Rome - Ellicott City

June 27, 2014 Peace and Good, Well, all of the meetings over in Rome and Assisi have been brought to a conclusion. This past week I tried to catch up with various projects that had to be put on hold while I was travelling and meeting so much. This included writing a children's book on Pope Francis for my publisher, Catholic Book. I will be getting the proofs already later today, and we should have it ready to print in a couple of months. (The hold up will be the artist who will have to do 16 drawings for the book.) I wish I could write more, but I just don't have the time and energy with my schedule. On Saturday, I attended the ordination to become a bishop of one of our friars. He will be the bishop of some small towns just outside of Assisi. I knew him when he was the custos (boss) of our friary in Assisi. I flew back to Baltimore on Sunday. Nothing unusual. This has been one of the kinder jet lags that I have had recently. This week is a series of doctors and dentist appointments. Nothing wrong, just getting the periodic check up. With all the travel that I do, it is better to take care of it all at once, so this week I have had six different appointments. Next week I will only have two, and then on next Saturday I head off to Chicago. I finished some books: Mary Wollstonecraft by Elizabeth Pennell This is the life story of one of the first English feminists. She was the mother of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, the author of Frankenstein. Although most of the writing of Mary Wollstonecraft herself is very dates, it was significant for its era. She was spiritual, but anti-religious (at least the way that religion was practiced in her era). She lived with one man without marriage, and with another in marriage (but living apart so as not to be too much of a burden on each other). Unconventional only begins to tell the tale, but she really tried to be a charitable and kind person in spite of her difficulties (which included a very ungrateful family for all that she did for them. Theodore Roosevelt and the Assassin by Gerard Helfreich This is the account of the attempted assassination of Theodore Roosevelt when he ran for another term in the presidency in 1912 as a third party candidate. The book tells the story of his break away from the Republican Party and his attempt to form the Bull Moose Party. He was shot by a German American who was demented and who believed that he had had a vision of the murdered President McKinley who had told him that Teddy Roosevelt was to blame for his death. He also wanted to make sure that no one ever had a third term as president. He was sentenced to a mental health facility where he remained until he died many years later. Roosevelt, although he was shot in the chest, was not seriously injured (for the bullet was deflected by his eyeglass case and his folded up speech), and he continued to speak to the crowd (in Milwaukee). They never removed the bullet, which he carried without bad effect until the day of his death. 1913: The Eve of the War by Paul Ham This is a short treatment of the circumstances in Europe in the year before World War I broke out. One sees what Germans, English, French, Austrians and Russians all thought of each other. One sees how the generals and the general staffs of the various armies made plans for war with little regard to civilian authority. One sees how the leaders of the nations gave in to the inevitability of war, and thus unconsciously created the situation in which war was inevitable. This is a good treatment of a topic that is being studied quite a bit on this 100th anniversary of World War I. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson I have heard the story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde many times, but this is the first time I have read it. I was pleasantly surprised. It is more intricate a story than I would have expected. It gives the account from various different viewpoints, including that of Mr. Hyde, the beast into which Dr. Jekyll turns. It deals with questions of addictive behavior in which one knows what is right, but lacks the will power to do it. It deals with what we today call the shadow side of each of our personalities. What surprised me most was the favorable treatment of Mr. Hyde and how what others judged to be horrible behavior could be seen differently from someone who was new and clumsy in social circumstances.

