Books

Two books for Catholic mothers are a reminder that moms need attention and help beyond just Mother's Day. Dr. Meg Meeker offers suggestions for happy mothers in her book, "The 10 Habits of Happy Mothers: Reclaiming our Passion, Purpose and Sanity," and Jeanne Hunt provides activities for mothers (and teachers) to do with children in her book, "Celebrating Saints and Seasons: Hundreds of Activities for Catholic Children."

WASHINGTON -- As a 37-year-old priest, then-Father Donald W. Wuerl witnessed the election of Pope John Paul II in 1978, as reportedly the only noncardinal allowed into that conclave.

He was priest-secretary to U.S. Cardinal John Wright, who was then in frail health, and he assisted the churchman at the conclave.

The priest at the conclave is now a cardinal and the archbishop of Washington. On May 1, he will be among the cardinals from throughout the world who will join Pope Benedict XVI in concelebrating the beatification Mass for Pope John Paul II.

WASHINGTON — Bishops have a responsibility to teach the Catholic faith and preserve it "as it has been received and passed on" and thus are bound to respond to the work of theologians if they perceive the faith is being portrayed in error, the chairman of the U.S. bishops' Committee on Doctrine, said in a new resource for prelates.

While bishops welcome dialogue with any theologian over any particular work, they also must uphold the teaching magisterium of the church, said Cardinal Donald W. Wuerl of Washington, the committee chairman.

WASHINGTON (CNS) — In a detailed critique, the U.S. bishops' Committee on Doctrine has concluded that a 2007 book written by Fordham University theology professor Sister Elizabeth A. Johnson "contains misrepresentations, ambiguities and errors" related to the Catholic faith.

The next theologian to be censured by the Church will be announced at 6 p.m. June 24 at the Wyndham Grand Pittsburgh Downtown Hotel. That is when the Catholic Press Association will hold its annual awards banquet at which the First Place Book Award for Theology will announced. Winning the CPA book award in Theology has coincided so often with subsequent investigation by the U.S. bishops' Doctrine Committee or by the Vatican that another editor friend of mine once quipped, "CPA in the spring, CDF in the fall."

Readers of a certain generation will be drawn to “The Archbishop Wore Combat Boots,” a well-told living history of a remarkable man of the cloth. But this is a book for anyone of any age curious to experience the interior structure of the American Catholic Church as it unfolds against the unsettled and unsettling backdrop of seven decades of American (and Vatican) history.