25 Years Ago - 25th March 1991 - R.I.P.

The Life of General de Sonis

General Gaston de Sonis (1825-1887) was one of France’s most distinguished soldiers of the nineteenth century.

He displayed outstanding skill and valour on the battlefields of Algeria, Italy and in the Franco-Prussian war in which he lost a leg, but saved the honour of a defeated nation. 

An exemplary father of twelve children, he was also a warrior of the Sacred Heart, ennobled by Pope Leo XIII and the cause of whose canonisation is pending at Rome.

Lying close to death upon the battlefield of Loigny in 1870 he received signal graces and light from Our Lady.

This book tells his inspiring story.

The Ethics of Ectopic Pregnancy

Ectopic and Pathological Pregnancies in Catholic Morality

Most people can easily see why abortion is wrong. But the issue of abortion on medical grounds is more complex for many when doctors say that, if the baby is not destroyed, both mother and child will inevitably die.

It is argued that between two evils, the lesser should be chosen. Father Bouscaren’s classic work is devoted to the only case in which this conflict is at all likely: the case of ectopic pregnancy.

With the skill of a gifted moralist who is also a persuasive debater, the author shows that, although the death of one person is evidently a lesser evil than the death of two, nonetheless the death of one person intended and produced directly by a violation of the moral law is not a lesser evil than the death of two from natural causes without any sin on the part of anyone.

But he also opposes the simplistic view that would require every ectopic pregnancy to be left to its fatal conclusion. He explains which procedures are morally acceptable and medically useful.

The School of Saint Philip Neri

Bishop Crispino invites his readers to become scholars in the school of Saint Philip and to pursue holiness by the saint's methods and example as well as those of his immediate disciples.

Saint Philip Neri was chosen by God to renew the penances, the holiness and the miracles of the Fathers of the desert in the heart of post-Renaissance Rome. Many of his disciples also attained great holiness under the Saint’s guidance. The city of Rome was transformed. He converted great sinners and little ones and even ... the lukewarm. He knew how to cure vices however incurable and shameful they might appear. Humour and humility, austerity and originality seasoned his apostolate.

Every page of his life-story is fascinating, yet this book is not a biography, but a complete guide to the spiritual life:one that is irresistibly entertaining, with its constant thread of edifying anecdotes, charming the reader’s imagination as it leads him insensibly to aspire to imitate as well as admire.

The Life of Our Lord Jesus Christ

The son of a poor cooper, Louis Veuillot (1813-1883) became one of the leading French writers of his century and a great defender of the Catholic cause against infidels and liberals.

Friend and foe alike admired his perceptive and courageous journalism while his books won over his readers by their keen insights and fine prose.

This Life of Our Lord Jesus Christ earned a papal accolade.

Veuillot wanted his readers to come to know the life and personality of Our Lord and to be inspired by Him. Though hardly ever polemical, Veuillot’s masterpiece has not only stirred the devotion of the faithful but also made many converts.

Pope Pius IX described it as “a vindication of the outraged godhead of Christ”.

Michael Davies: An Evaluation

In Michael Davies: An Evaluation, Cambridge-educated translator John S. Daly puts the scholarship of the late Michael Davies under the spotlight.

What emerges from systematic comparison with statements of the Magisterium and the greatest theologians must destroy Davies's credibility in the eyes of every serious reader. Michael Davies: An Evaluation remains not only an unanswered indictment of Davies as a Catholic scholar, but a standing refutation of the entire ecclesiology of those who believe it possible for an orthodox Catholic to reject the doctrinal errors and reformed rites spawned by Vatican II without calling into doubt the legitimacy of recent papal claimants and the validity of the new sacraments.

This book was hailed by the celebrated English parish priest Fr. Oswald Baker (1915-2004), who was himself a dedicatee of Michael Davies' Cranmer's Godly Order, as one of the two most important books to have emerged from the post-Vatican II crisis in the Catholic Church.

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First Saturday

First Friday

Genetic Entropy

In Genetic Entropy, Cornell University researcher John Sanford lifts the rug to see what Evolutionary Theory has swept under it. He shows that, not only does Darwinism not have answers for how information got into the genome, it doesn't even have answers for how it could remain there.

Genetic Entropy is a brilliant expose of the unreality of the Primary Axiom. It is written in a challenging style, yet is accessible to non-specialists having some minimal background in biology. At the same time it has sufficient substance and documentation to cause the most highly trained biologist to rethink, in a serious way, what he or she has always believed about the Primary Axiom. This book deserves to be read by every professional biologist and biology teacher in the world. It has the potential of changing the outlook of the academic world in a profound way.

Dr. Sanford is a highly qualified geneticist from a major university. He has written a tremendous book detailing compelling new genetic evidence that the human genome is deteriorating, and that it has always been deteriorating - ever since its origin. The profound implications of these findings should be obvious to any thoughtful person. This easy-to-read and wonderfully convincing little volume should be a must-read for concerned people everywhere.