Rome - Assisi

June 10, 2014 Peace and Good, I finished off the week in Rome at our definitory. We went all the way up to Saturday afternoon. Then that evening, we had a big celebration in the Basilica for the Vigil of the Pentecost. The local bishop led the Mass. (Rome is divided up into sectors. Even though the Pope is the Bishop of Rome, there are local auxiliary bishops as well.) The service went two hours, which was quite long. Yet, the church was packed which was nice to see. There are not a lot of people living in the immediate area around the Basilica. Most of the buildings are used as schools or offices. Thus, on Sunday, there are often not more than a handful of people at Mass in our Basilica. Last Saturday night it was full. This week the definitory is in Assisi for a series of meetings with the presidents of the various conferences and federations throughout the world. We have a representative from India, Zambia, Poland, Slovenia, Italy, the US and Argentina. This is a way to feed some of what is happening in Rome down to the grass roots level. We will be here until noon on Saturday, and then it is back to Rome for a week. It is interesting how many times in our meetings that the name of Pope Francis is mentioned. He is certainly giving all of us a challenge to be more of what we say we are. The weather here in Italy has gotten very hot. It is a bit early this year. By August, it is all but unbearable. I finished some books: The Ten Biggest Civil War Battles by Charles River Editors The Charles River Editors are a group of MIT and Boston University graduates who produce a series of informational e books on various topics. This treatment of the ten most serious battles of the Civil War is well done. It gives information on those who participated, why the battle happened, what happened during the battle, and what the aftermath of the battle was. It includes many accounts of the battle from the point of view of the participants. This whole series is well worth consideration. Coral Sea 1942 by Richard Freeman This is a short book on the battle that took place in early 1942 that, even though it was a bit of a draw between the forces of Japan and the forces of the States, at least marked the first moment at which the Japanese plans were foiled and when their momentum began to disappear. The book gives enough information to get a good picture of the battle without overwhelming one with detail. It also gives a good evaluation of how this particular battle influenced what happened in the Battle of Midway only a short time later which truly marked the turning point of the war. Samson and Denial by Robert Ford This is a novella that is part a crime story, part a horror story. The “hero” of the story discovers that his brother has been murdered by the Russian mafia. The two brothers had been involved in selling illegal drugs. He returns home to find that wife has been kidnapped by the same Mafia. He tracks down the men who did this, and along the way he comes upon an ancient Mayan skull with magical powers. It destroys his enemies, but not until he has to confront an army of angry Amazon warriors who want to kill him to protect their cultic object. The story takes a lot of twists and turns, but it is well written. Maximilian Kolbe: Saint of Auschwitz by Elain Murray Stone This is a short book that chronicles the life and career of St. Maximilian Kolbe. It gives the basic fact of his call to the Franciscan Order, his founding of the Militia of the Immaculate, the founding of the huge Franciscan friary in Niepokolanow near Warsaw, his founding of the mission in Japan, and then his arrest and death in Auschwitz. This is not a long treatment, but the author manages to tell the basic story in a very appealing manner. I hope you have a good week. Shalom fr. Jude

