to be untrue, e.g. the insistence on the Iraqis possessing weapons of mass destruction when we knew that, if they did, they were not that important). Flinders Petrie: the Life and Legacy of the Father of Modern Egyptology by Charles River Editors This was one of the most famous British archaeologists. He basically invented the modern system of archaeology. Instead of digging up mounds to find the big objects that would then be shipped off to museums in one’s home country, Petrie taught that the excavations should be done slowly, carefully, and with meticulous documentation. Even small broken objects can be of importance in reconstructing the era and culture of the people one is studying. This book deals a lot more with the finds in Egypt than with Petrie’s life, but it is nevertheless good. Don’t Know Much About the Civil War by Kenneth Davis This is an overview of the times leading up to the Civil War and the war itself. It is written in a folksy style, with numerous references to what various main characters said or wrote. The author spends much time insisting that slavery was the only important cause of the war. In general, the book is good, but not the best I have read on the topic. The Great Siege of Malta by Ernie Bradford In 1565, the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire tried to conquer Malta. This was to extinguish the Knights of Malta who were a religious order stationed there and who continuously harassed commerce among the Islamic states, but also to establish a foothold in Europe to use for invasion of Sicily and Italy. In spite of the overwhelming military supremacy of the Ottomans, they were unable the island due to the heroic struggle of the knights and the native Maltese. The book is very well told and an enjoyable read. De Gaulle by Aidan Crawley This is a long but thorough biography of Charles De Gaulle, the hero of World War II. The author presents his personality with all of its prickliness. In his second coming after the Algerian Revolt, he is presented as a bit of an egomaniac. Oddly, the author does not really deal with De Gaulle after his resignation from office until the time of his death. It is a good book, but an investment in time and in frustration at the ways at which De Gaulle was at times self-destructive. A Case of Need by Michael Crichton The book is very good, but the topic is unfortunate. It deals with a doctor accused of performing an abortion in Boston before the laws were changed. Crichton defends the idea of free access to abortion all throughout the book. The good part of the book is the investigation into the details of the problem by a friend of the doctor, a doctor who performs medical pathological studies. The Postwar Occupation of Japan by Charles River Editors This is a short presentation of this particular topic. It shows that the US occupation was rather enlightened, even when those in charge of it didn’t know what they were doing. It speaks about the deconstruction of the military dictatorship and the growth of democracy. It also speaks about the horrible difficulties in the early years of the occupation with food, work, etc. This changed radically at the outset of the Korean War when Japanese industry was called upon to provide much of the war materials. Have a good week. Shalom fr. Jude