Genetic Entropy provides a lucid and bold account of how the human genome is deteriorating due to the accumulation of mutations. This situation has disturbing implications for mankind's future, as well as surprising implications concerning mankind's past.

Evolution Theory and the Sciences: A Critical Examination

The mission of the Gustav Siewerth Academy is to overcome the contradictions between theology, philosophy and the natural sciences in relation to the truth of God, man and creation.

An apparent contradiction between theology and natural science arises from the Bible's claim that God created the world, all kinds of plants and animals, and, finally, man, as the image of Himself, out of nothing. In contrast to this, the predominant view amongst contemporary natural scientists is that everything has originated by chance, through the self-organisation of matter, in a process of 'death and becoming'.

Since natural scientists cannot demonstrate this evolutionary process in the present time experimentally, they claim that this process took place over millions of years. Therefore it is important to know whether the world, the cosmos, the plants and animals, and especially man, really came into being over these enormous periods of time.

In the Spring of 2009, 23rd February, an interesting workshop for experts in philosophy and natural science took place in Rome under the auspices of the National Research Council of Italy, entitled 'Evolutionary Theory: A Critical Analysis'. As a continuation of this important initiative, Gustav Siewerth Academy organised a follow-up conference for experts in theology, philosophy and natural science from 7th-10th September, 2009.

This conference dealt primarily with the question: "How tenable are the arguments for the evolution of man and the universe over long ages of time?"

The assembled experts demonstrated that the evolutionary arguments brought forth by the majority of contemporary scientists contradict the acknowledged Laws of Nature and, therefore, can be refuted scientifically.

Their presentations are contained in this enlightening book, Evolution Theory and the Sciences: A Critical Examination.

The Light Comes from the East

Our Lord Jesus Christ promised that in the future there would be "one flock and one shepherd," and He has sent His Mother, the Holy Theotokos, to earth to show us how this unity can be achieved in our lifetime.

Heaven's Plan to restore the unity of East and West was revealed by the Holy Mother of God at Fatima, Portugal, in 1917, and confirmed by the greatest public miracle since the Resurrection of Jesus.

This book, The Light Comes from the East, attempts to explain Our Lord's Fatima plan to restore the unity of His Mystical Body and attempts to show what can be done to help bring that plan to fruition.

The book is spoiled by some unfortunate ill informed and unhelpful passing comments regarding Russia's current government and her President but, nevertheless, Dr. David Allen White, Professor Emeritus of Literature at the United States Naval Academy can still write that "I highly recommend The Light Comes from the East by Mr. Hugh Owen. I found this new book revelatory and absolutely intriguing. It is, in my opinion, a brilliant, original, and clearly inspired piece of work that should be in wide circulation.

"Our Lady's requests have been too long ignored and the world is suffering as a result of that delay. I believe this work could help bring about the compliance with her requests and insure the glorious results she has promised".

Children's Colouring Books

Our Lady of Knock Catholic Story Colouring Book 

Text by Mary Fabyan Windeatt

Illustrations by Gedge Harmon

As Mrs. McLaughlin and 26-year-old Mary Beirne hurried along in the rain on the night of 21st August, 1879, in the village of Knock, Ireland, they were astonished to see a silvery light and three beautiful figures outside the south gable of the parish church; next to the figures was an altar with a lamb on it. Mary Beirne recognised the three as St. Joseph, Our Lady and St. John the Evangelist; she ran home to tell her mother and family. Word spread, and soon there were fourteen adults and children gazing at the marvel. After more than an hour, the vision faded away.

When the witnesses told their story, there were many scoffers. But soon there was a remarkable cure of a twelve-year-old girl who had been stone deaf for four years, and before long there were more cures - most of them after prayers to the Blessed Virgin Mary and after touching a piece of cement from the south gable of the church.

Some people were puzzled because Our Lady had not requested prayer and penance at Knock, as she had done at other apparitions. But the parish priest suggested that this may have been because the Irish had never lost the spirit of prayer and penance, having suffered so much from poverty, famine and terrible persecution for the Faith - often because they would not deny the Mass, the Sacraments, Our Lady and the Saints. Perhaps, he suggested, the remarkable apparition at Knock was a silent blessing and a reward for the centuries-long faithfulness of Catholic Ireland.

With hindsight, we can now easily understand that the apparition at Knock was a warning of things to come, with the parish church serving as a symbol of the 'official' structures of the Church - the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass would no longer (with relatively rare exceptions) be found inside the official structures but forced outside to the periphery.

Our Lady of La Salette Catholic Story Colouring Book 

Text by Mary Fabyan Windeatt

Illustrations by Gedge Harmon

One day back in the year 1846, fourteen-year-old Melanie and eleven-year-old Maximin were pasturing their flocks on a mountainside in La Salette, France, when suddenly they saw a bright light, in the midst of which was a beautiful lady - the Blessed Virgin Mary. She was seated on a rock, weeping bitterly. She told the children that people should not work on Sundays or blaspheme, and that because they did these things her Son would have to punish them with famine and disease. She then gave each of the children a secret message.

