Well Known/Famous Persons
Mamma Margherita
Model Mother
by Fr Augustin Auffray, SDB
“The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world”, goes the old saying. This has rarely been so true as in the case of Mamma Margherita Bosco, mother of the great apostle of youth, Saint John Bosco.
A peasant by birth, Margherita already demonstrated virtue, courage and common sense as a young girl. After her husband’s death, she single-handedly raised her three boys while running the family farm. Then, when her beloved John called on her help for his budding Oratory in Turin, she generously answered his call. She once more became a mother – this time of hundreds of boys in Turin.
Partly using material from his monumental biography of Don Bosco and partly relying on the Saint’s memoirs, Father Auffray paints as complete a picture as possible of this great woman.
Father Auffray wrote this book in order to give mothers an example they could follow and in order to encourage them in the difficulties inherent in their sacred task of raising children.
“We offer to all women who feel in their heart the desire to be “mothers of a holy people” this model of energy, abnegation and Christian spirit in the education of her children”. Father Augustin Auffray (Preface)
Paperback, sixe 7" x 4.5", 174 pages
Monk at the Heart of the Church
by Dom Guy Marie Oury, O.S.B.
Translated by Hope Heaney
After the devastation of the French Revolution, the first abbot of Solesmes launched the ecclesial movement which invited all Christians to experience a spiritual participation in the liturgy, “the initial source of the true Christian spirit.” Dom Guéranger worked to instill knowledge and love for the origins of Christianity and the Church of the Fathers, thus preparing a fertile and fruitful “return to the sources” for the entire Church.
He defined himself as “a man of the spiritual order,” opposed in every way to the naturalism of his era. It seemed to him, and rightly so, that God’s mystery could not be treated as were the human sciences—He transcended them. Throughout his entire life, Dom Guéranger never stopped protesting against “the diminished truths” mentioned in Psalm 11:2.
Paperback, size 9" x 6", 440 pages
A Story of Monsignor Ronald Knox
by Brother Edward Overstreet, C.S.C.
Ronald Knox was born in England in 1888, and he grew up in the Church of England. After much study and prayer, Ronald decided to join the Roman Catholic Church in 1917. Ronald was ordained a priest in 1919. Father Knox was a brilliant writer who published many works, but he saw a great need in the English-speaking Church: the need for a new translation of the Bible.
Level 3
Paperback, size 9" x 6", 145 pages
Heroic Catholic Chaplains
Stories of the Brave and Holy Men Who Dodged Bullets While Saving Souls
by Thomas J. Craughwell
For nearly 200 years—standing alongside our heroic military men and women—have been heroic Catholic priests risking their lives to carry wounded soldiers to safety and to console, anoint, and absolve the dying. Heroic Catholic Chaplains spotlights the stories of these courageous, selfless, holy priests who volunteered to bring the Mass and the sacraments to American troops, while also offering them their friendship and spiritual counsel.
In this book, you’ll encounter… Father William Corby, who left his post at Notre Dame to serve the Irish Brigade during all four years of the Civil War; Father Francis Duffy, a World War I chaplain whose story became the subject of a Hollywood movie; Father Aloysius Schmitt, who, during the attack on Pearl Harbor, saved the lives of a dozen men before losing his own; Monsignor James O’Neill, who composed the famous “Weather Prayer” for General Patton, an incident that would be immortalized in film, if not entirely accurately; Father Emil Kapaun, who, during months in a North Korean prison camp, worked tirelessly to save the lives and the souls of his fellow POWs (the process that could lead to Father Kapaun being declared a saint is underway); Father Vincent Capodanno, who was killed by the Viet Cong as he ran to help a wounded corpsman; And more!
Heroic Catholic Chaplains brings to the fore the stories of remarkable priests, most of whom have been overlooked by both military and Catholic historians. Their sacrifice and courage are difficult to imagine. They served so that our servicemen and women would not be without comfort, or without a friend, or be deprived of the Mass and the sacraments; so they would not fall into despair. These chaplains deserve to be remembered, their stories told, and their memories honored.
Hardback, size 8.75" x 5.6", 216 pages
Empress of Austria and Queen of Hungary
by Charles A. Coulombe
Empress Zita of Austria (1892—1989) was declared a Servant of God by Pope Benedict XVI. But who is she? What is it about her life and spirituality that inspired the Church to open the investigation into her beatification?