New York - Rome

June 4, 2014 Peace and Good, I finished off my meeting in New York at Franciscans International. We actually finished early, which is a first for the organization. There has been a lot of reconfiguring these past couple of years, and I think it is really paying off. There is a smaller organization, but it is running smoother than it has ever run before. Tuesday evening I flew out of JFK in New York and flew into Rome, arriving the next morning. I don't exactly know why, but the worst jet lag I have ever had hit me these past week. I think it was just that I had been running all around the country the previous month, and it caught up with me. Good thing that the only tasks I had to complete were to catch up on my daily reflections and prepare for the meeting of our definitory this week. Monday was a national holiday here in Italy, the anniversary of the founding of the republic right after World War II. We didn't meet, but we had more homework to look over to get ready for the meeting which began on Tuesday morning. We will continue here until noon on Saturday, and then Sunday afternoon move up to Assisi for another week of meetings, this time with the heads of the various conferences in the Order. Worldwide, we are divided into seven groups of friars, sometimes geographic and at other times linguistic divisions. I am the assistant for the English speaking group of the First World (there is a separate African and Asian group). We meet with the presidents of the seven groups each year in June to coordinate what is happening in Rome with what is happening at the grass roots. Even more than the big meetings, a lot is done in the one on one meetings with the General and each of the presidents. The weather has changed in the past couple of days. Summer has arrived, and it will be quite hot by the end of the week. This week is the 70th anniversary of D Day. Our provincial, fr. James McCurry, will be in France to deliver a short speech at one of the commemorations. One of our friars, fr. Ignatius, died during the invasion. He was an army chaplain and was killed on D Day itself. I finished some reading: Conspirator: Lenin in Exile by Helen Rappaport Most of Lenin’s adult life, he spent in exile outside of Russia. He was in London (where he did a tremendous amount of research at the British Library), France, Switzerland, Austria, etc. He lived poorly, and spent almost all of his time on research and writing articles and books. He was faithfully served by his wife and her mother, even though he maltreated them by ignoring them and by cheating on his wife with a female colleague. The only important thing for him was revolution, and he was willing to betray anyone or anything to get his way. He was an incredibly arrogant party member, frequently creating divisions among the socialists in order to win an argument. He was eventually called back to Russia by the Germans who were then at war with the Russians. They sent him back in the hope that he would create division and pull Russia out of the war, something he actually did. Portrait of a Spy by Daniel Silva This is the second book by Daniel Silva I have read. It is about a Israeli secret agent, Gabriel Allon, and how he combats the forces of Islamist terrorism. This is almost a sequel to the first book I read which involved the assassination of a rich trader who was financing terrorism. In this book, Allon works with the assassinated man’s daughter who wants to further the cause of women in the Arab world and destroy the terrorist hold on Islam. The hero is also a world famous art restorer, which adds a whole different dimension to the whole story. His plot is well written and exciting. The Prague Cemetery by Umberto Ecco Umberto Ecco is the author of the Name of the Rose. This particular book is the story of a man from northern Italy who becomes a scribe, a copier of letters. His specialty, however, is forging letters and wills and documents to incriminate others. He participates in the battles that lead to the unification of Italy, and then he travels to Paris where he spends the rest of his life. He hates the Jesuits and the Jews and the Masons, and writes pamphlets and creates documents to incriminate each of those groups. In the course of his career, he becomes two people, the forger and a fake priest, and it seems as if he begins to lose a sense of which of these characters he really is. This is the premise for the book, it is an attempt to find out the truth about his own life so that he knows which of the two, the forger Simonini or the priest della Piccola, he is. The title of the book is from one of his forgeries in which he writes of a meeting of famous rabbis from all over the world who plot the destruction of the Gentile world by accumulating the control of the press, industry, transport, etc. Almayer’s Folly: A Story of an Eastern River by Joseph Conrad Once again, Conrad is the master story teller. This book tells of a British subject who is the only white man in a town on the coast of an island in Indonesia. He has married a native woman who has a daughter, but who despises the anti-hero, Almayer. Almayer has made one bad business deal after another, and he is trapped in a half existence. His daughter falls in love with a native chief’s son and must flee with him when he runs afoul of the Dutch authorities. This breaks Almayer’s heart, and he dies a slow, pathetic death, abandoned by everyone around him except for a opium smoker. The descriptions both of the world in which the characters live and the emotional relationships of the characters is masterful. Conrad is able to break out of his European world and enter into the exotic world and thinking of Africa, Asia and other distant parts of the globe. Have a good week. Shalom fr. Jude

