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 THE SONG OF FRANCIS AND THE ANIMALS, by Pat Mora. Illustrations
by David Frampton. Eerdmans Books
for Young Readers. 32 pp. $16.
Reviewed by JACK WINTZ, O.F.M., senior
editor of this publication and author of the
children’s book St. Francis in San Francisco (Paulist Press).
ST. FRANCIS OF ASSISI saw all creatures
as brothers and sisters—as forming one
family of creation. Award-winning children’s
writer Pat Mora and woodcut
illustrator David Frampton wondrously
convey this Franciscan insight in their
delightful book.
The Francis portrayed here is playful,
childlike and humble, exhibiting a
great respect for each precious creature.
Kneeling upon the earth, Francis
picks up a “weary worm creeping up a
hot, rocky path.” He places it on shady
grass and, like a child, lies on the earth
to watch it slither “into the cool greenness.”
Nearly all the creatures featured in
this story—birds, lambs, a worm, a
cicada, animals around the manger
scene in Greccio, the wolf of Gubbio,
the falcon that served as an alarm clock
awakening the saint
for prayer—can be
traced back to familiar
stories of Francis
found in the earliest
biographies of him.
Each of these freshly
presented vignettes
comes across with
simple, authentic
charm.
As the book’s title
suggests, a musical
bond prevails between
the animals and Francis in this
story: All creatures form one symphony
of praise before God. The whole story
echoes the spirit of St. Francis’ own
“Canticle of the Creatures,” which
becomes the focus of the book’s final
pages.
You can order THE SONG OF FRANCIS AND THE ANIMALS from St.
Francis Bookshop.
EVERY PILGRIM'S GUIDE TO ASSISI and Other Franciscan Places, by
Judith Dean, with illustrations by
Molly Dowell and Colin Dunn. Paraclete
Press. 123 pp. $14.95.
THREE HEROES OF ASSISI IN WORLD WAR II: Bishop Giuseppe Nicolini, Colonel Valentin Müller, Don Aldo Brunacci, edited and written by Josef
Raischl, S.F.O., and André Cirino,
O.F.M. 148 pp. Editrice Minerva-Assisi.
14 Euros. (Available in the United
States from Father André Cirino,
O.F.M., 25 Laurel Avenue, Mt. Vernon,
NY 10552-1018, for a check made out
to Friars Minor of St. Francis, for
$19.50, including postage.)
Reviewed by BARBARA BECKWITH, book
review editor of this publication. She has
been to Assisi three times, including a
Franciscan Pilgrimage conducted by Father
André Cirino.
THE HOMETOWN of Sts. Francis and
Clare, Assisi holds a special place in
the world’s heart. Its saints
continue to inspire every generation.
The late Pope John Paul
II called leaders of the world’s
religions together here twice
(1986 and 2002) to pray for
peace. Photographs of the damage
to Assisi sustained during
the 1997 earthquake, especially
the Basilica of St. Francis with its
precious frescoes, galvanized the
world to help the victims and
put right the physical damage.
Every Pilgrim’s Guide to Assisi is a simple guidebook, with lovely
black-and-white drawings and helpful
maps, geared to the pilgrim exploring
the area’s spiritual legacy. Judith Dean,
who lives in London, has led pilgrimages
to Umbria and Assisi. Her frame of
reference is English. The book was first
published in 2002 by Canterbury Press
Norwich of London.
The book combines practical information
(like the location of toilets
and the hours restaurants are usually
open) with detailed advice on what to
see in each church and at each site.
She has a wonderful explanation of the
message in every fresco and includes
Francis’ prayers at appropriate points.
Besides Assisi, the book includes
other places important in the lives of
Francis and Clare, like La Verna and
San Damiano, and suggests side excursions
to Rome, Florence and Siena.
This is an excellent, lightweight
guidebook, a supplement to colorful
guides like Eyewitness Travel Guides (DK
Publishing Inc., www.dk.com) and
comprehensive tomes like the Blue
Guide series (A.&C. Black/London and
W.W. Norton/New York).
The other book, Three Heroes of Assisi
in World War II, grew from interviews
with Don Aldo Brunacci, who was
Bishop Nicolini’s secretary during the
war years. It focuses on telling two stories:
First, the bishop enlisted the help
of a German officer, Colonel Valentin
Müller, to help preserve the city. The
devout Catholic colonel was a medical
doctor and got the city declared a hospital
city, thereby saving it from the
fate of the Benedictine Abbey of Monte
Cassino, which was destroyed by Allied
bombs in minutes in 1944.