Zita’s life and her integral role within the House of Habsburg during the tumultuous 20th century are not well known. In Zita: Empress of Austria and Queen of Hungary, Charles Coulombe takes readers through Zita’s lineage and the political climate she was born into, Bl. Charles and Zita’s marriage, her support of Bl. Charles amid the destruction of the Catholic Monarchy, and much more. Bl. Charles and Zita’s story is one of hope, perseverance, and great faith. Through this couple’s devotion to the Sacred Heart, they inspired their children and their peoples to a greater love of God and country, despite the many trials they faced. As we similarly live in a society that denies God and attacks the family, we can turn to the example of this saintly couple.
Journey with Zita to learn how she persevered after Charles’s death, which left her in exile with their seven children and an eighth on the way, and how she kept the hope of a restored House of Habsburg alive, even under the threat of Nazism.
Hardcover, size 8.5" x 5.5", 424 pages
by Marie de Sainte-Hermine
Inspired by first hand accounts, this touching story of the French Revolution is a great example of the popular Catholic literature of the 19th century. Plunged into the disasters following the murder of Louis XVI, Marie de Sainte-Hermine recounts, as only a grandmother can, the history of her noble family and their struggle against the tyranny of the Revolution. The reader learns of her guilded childhood in the manor house of Bois-Joli, and follows her through the tragic hours of the Vendean War of 1793, the massacres and atrocities of the revolutionaries, and the sinister prison of Nantes, where her family paid the ultimate price. Through the darkness of the Terror, however, shines the light and power of Christian nobility and virtue - a lesson fit for all ages.
Paperback, size 9" x 6", 357 pages
The True Story of the Knight of Vivar
by James Fitzhenry
This book is an inspiring biography about an extraordinary Catholic knight chosen by God to save his nation from Islamic aggression. Known by the honorary title of El Cid, Rodrigo Diaz is an epic hero who is relevant to our time. Exiled by his king, insulted and maligned by those who should have supported him, he selflessly fought against seemingly insurmountable odds to save Christian Spain. Commanding the respect even of his enemies, upon his death a Muslim historian acclaimed him a "miracle among the great miracles of the Almighty."
The Cid is an example of what can be achieved through devotion to duty, prayer, and trust in God.
Ages: 12 and older
Paperback, size 8.5" x 5.5", 186 pages
The Way of Divine Love
by Sister Josefa Menendez
Sister Josefa Menéndez was born into a devoutly Catholic family in Madrid, Spain on February 4, 1890. Endowed with an aptitude for prayer and drawn to the religious life from childhood, she first had to support her povertystricken family as a dressmaker. In spite of many hardships her desire to completely offer herself to God never wavered. She left Spain in 1920 to enter a French monastery of the Society of the Sacred Heart, where she became a Coadjutrix Sister. In the convent she received numerous private revelations that gave her a distinguished place among visionaries of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. She died a holy death on December 29, 1923.
The Way of Divine Love is the definitive record of Sister Menéndez’s life and the heavenly messages that she received. It is one of the most complete chronicles of an individual’s extraordinary mystical experiences in the history of the Church. Despite many trials in her daily life, she recorded everything that she received from heaven as faithfully as possible, including her incredibly detailed visions of the Passion of Christ.
Everything in Josefa’s life is grace giving and profoundly moving. Her writings and her life confirm each other, as evidence that all that took place in her was divine in origin. Even the most extraordinary happenings have an aim and significance. There are no unessential details, no record of revelations that do not bring out in clearer light and force some dogmatic truth, giving us deeper insight into the Heart of Our Lord, His love, the value of souls, the happiness of heaven, the irreparable loss of the damned.
Leather hardcover, size 8.5" x 5.5", 584 pages
A Muslim Risks All to Follow Christ
by Joseph Fadelle
During his military service, Muhammad, a young Muslim Iraqi from a leading Shiite family, discovers to his dismay that his roommate is a Christian. Muhammad tries to convert his roommate, but he is the one who is converted.
In Islam changing one's religion is a crime, and Muhammad's family does everything possible to make him renounce his new faith in Christ. After threats and blows come prison and torture. Muhammad, who has become Joseph by his baptism, experiences a long Calvary but does not give in. Finally, he is taken from prison by relatives who threaten to kill him if he does not resubmit to Islam. They shoot him and leave him for dead.
The Price to Pay is the true story of Joseph Fadelle's conversion to Catholicism. He risks everything-family, friends, his inheritance and home, and even his life-in order to follow Christ. In a dramatic and personal narrative style, Fadelle reveals the horrible persecution endured by Christians living in a violent and hostile Muslim world.
Paperback, size 8" x 5.25", 232 pages
by Fr John Gerard, S.J.