Los Angeles - New York

May 27, 2014 Peace and Good, I finished off the last of the provincial chapters in Los Angeles with the chapter for the Province of St. Joseph of Cupertino, California. I did a visitation of the friars and friaries of the province during the winter, and that was presented at the chapter this past week. We met at Sacred Heart Retreat House in Alhambra, California (just outside of Los Angeles). There were 25 of us there, and the chapter went from Monday evening to Friday morning. I had to leave very early Friday to get to New York because I had another meeting on Saturday, Sunday and Monday morning. (Fortunately, we finished Sunday evening and were off on Monday.) This meeting was for Franciscans International, an advocacy group for the Franciscans at the United Nations in Geneva and New York. I am on the board of trustees of this group. When I first joined the board, it was in a sad state, but things have improved greatly over the last couple of years (especially through the efforts of the president of the board, Doug Clory, a Secular Franciscan from Canada). One of the projects that Franciscans International is universal birth registration. It doesn't sound all that important, but when you consider that kidnapping people for slavery would be more difficult if people had an official record, the planning of health care and schooling would be easier if the governments knew how many people there were, etc. Another area of concern is access to good water which is a disasterous situation in a lot of the world. Furthermore, young girls often miss school because they must travel miles and miles to obtain water for their families, women are often raped at isolated sources of water, etc, then one understands the implications of access to water that go beyond the obvious need for a good supply. After our meeting yesterday, a sister on the board invited all of us on the board to an Italian meal. Their convent is very close to the Brooklyn Bridge, and we were able to walk around in Brooklyn Bridge park. It is a beautiful site, and the weather has been great the last couple of days. Today one of our friars showed me around the parish where I have been staying: Most Holy Trinity in Brooklyn. They have remodeled a number of spaces for their office space, religious education center and social outreach offices. They are doing tremendous work. This afternoon I will fly out to Rome. I have a few days off, and then a series of meetings running for two weeks in Rome and Assisi. I have finished some reading: Kennedy’s Wars: Berlin, Cuba, Laos and Vietnam by Lawrence Freedman This book explores the foreign diplomacy and confusion concerning communist expansion during the presidency of John F. Kennedy. There was the problem with the Berlin Wall and all that this involved, the communist insurgency in Laos which threatened to overthrow the non-communist government, and the problem of the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese intervention in South Vietnam during the presidency of Diem, a difficult man who made the problems all that much worse. The book is a bit heavy because it involves so much detail, but it is well done. Who Murdered Garson Talmadge by David Bishop This is a detective novel, not too heavy. The main character is a police officer who spent time in prison for shooting a released criminal. He is now a private investigator and the author of detective novels. His next door neighbor, a rich woman married to a former arms dealer, is accused of her husband’s murder. The detective must investigate this situation which puts his own life in danger due to the arms connection. Six Wives by David Starkey This is the story of the six wives of Henry VIII. It is extensively researched, and it tries to give a fair portrait of all of the wives and their actions. Henry VIII does come across all that well, but neither do some of the wives such as Anne Boylyn. The book is well written, but it is quite a long presentation on the topic. One can see the surges and counter-surges on the question of religion all throughout the period. Anathem by Neal Stephenson This is an epic that tells the story of a monastic community whose purpose is to reflect upon epistemological truths. Fra Erasmus is called out of the community to deal with a crisis when a spaceship from an alternate reality arrives in the atmosphere and threatens the planet. There is a long journey to join a meeting of experts from monastic communities all throughout the planet. There is even a space adventure in which he and his friends travel to the space craft either to destroy it or better, to force it into negotiation. The narrative is quite good, but it is a long, long story. I hope you have a good week. Shalom fr. Jude

Louisville - Los Angeles

May 19, 2014 Peace and Good, I am in Los Angeles now. I am travelling with fr. Jerzy, the Vicar General. He is officially in charge of the meetings we are attending, but I am the one who actually runs it. (His English is good for understanding what is said, but not for speaking spontaneously.). Our last provincial chapter begins this evening. It will run until Friday, but Friday morning I have to scoot out to New York for another meeting which begins on Saturday morning. The meetings have gone very well. There will be a second part to each of these meetings in July and August. Four meetings in a row has been quite a bit. I can't wait until I get back home to Rome where I will have a few days to decompress before the next series of meetings begins. I celebrated Mass out here at Our Lady of Guadalupe Parish. I always enjoy visiting this parish. They have an incredible contemporary music program to enliven the Masses. The weather has cooled off a bit. They say that last week it was very, very hot (which didn't help the fires to the south of here in San Diego County). I have finished some books: The Tent by Kealan Patrick Burke This is a short novel or a long story about people who are lost in the woods where an alien creature is able to mimic items with which they are familiar, such as tents or back packs. The alien intends to travel from its hiding place deep within a mountain to the city where it might reproduce and prey upon a whole new host environment. The story is well written. Although it is not overly frightening, it does provide a scary scenario. The Strange Case of the Mad Professor: A True Tale of Endangered Specied, Illegal Drugs and Attempted murder by Peter Kobel This is indeed a strange story about a professor of Anthropology who was a difficult sort of a person. Brilliant, he was nevertheless autocratic and a bit of a bully when he became the head of the department at the University where he taught. He was probably the number one expert in Lemur’s (a primate from Madagascar) in the world. When his wife died, his life took a tumble as he arranged with his lab students to manufacture LSD and other drugs. Arrested and sent to jail, he eventually was set free when he sent poisoned candies to a number of people. He died in prison from AIDS. The Shining by Stephen King Some 20 years ago, Stephen King wrote this book about a father, mother and son who reside in a large resort hotel during the winter as care takers and who are attacked by the murderous forces within the spirit of the hotel. The term “shining” refers to the ability of the boy Danny to read people’s minds and to see some things in the future. King has now written a sequel to the book. I had seen two films on the original book, but I had never read it. Lately, Kindle had both the original and its sequel on sale, so I thought it would be a good time to buy and read both. Usually I read a few pages for a large number of books each day, but I absolutely devoured this one. King has a great writing style and way of description that draws in the reader. I can’t wait to read the sequel now. To End All Wars: A Story of Loyalty and Rebellion: 1914-1918 by Adam Hochschild This is an account of World War I, but from a very different point of view. It investigates the instances of opposition to the war, especially within Great Britain. This was often the case of socialists who saw the war as a plot to make themselves richer. They could not understand why socialists of every country did not just lay down their arms and refuse to kill their fellow workers. There were others who opposed the war or who refused to fight at conscientious objectors for religious or philosophical reasons. The book also gives an account of the horrible, horrible slaughter during the battles of the war, and the uncaring indifference of Generals French and Haight who commanded the British forces. It is well worth reading. I hope you have a good week, especially the holiday weekend. Shalom fr. Jude

