Books

A Sister of the Most Precious Blood of O'Fallon has written a children's book that she hopes will help people understand the complex topic of microfinancing.

Sister Antoinette "Toni" Temporiti has published "One Potato Two," the story of Mumbi, a young African girl whose mother is able to feed the family thanks to a potato-selling business that was begun through a microfinancing loan.

In 2006, Sister Toni founded Microfinancing Partners in Africa, a St. Louis-based nonprofit organization that provides assistance to strengthen and expand microfinancing programs in Africa.

In western Kenya there are seven seasons, all named for their relation to farming activity. After harvest season in August and September comes second planting, then festival days of December, dry season of January, preparing the land in February, the rains of March and April, when seeds for the first harvest are planted, and then -- each year -- the hunger season.

It seems absurd that farmers who grow more food than they can consume must each year go hungry in May, June and July, as they wait for the first crop to grow, but so it goes in Kenya and much of Africa.

Author William Federer has one foot in the field of U.S. history and another in the current abortion debate in the United States.

He finds many comparisons between the issues of slavery and abortion and the U.S. Supreme Court decisions that allowed them.

Women who have experienced a miscarriage often feel alone. The grief can be devastating and seeking support can be overwhelming.

Some skeptics might call the religious visions detailed by author Immaculee Ilibagiza in "The Boy Who Met Jesus: Segatashya of Kibeho" nothing but the hallmark hallucinations of temporal lobe epilepsy. Others will see them as direct manifestations of the divine in everyday life. In any case, this story of a poor, illiterate Rwandan shepherd boy's spiritual journey is absorbing and sometimes inspiring.

Christianity's failings were often due to its political involvements or to meddling from rulers. The Church has repeatedly had to fight against this power orientation.

While Emperor Constantine deeply damaged the Church for centuries, Christianity has always reformed and remade itself, on the whole staying faithful to the Gospel. Especially since the Reformation, but at many episodes prior to that as well, the Roman Church has been a community of the pious.