Second, Bishop Nicolini played a pivotal
role in the effort to shelter more
than 200 Jews during the Nazi occupation
of Italy. This was an effort kept
secret from Colonel Müller, but
requested by the Vatican. This book
corrects some of the misinformation
in Alexander Ramati’s book The Assisi
Underground, later made into a movie.
Brunacci’s documentation proves
“only a Bishop—not the Padre Rufino
of the romanticized book-turned-film...could hoodwink the Nazis and
pull off such a complicated, covert
operation. In the film, the Franciscan
friars are given far more credit for the
safety of the Jews in Assisi than they
were in a position to provide.
It’s a laughable fiction,
really, since even St. Francis
put himself under the local
Bishop. Nothing of such
magnitude could have
occurred in Assisi without
the Bishop spearheading
it.”
Don Aldo was arrested in
May 1944 for hiding a Jewish
couple and taken to a
concentration camp.
The book also includes a
number of interviews Don Aldo has
given through the years, such as his
2004 National Public Radio conversation
with Bob Edwards, and different
sidelights on the story, like details about
Colonel Müller’s life after the war
offered by his son. It even offers St.
Anthony Messenger’s 1999 story about
Don Aldo.
Such stories need to be gathered now
because Don Aldo is the only survivor
of the Three Heroes, and he’s 93.
These two books explore Assisi the
pilgrim magnet and Assisi the living
history.
You can order EVERY PILGRIM’S GUIDE TO ASSISI
and Other Franciscan Places and THREE HEROES OF ASSISI IN WORLD
WAR II: Bishop Giuseppe Nicolini,
Colonel Valentin Müller, Don Aldo
Brunacci from St.
Francis Bookshop.
A THREAD OF GRACE: A Novel, by
Mary Doria Russell. 430 pp. Random
House, $25.95, hardcover; Ballantine
Books, $14.95, paperback.
Reviewed by BARBARA SONNENBERG, a
native Cincinnatian and a retired public
librarian.
AFTER TWO highly acclaimed science
fiction novels, Mary Russell has turned
to historical fiction for her latest work.
A book entitled Benevolence and Betrayal:
Five Italian Jewish Families Under Fascism brought to her attention a very
specific time and place where Jews fleeing
the Nazis were given haven.
Being of Italian heritage, raised as a
Roman Catholic and then converting
to Judaism, she was intrigued with the
fact that the highest Jewish survival
rate in Nazi-occupied Europe was in
Italy, despite a 20-month occupation
after Italy signed a separate peace agreement
with the Allies.
Utilizing five years of meticulous
research—including even
the type of airplane a leading
character would have
flown during the Abyssinian
Campaign of 1935—the author has produced a
spellbinding work that
places the reader in the
midst of the small joys and
overwhelming horrors of
living in a fictional village
named Sant’Andrea, in Liguria,
on the northwestern
coast of Italy, during the
years 1943 and 1944.
Leading characters include Albert
and Claudette Blum, Belgian Jews,
father and daughter, fleeing across the
Alps from southern France; Renzo and
Lidia Leoni, Italian Resistance members,
aviator-hero son and mother;
Iacopo Soncini, chief rabbi of Sant’Andrea;
Don Osvaldo Tomitz, Italian
parish priest; Suora Corniglia, Italian
Catholic nun and school administrator;
and Werner Schramm, former Nazi surgeon,
current deserter.
Numerous other village residents—village leaders; two Nazi commandants,
one with his wife, the other with his sister;
and defeated Italian soldiers struggling
to return to their homes—help
flesh out a complete picture of the hellish
conditions and strange relationships
war creates.
Russell does not disguise the horror
but leavens it with the earthy humor
and resilience of the characters and
their adeptness at securing necessities
by ingenuity and resourcefulness.
While barely able to supply their
own needs, and at the risk of their lives,
Italian civilians provided food and shelter
that saved 43,000 Jews from extermination
by the Nazi war machine
during the final phase of the war.
The novel gets its title from a Hebrew saying Rabbi Iacopo quotes to Suora
Corniglia: “No matter how dark the
tapestry God weaves for us, there’s
always a thread of grace.”