Truth is stranger than fiction. And nowhere in literature is it so apparent as in this classic work, The Autobiography of a Hunted Priest. This autobiography of a Jesuit priest in Elizabethan England is a most remarkable document and John Gerard, its author, a most remarkable priest in a time when to be a Catholic in England courted imprisonment and torture; to be a priest was treason by act of Parliament.
Smuggled into England after his ordination and dumped on a Norfolk beach at night, Fr. Gerard disguised himself as a country gentleman and traveled about the country saying Mass, preaching and ministering to the faithful in secret always in constant danger. The houses in which he found shelter were frequently raided by priest hunters; priest-holes, hide-outs and hair-breadth escapes were part of his daily life. He was finally caught and imprisoned, and later removed to the infamous Tower of London where he was brutally tortured.
The stirring account of his escape, by means of a rope thrown across the moat, is a daring and magnificent climax to a true story which, for sheer narrative power and interest, far exceeds any fiction. Here is an accurate and compelling picture of England when Catholics were denied their freedom to worship and endured vicious persecution and often martyrdom. But more than the story of a single priest, "The Autobiography of a Hunted Priest" epitomizes the constant struggle of all human beings through the ages to maintain their freedom. It is a book of courage and of conviction whose message is most timely for our age.
Paperback, size 8" x 5.5", 395 pages
The True Story of Fr. Gereon Goldmann
by Fr. Gereon Goldmann
Here is the astonishing true story of the harrowing experiences of a young German seminarian drafted into Hitler's dreaded SS at the onset of World War II. Without betraying his Christian ideals, against all odds, and in the face of Evil, Gereon Goldmann was able to complete his priestly training, be ordained, and secretly minister to German Catholic soldiers and innocent civilian victims caught up in the horrors of war. How it all came to pass will astound you.
Father Goldmann tells of his own incredible experiences of the trials of war, his many escapes from almost certain death, and the diabolical persecution that he and his fellow Catholic soldiers encountered on account of their faith. What emerges is an extraordinary witness to the workings of Divine Providence and the undying power of love, prayer, faith, and sacrifice. Illustrated
Paperback, size 8" x 5.2", 350 pages
by The Benedictines of Mary, Queen of Apostles
Sister Mary Wilhelmina Lancaster, OSB, founded the Benedictine Sisters of Mary, Queen of Apostles in 1995 at the age of seventy. Four years after her death, in May 2023, the sisters were preparing for the reinterment of the remains of their beloved foundress after the completion of a St. Joseph Shrine. Upon seeing Sister Mary’s remains, they discovered something incredible, something miraculous— her body appeared to be incorrupt!
In The Life of Sr. Mary Wilhelmina, you will become acquainted with this most humble sister, who, after fifty years of religious life, was called to establish the Benedictines of Mary, Queen of Apostles, to remain faithful to the traditional religious life and the Latin Mass. This biography includes stories of her life, her experience as a Black Catholic during racial tensions, the founding of a community, and her original poetry. Her entire life is a testament to fidelity, devotion, and surrender to God’s will.
Hardcover, size 8.25" x 5.5", 152 pages
The record of a life and of a conflict between two faiths
by Bella V. Dodd
The story of how Bella Dodd left the Catholic Faith of her childhood to become a high-ranking member of the Communist Party USA, and later found her way back to the Church.
Bella Dodd ranks with Whittaker Chambers as a leading converted communist. Her testimony before investigating committees revealed the extent to which communist infiltration had taken place in America, particularly among teachers in schools and colleges. This record of her life describes how she came to be a member of the Communist Party, the reasons for her gradual disillusionment and final break with the party, and her eventual return to the Catholic Church into which she was born.
Her conversion to Communism was a slow usurpation of the mind by an appeal to love of humanity, a vision of a better society, and wider social justice. In time she became a member of the Party’s National Committee, and was intensely active in combating the Rapp-Coudert investigation of communist teachers, in supporting Loyalist Spain, and in the “united democratic front” maintained during World War II. But she was gradually repelled by the dictatorial methods of the Party and the constant struggle for power. Her divorce from her husband, and her own ill health speeded her estrangement from Party leaders and resulted in her expulsion from the Party in 1949.
Dodd’s re-entrance into the Catholic Church—which as a communist she had so bitterly attacked—was a natural result of her new state of mind. In the early 1950s, she provided detailed explanations of the Communist subversion of the Church, reporting that “in the 1930s we put eleven hundred men into the priesthood in order to destroy the Church from within, [and that] right now they are in the highest places in the Church.” From such positions they were working to bring about change in order to weaken the Church’s effectiveness against Communism. She said further that these changes would be so drastic that “you will not recognize the Catholic Church.”