Chicago - Buffalo

May 10, 2014 Peace and Good, Sorry that there has been no posting up to Saturday of this week, but these past two weeks have been a whirlwind. I have been leading two of the provincial chapters, the first in Chicago and the second in Buffalo. A provincial chapter takes place every four years, and it is a gathering of the friars to review the past four years and to make plans for the next four years. The provincial, the head of the province, is elected either at the chapter or just before it. The chapter in Buffalo was a bit unusual because two of the Eastern Provinces, Immaculate Conception Province and St. Anthony Province, joined together to form a new province, the Province of Our Lady of the Angels. There are just under 200 friars in this new province. 171 of them were present for the meeting this week in Buffalo. It was a good gathering, filled with joy and fraternity. This morning I head out to the next chapter, this one held just outside of Louisville. This one will have delegates so that means that the group gathering will be smaller than the groups gathering these past two weeks. I finished a few books in the weeks before the chapters: Kingdom of Shadows by Alan Furst This must be the fifth or sixth book by Alan Furst that I have read or listened to, and I have never been disappointed. He writes about the period just before the beginning of World War II or at the very beginning. This book is about a Hungarian who is working in Paris who does favors for a number of people who are caught up in difficulties in Eastern Europe. Hitler has just taken over Austria, and is getting ready to take over Czechoslovakia and Poland. You can never quite tell who is spying for whom (hence the name of the book, for everyone is working in the shadows). Furst has a way of evoking the spirit of the times and developing the personalities of his characters. It is a good, good book. 1,000 Years of Annoying the French by Stephen Clarke This is a comical treatment of the relationship between Great Britain and France from the time of William the Conquerer (who was not French but rather Norman, a type of Viking) to the present (when the Eurostar which passes through the Chunnel, the tunnel under the English Channel, use to end up at Waterloo Station, a train station named after a great French defeat. Clarke shows how many of the things in which the French most pride themselves actually come from other countries, often England (even the famous guillotine). I enjoyed this book because of the British sense of humor which flows through every fact and detail. Guns: Book One in the John Hardin Series by Phil Bowie This is a novel of a man who is witness protection and whose cover is blown when his face appears in the local newspaper because of a rescue that he has performed. Killers come to take their revenge, and they accidentally kill the man’s girlfriend. The rest of the book is how he takes his own revenge upon the killers and those who hired them. The book is not all that bad, but not all that deep either. Lumen Fidei: The Light of Faith by Pope Francis This is the encyclical that was begun by Pope Benedict and finished by Pope Francis. It is clearly the work of Pope Benedict. It is scholarly, well documented both with religious citations and citations from larger literary circles. It speaks of different dimension of faith and how they are important to our lives today. I have heard people say that they could distinguish retouchings made by Pope Francis, but I could not find those myself. It is a solid presentation, but I am looking forward to Pope Francis’ further writings to see his own style in action. I hope you have a good week. Shalom fr. Jude