Russell conducted interviews with
rescuers, survivors and veterans both in
the United States and in Italy to validate
her plot and characters. When
queried about the religious foundations
of their faith and the effect of war, she
stated: “Yes, each character is endowed
with an ethical framework that’s challenged
at every moment and, in my
books, no good intention ever goes
unpunished. Sometimes the character
fails to live up to his faith’s ethics.
Sometimes the character does everything
right, only to be confronted with
impossible choices. They all judge
themselves, and hold themselves
accountable.
“In Italy, you don’t hear
the Nuremberg refrain, ‘I am
not responsible.’ There’s an
Italian saying that counters
that: ‘If you can help, you
must help.’ Italians did, and
they paid the price.”
Well-researched, with vibrant
characters, adept dialogue,
irresistible humor and
deep pathos, this book is
highly recommended for
mature readers. Those who enjoyed
the realism and action in such titles
as Captain Corelli’s Mandolin or The
English Patient will be similarly drawn
to this work, but there is much more
soul-searching and moral struggle
portrayed here: How does one reconcile
the atrocity of war with a loving,
caring God?
You can order A THREAD OF GRACE: A NOVEL from St. Francis Bookshop.
WITHOUT ROOTS: The West, Relativism, Christianity, Islam, by Joseph
Ratzinger and Marcello Pera. Foreword
by George Weigel. Translated
by Michael F. Moore. Basic Books.
159 pp. $22.
Reviewed by PAT McCLOSKEY, O.F.M.,
editor of this publication. In the late 1980s,
he served as director of communications at
the international headquarters of the Order
of Friars Minor in Rome.
ON MAY 14, 2004, Marcello Pera, professor
of philosophy of science at the
University of Pisa and president of the
Italian senate, gave a lecture at Rome’s
Pontifical Lateran University. By coincidence,
Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger
addressed the Italian senate
the following day. This volume
includes those revised
lectures, plus an undated
letter from each author to
the other.
In his Foreword, Weigel
asks, “[I]s it possible to imagine
anything properly called
‘civilization’ that lacks a
sense of the sacred?” He
declares that these lectures,
delivered for European audiences,
raise questions “of
urgent importance on both sides of the
Atlantic Ocean.”
Pera feels that Christianity’s great
contributions to Western civilization
are not being taken seriously today.
Challenging what he describes as political
correctness or “newspeak,” Pera responds:
“I deny that there are no valid
reasons for comparing and judging
institutions, principles and values. I
deny that such a comparison cannot
conclude that Western institutions
are better than their Islamic counterparts.”
In his lecture, Cardinal Ratzinger
presents Europe not as a continent
defined solely in geographic terms but
rather as a cultural and historical concept.
He regards monasticism as being
a bearer not only of cultural continuity “but above all of fundamental religious
and moral values, the ultimate guidance
of humankind.” The French
Revolution caused the state “to be
understood in purely secular terms, as
grounded in rationalism and the will of
the citizens.”
According to Ratzinger, the greatest
tragedy encountered by Communist
systems “was not economic. It was the
starvation of souls and the destruction
of the moral conscience.” Later he
affirms, “To the other cultures of the
world, there is something deeply alien
about the absolute secularism that is
developing in the West. They are convinced
that a world without God has
no future.”
Pera writes to Ratzinger: “Without a
civil religion, a society cannot live.”
The civil religion that Pera goes on to
describe sounds to me like the deism
that has, in fact, played a large part in
creating the kind of cultural relativism
that he rejects.
Ratzinger’s letter to Pera notes that
relativism today tends toward dogmatism.
His letter credits the United States
for its important contribution to the
freedom of Church and state.
On the day before he was elected
pope and took the name Benedict XVI,
Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger preached to
the cardinals preparing for the conclave
and rejected today’s “dictatorship
of relativism.”
This volume includes 20 pages of
Endnotes—mostly Pera’s—and an Index
of names.
In general, I found Ratzinger’s historical
arguments easier to follow and
more convincing. Pera’s more philosophical
approach does not build as
strong a case as he intended, for me at
least.
In any case, this volume reminds
readers that ideas matter and that every
civilization is based on the ideas and
fundamental values of some group of
people.
You can order WITHOUT ROOTS: The West, Relativism, Christianity, Islam from St. Francis Bookshop.
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