Bella Dodd’s story is a human document of immense importance to Americans today. Here are the inner workings of the Communist Party in the United States in the early to mid-20th century as seen from the secret counsels and strategy meetings of the National Committee, to which she belonged for a crucial span of years. The climax of the book is a snowy Christmas Eve when Bella finds the reaffirmation of her faith, and is able to say, “I have learned from bitter experience that you cannot serve man unless you first serve God in sincerity and truth.” Not being able to secure her baptismal certificate from Italy after inquiry, she was baptized by Bishop Fulton J. Sheen in St. Patrick’s Cathedral, New York.
Hardcover with dust jacket, size 8.25" x 5.5", 264 pages
by Fr. Charles Mortimer Carty
Fascinating accounts of a much misunderstood reality, describing well-known and well documented cases: St. Francis of Assisi, Padre Pio, Therese Neumann, etc. A scientific and theological examination. Sparks the interest of all.
Booklet, size 6" x 3.75", 32 pages
The Life of Satoko Kitahara - Convert and Servant of the Slums of Tokyo
by Fr Paul Glynn, S.M.
Following his acclaimed work, A Song for Nagasaki, in which Fr. Paul Glynn told the powerful story of Dr. Nagai, a Christian convert of remarkable courage and compassion who ministered to victims of the atomic bomb attack on his city, The Smile of a Ragpicker brings us the heroic story of Satoko Kitahara, a young, beautiful woman of wealth who gave up her riches and comfort to be among the ragpickers in the Tokyo slums. Motivated by her newfound faith in Christ, she plunged into the life of the poor, regardless of the consequences.
As Satoko helped the poor with their material and spiritual needs, she also helped them to recover their self-respect and dignity. Satoko’s story demonstrates how one person’s life can affect so many others.
Every day Satoko encountered Christ in some new and challenging way, calling the Church back to identification with the poor. Like Dr. Nagai, she expressed her faith through the sensitivity and beauty of her own Japanese culture. Satoko died a young woman, in dire poverty. Yet her death, mourned by many thousands, reflected her triumphant life of deep Christian faith and charity.
This is a powerful story of reconciliation and healing, between people of different social, economic and religious backgrounds, inspired by a frail young woman of luminous faith.
Paperback, size 8" x 5.25", 289 pages, Illustrated with photos
The Irish Priest Who Resisted the Nazis
by Fiorella De Maria
Monsignor Hugh O'Flaherty was working in the Vatican when dictator Benito Mussolini fell from power and Germany invaded Italy in 1943. This courageous Irish priest who resisted the Nazi occupation was made famous by the movie, The Scarlet and the Black, starring Gregory Peck. The Monsignor O'Flaherty brought to life in this story is as intriguing and exciting as the film version.
Witty, brilliant, and fearless, Monsignor O'Flaherty helped escaped Allied prisoners of war and persecuted Jews to elude capture by the Germans. At great risk to themselves, Monsignor O'Flaherty and his equally brave friends—priests, nuns, and lay men and women, including a few aristocrats—saved thousands of lives. They constantly needed to stay one step ahead of the ever-persistent Nazis until their surrender to the Allies in 1945.
Not just a thrilling adventure story, this book offers a portal into a real-life battle between good and evil. It also tells of the need after a war for forgiveness and redemption.
Paberback, size 8" x 5.25", 196 pages
by Sisters of Society of St Pius X
It is after a long missionary religious life that Mother Marie Gabriel (nee Bernadette Lefebvre) responds to a new call from God: her brother, Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, asks her to come and take care of the postulants of a religious congregation that does not yet exist … except in the plans of Divine Providence.
This book narrates the childhood and youth of Bernadette Lefebvre, her missionary vocation, and the devotedness of Mother Marie Gabriel during her forty years in Africa, before giving herself to the task of forming the first Sisters of the Society Saint Pius X.
The reader will discover a summary of this simple, generous and completely given life.
Paperback, size 8.7" x 5.4", 136 pages
A Novel of Baldwin IV and the Crusades
by Susan Peek
A new historical novel about the unusual life of King Baldwin IV of Jerusalem, the leper crusader king who - despite ascending to the throne at only 13, his early death at 24 and his debilitating disease - performed great and heroic deeds in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds. Teenagers and avid readers of all ages will be amazed at this story and be inspired by a faith that accomplished the impossible!
Age range 13 - adult
Paperback, size 8.5" x 5.5", 185 pages
A Story of Venerable Leo Papin Dupont
by Brother Gerard Hagemann, C.S.C.
Known as the Holy Man of Tours, Leo Dupont worked hard to spread the devotion to the Holy Face of Jesus.
Level 2
Paperback, size 9" x 6", 96 pages