Rome - Chicago

April 29, 2014 Peace and Good, The early part of last week, I was in Rome doing some writing work that had been put off for quite some time. I was able to finish seven articles for two different magazines (in Italy and in England) for which I write. Both of them involved beginning a new series, and I was pleased that they got off to such a good start. Then on Thursday I flew out to Chicago for the first of the provincial chapters in the States. Each four years, there is an Ordinary Provincial Chapter at which a new provincial and his counsel are elected. This province is St. Bonaventure Province, and their chapter began yesterday, Monday morning. So far it is going very well. I have been here in Chicago quite a bit since last October when I first visited here for their visitation, and it feels good to have all of the preparations playing themselves out in the right way. The Minister General has proposed a candidate for the Minister Provincial of this province, and tomorrow they vote upon him. I don't think there will be any difficulty, but the friars have the absolute freedom to vote for whomever they wish. The Vicar General, the number two man of the Order, is officially in charge of this meeting, but his English is a bit limited, so I am actually running the meeting. This is the first time I am doing it, so I feel like I did when I taught High School - trying to stay a few pages ahead of the students. We are having the meeting at a Shrine and Retreat House run by the province called Marytown. The chapel is incredibly beautiful, and they have 24 hour Eucharistic adoration. The friars did a wonderful job of remodeling the retreat house a few years back, and it is used quite a bit by groups in the Chicago area. I have finished some books: Two Murders Reaped: Book Four of the Thwarted Queen by Cynthia Sally Haggard This is the fourth in the series of stories upon Duchess Cecily of York. This one deals with his marriage to Elizabeth, the daughter of Lord Rivers and his wife Jaquette. I read a book on her by Philippa Gregory, and it is so interesting to see the different way of approaching the same story. Here Elizabeth is portrayed as a demonic force which all but destroys her husband and Cecily’s son King Edward. He is replaced by Richard III, who in history has been portrayed as a great villain for the murder of his two nephews (the princes in the tower). Here, the blame is put upon Cecily who sees her own grandsons as a threat to his son’s reign because they could be controlled by their mother, the daughter-in-law whom Cecily so hates. I am not sure of the truth of one theory or the other, but it is good to see both sides of the controversy. Bloody Times: the funeral of Abraham Lincoln and the Manhunt for Jefferson Davis by James L. Swanson This is a parallel to what happened to Abraham Lincoln in his last days of life and afterwards and what happened to Jefferson Davis as Richmond fell to the forces of General Grant and Davis was forced to flee, eventually being arrested as he tried to flee to Florida. The author respects both stories, although toward the end he shows more deference to the Confederate cause than I feel comfortable reading about. Terminated by Simon Wood This is the story of a boss at a pharmaceutical company who writes a bad review (deserved) on an employee who first threatens her, and then makes her life a living hell. He beats her husband into a coma, vandalizes her home, gets her fired, and threatens to kill her daughter. In the meantime, the woman has to face the reality that another man who wanted to rape her and all but killed her is about to be released from prison. The book is not bad and is interesting in parts. By the Light of the Moon by Dean Koontz Dean Koontz writes some of the goriest books around, but he also writes books that delve into the question of evil and the obligation of those who try to be good to resist evil, sometimes with force if it is necessary. This is the premise of the Odd Thomas series he has written about a man who can communicate with ghosts. This book fits into the latter category for it is about a group of innocents who are injected with a syringe of nano robots by an evil scientist. These nanobots give them extraordinary psychic and other powers which they are called upon to use to make the world a better place. One of these is a young man with autism, and the author delves into the loneliness of that condition. The book is very well written and certainly makes one think. Have a good week. Saturday I and the Vicar General are off for Buffalo. Shalom fr. Jude