Christ among the Doctors of the Law

 

 

Wednesday, April 26, 2006

Homiletic and Pastoral Review (April 2006)

Wow. Regular readers know that I don't do book or magazine promos in my blog, but the current issue of Homiletic and Pastoral Review is too good to let pass without comment.

To highlight just a few items: Rev. Mark Pilon, though not a canonist, offers a canonically sound look at the advantages that might accrue if we started leaving pastors in parishes for more than a few years at a time. Msgr. John Burke brings out catechetical imperatives in the New Evangelization (a topic very dear to us here at Sacred Heart Major Seminary), and the redoubtable Fr. Anthony Zimmerman helps us unpack pastoral issues raised by the 1997 Vademecum for Confessors regarding contraception. Passing over Dominican Fr. Girard's homilies (I'm just a layman, so what do I know about preaching?) and Nancy Cross' critique of the New American Bible (I'm a cradle Catholic, so what do I know about the Bible?), Mary Gillman (a former graduate student of yours truly) writes a trenchant expose of the latent anti-Catholicism behind the perennial attacks on Pius XII in regard to the Holocaust, and there's an engaging reply by Chuff and Kathenborn to an earlier HPR article on the ordination of homosexuals (confirming that the really interesting debates occur within orthodoxy, not outside of it). All Detroit-area Catholics know about the "Grotto", but others might enjoy automotive engineer (!) Diane Korzeniewski's personal, but not idiosyncratic, look at the liturgies celebrated at Assumption Parish. There's an in-depth book review of a new text on the Catholic Church and economics (outside of my area, but I'm glad we have people on this) and several other useful notices, including a very helpful look at the recent release of St. Raymond's Summa on Marriage in English and a short overview by Fr. Leonard Kennedy (csb) of Judge John Noonan's controversial exploration of (alleged?) changes in Catholic moral teaching. Fr. Baker's editorial is a combination report/analysis on the 2005 Synod as it impacts the clergy shortage. The QA column (rats!) and "My Favorite Priest" are missing, but the space saved thereby this month was obviously devoted to some of the solid articles and reviews above.

If only for breadth of topics, not to mention fidelity of treatment, the April 2006 HPR is going to be one tough act to follow.