Parable of the "prodigal papa": Michael D. O'Brien's "The Father's Tale"

Reprinted on RenewAmerica and Spero News.

To enter into the domain into which this book takes its readers is to find oneself in the precincts of Holiness...The scrim that lies between ordinariness and That Which Lies Beyond...is pierced. -from author Thomas Howard's The Father's Tale review

The best of Michael O'Brien's novels. He creates characters like Dickens, explores human relationships like Austen, and has the epic scope of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky...will merit inclusion in any list of the world's greatest novels. -from Fr. Joseph Fessio's TFT review

There are no perfect parents in this world, Andrew. None. We all make our mistakes, and we leave marks and gaps in our children's lives. But we do love them--imperfect love, as all human love is. Then, when children become adults and have their own families, they begin to understand. They in turn learn the need for forgiveness. In prison I learned to forgive my own father, and saw that he needed to forgive his father. No one is exempt from this. It goes all the way back to Adam and Eve.

You're saying that you want me to forgive you...the best father in the world?

Yes, whenever you are ready... -from The Father's Tale

Despite the glowing book-jacket compliments, conventional wisdom says that when the average 2012 "reader" looks up (or picks up!) Catholic writer/artist extraordinaire Michael O'Brien's latest and greatest novel The Father's Tale (Ignatius Press, 2011) and discovers it has ONE THOUSAND AND SEVENTY TWO pages (not counting "Author's Notes") 99% percent of the texting, twittering masses will put it down forever, never to explore the eternal wisdom contained within. But orthodox Irish writers, whether it be the Canadian O'Brien or the American O'Toole, are too much dreamers to believe in conventions, so if O'Brien can pierce "ordinariness" and what "Lies Beyond"; bridge heaven and earth in a work of fiction, surely an O'Toole review should be able to close the gap between those who (still) read books and those who can't handle more than 150 characters. Granted, the gap between those who read and write and those who twitter and tweet is almost as great as the gap between heaven and earth, but O'Brien and O'Toole (both prodigal father's themselves) believe in the power of writing's "secret weapon," the Eucharist...

Campaign 2012: The Ballad of Rick Santorum

Today is the day the music (aka Buddy Holly, Richie Valens, The Big Bopper) died. Let Rick Santorum's ballad bring the music alive again !!

Rick Santorum feels we should stick to our core principles, constitutional as well as spiritual; we can't do this without God! This song was written with these values in mind, echoing the unvarnished record and beliefs of a man of Faith, Rick Santorum. -Jack Bond, 1-28-12, Feast of St. Thomas Aquinas

The Santorum forum pt VII: can Rick's conservatism stop Obama's contraceptive-ism?

Reprinted on RenewAmerica.

[H]usband and wife become in a way one heart and one soul...marriage is a love that is total...[M]arriage must of necessity retain its intrinsic relationship to the procreation of life...[or else] who will prevent public authorities from favoring those contraceptive methods which they consider most effective? Should they regard this as necessary, they may impose their use on everyone. -Pope Paul VI, from the encyclical "Humanae Vitae"

Everybody is guilty of some transgression against conservatism except Santorum. -Rush Limbaugh

Rick Santorum with his daughter, Bella (in an undated photo).

Just as President Obama announced his full-scale war on the Catholic Church, presidential candidate (and the only true conservative Catholic in the race) Rick Santorum, was forced (due to the hospitalization of his special needs daughter, Bella), to withdraw from active campaigning in Florida. Indeed, his third-place 13% showing in the Sunshine State appears to hold an anything-but-sunny hope in his attempt to stop the wealthy Romney's coronation for the Republican nomination. But as the Santorum candidacy heads into February, Bella's miraculous recovery seems to have Santorum believing his 13% on January 31 may prove lucky yet.

Rick Santorum and Joe Paterno: two tragic American tales

Reprinted on RenewAmerica and Spero News.

I said many, many times that one of the reasons Joe was hanging on to that position is because if he left, he’d die...I knew Joe very well, and it was a very tragic tale, his last few months...tragic that a life so well lived and someone who had made such a great contribution to sports and to our culture would have the end of his life end in such a sad way. -Rick Santorum

The official cause of death for the legendary Penn State coach, Joe Paterno, was complications from lung cancer, but I think former Penn State player and current ESPN broadcaster, Todd Blackledge, was more to the heart of the matter when he said "Joe Pa" "died of a broken heart." GOP presidential candidate and Penn State alum, Rick Santorum, elaborated on this theme when Paterno passed away yesterday, a date already made more than tragic as the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the beginning of the end of our Republic.