After a time, both the children wrote down their secrets to be sent to the Holy Father. The Pontiff remarked that Maximin's secret had the simplicity of a child. But after he had read Melanie's, he became grave and spoke of calamities to fall upon the Church Militant. The Pope was much impressed with the secrets; he sent word that a new church should be built at La Salette. Soon La Salette became a place of pilgrimage.

Both Maximin and Melanie were to have a difficult time for the rest of their lives, the message from Heaven was too disturbing for many men of the Church to contemplate and the messengers were greatly scorned. After some years God called home these two messengers of Our Lady - first Maximin, then later Melanie. Today there is a big church in La Salette, and a shrine in honour of Our Lady which recalls the warnings she gave to us with such sorrow and love through two shepherd children in 1846, but still the warning from Heaven goes unheeded.

The Secret Still Hidden

The Secret Still Hidden

An investigation into the private campaign of the Vatican Secretariat of State to conceal the words of the Virgin Mary in the Third Secret of Fatima.
 This book, written by Catholic lawyer Christopher Ferrara, is the first full-length examination of the grounds for rejecting Cardinal Bertone's version of the facts in the Third Secret controversy. The Cardinal's own statements, including his book and radio and television broadcasts in 2007, are shown to demonstrate beyond any doubt that a text of the Secret has been suppressed, evidently under an unjustifiable mental reservation that the text is not "authentic".

Amongst other things, the evidence presented here demonstrates that:

• The Secret has two parts, as Pope Pius XII's own investigator revealed, one which contains the words of the Virgin that are not found in the published vision.
• There are two different Third Secret envelopes, each bearing its own warning, in Sister Lucia's handwriting, that by "express order of Our Lady" the envelope is not to be opened before 1960.
• There are two different locations for these envelopes: the Holy Office archives for one, the papal apartment for the other.
• The text of the Secret was inside an outer envelope bearing dictation by Pope John XXIII and kept in the papal apartment — an envelope the Secretary of State has never produced even though he now concedes that the envelope exists.
• There are two different Third Secret translations in Italian, neither of which has been made public by the Vatican.
• Three different Popes since 1959 read texts of the Secret on two different dates - years apart - even though the Vatican's official explanation claims there was only a single reading by each Pope.

And yet the Catholic faithful are still being asked to believe that there is only one text of the Third Secret, and that the Virgin had nothing to say about the meaning of the ominous vision she herself confided to the Fatima seers. Whoever still believes this will have no good reason to continue believing after reading this book. And, given the absolute urgency of the Secret for every inhabitant of the planet, the case presented here should motivate Catholics and non-Catholics alike to demand that the Vatican reveal the hidden words of the Virgin to the whole world - before it is too late.

Paperback. 256 pp.

Music for Piano

Music for Piano by Nicholas Wilton - CD

Each copy of the CD sold by Carmel Books is autographed by the acclaimed composer.

"A young composer based in England, Nicholas Wilton has previously achieved success with his disc of sacred choral music.

His music is deceptively simple. Here, in a disc dedicated to his mother and father, are eight short pieces. The accompanying commentary to the disc states modestly that this is a “short recording of a few miniatures for piano for those who might like them”. The miniatures are impeccably championed by the evidently highly musical pianist, Alexei Knupffer. The program note also openly acknowledges that Wilton wears his major influences on his sleeve, and such is the case. Chopin and Scarlatti cast the longest shadows, while Shostakovich, Beethoven and Liszt lurk in the background (sometimes in the far background).

The short recital begins with the D-Minor Toccata, where it is surely Scarlatti that feeds the compositional hand (both texture and gesture point to this). The melancholy Spanish Dance in A (perhaps pointing towards Albéniz) is geographically specific in demeanour but more, it holds a key to Wilton’s methodology: that of a Satie-esque way of making the most of ostensibly simple gestures.

The Waltzes speak most strongly of the influence of Chopin (the second, the F-Minor, in particular, to my ears, and the Fourth, in a hyper-melancholy C-Minor: though the ending of the latter piece, a question mark in music, points more towards the enigmantic Satie again). The Waltzes speak, also, of a gentle soul at work here, but a soul that is entirely unafraid to speak its own truth. Accusations of being derivative are inevitable, perhaps, but careful listening reveals deeper truths. The charming innocence of the opening of the third Waltz (G-Minor) is perhaps allied to the technique of emotional Rückblick that one encounters in Schumann’s Kinderszenen, and even as Wilton’s Waltz opens out emotionally, it remains overshadowed by its opening.

The only Waltz to demonstrate any real sort of assertiveness, and then briefly, is the Fifth (A flat-Minor). The final B-Minor rides the tightrope of playful and melancholy with consummate expertise, ending with a firm gesture; yet, nevertheless, we are left wanting more.

The recording is quite close, but that is not inappropriate for music of this ilk. Fascinating".

Reviewed by Colin Clarke for Fanfare magazine.

Audio CD.