Image Books: Praying in Rome

During the Conclave and the days leading up to it, the world was abuzz with excitement. The media, being the media, wanted to know everything that they could and then would use sound bites to display their message. I must admit that I grew aggravated with the U.S. cardinals at times, because it felt like they were talking to the media too much. However, they are wiser than me, so I trust their judgment. Very recently, Image Books released a book by Cardinal Dolan about his reflections on the Conclave and Pope Francis, entitled Praying in Rome. Here is my brief review of it.

Praying in Rome is a brief e-book, which addresses the retirement of Pope Benedict XVI, the time leading up to the Conclave, the Conclave itself, the election of Pope Francis, and people's reactions to Pope Francis. With each of these topics, Cardinal Dolan shares his personal thoughts and feelings. The book reads like a personal journal or diary in that it contains both reverence and humor. One example of this is his mention of hoping he doesn't run out of clean socks, while waiting for the date of the Conclave to be announced.

The part of the book I enjoyed the most was Cardinal Dolan's opinion on the "five key lessons that Pope Benedict left behind for us to cultivate." I won't tell you all five. You'll have to buy the book for that, but Lesson #5 spoke to me the most. With his retirement, Pope Benedict XVI taught us that, "It's not about him, or you, or me, or us. It's about Christ. It's about the Church." This is a lesson I need to be reminded of frequently. It's easy to get wrapped up in a me-first world, especially with a blog, but it's not about me!

There were parts of the book that I didn't like, but these are small and probably just the result of me splitting hairs. He tries to downplay his importance in the Church on the third page with the statement that "People are kind when it comes to how connected they think I am to the Vatican." However, he then goes on to say that he's had the privilege of meeting the Pope rather often. He also speculated that this would be his only Conclave to participate in. At 63, he must expect Pope Francis will live to 93, plan on retiring before he hits 80, or know something about the Second Coming that we don't know.

Overall, this was a fair book, which I would give 4 stars. I had to read through it twice, because it rubbed me wrong the first time I read it. I'm not sure why exactly, but I attribute it to previous aggravation with the U.S. Cardinals talking to the media so much. Luckily, the book is a quick read at thirty minutes to an hour. If you want to see inside the head and heart of a Cardinal who was tasked with electing Pope Francis, this book is for you.

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Crossroad Publishing: A Call to Serve

Unless you've been in a coma or living under a rock, you know that we have a new pope. In fact, today marks the four month anniversary of Pope Francis' election to the papacy. In that short time, there have been dozens of books published about him. I personally had a Top Three selection of Pope Francis books, and somehow A Call to Serve from Crossroad Publishing wasn't even on my radar. I'm glad they sent it to me though, as I'm not sure I would have requested to review it otherwise. (Disclaimer: Crossroad Publishing is a publisher, I'm not overly familiar with. They have some great books in their collection and unfortunately some questionable ones too, i.e., Richard Rohr. As with all publishers, not just this one, be sure you select Catholic authors faithful to the Church and her teachings, lest you fall in error.)

A Call to Serve is written by two noted Catholic journalists - Stefan von Kempis (editor of Vatican Radio) and Philip F. Lawler (Editor of Catholic World News). In this book, one gets both a written and pictorial journey of Pope Benedict XVI's retirement, the conclave, Pope Francis' election, and some of the media-worthy events of Pope Francis after his election. Also included in this book are challenges that Pope Francis will face in his papacy, including reform of the Curia, the growing threat of Islam, and ecumenism/reunion talks with the Eastern Orthodox Church, to name a few.

The first thing you'll notice when opening this book is the abundance of crisp and beautiful pictures. If you followed the retirement and conclave closely like I did, a lot of these pictures won't be new to you. You will see the lightning bolt hitting St. Peter's Basilica, the seagull atop the roof of the Sistine Chapel, and the glorious white smoke announcing Pope Francis' election. If you didn't get a chance to keep up with news coverage, these images are a big selling point for the book. It's not the live coverage you could have experienced, but it does justice to the events that transpired, and I personally enjoyed reliving the experience.

My favorite chapter in this book was entitled "Series of Surprises." In this chapter, the two authors discuss some of the controversial acts of humility that Pope Francis exhibited after his election, including the washing of the feet of residents in a juvenile detention center. If the man in charge of 1 billion Catholics can humble himself to this degree, we should too. There is also a chapter dedicated to the conclave. I had great hopes for that chapter and hoped the authors would clearly spell out the events that take place during a conclave. This could have been a great opportunity to educate both Catholics and non-Catholics. Instead, the chapter mainly focused on the front-runners before the conclave and how no one expected Archbishop Bergoglio to become pope.

Overall, I would give A Call to Serve 4 out of 5 stars. It was good, but I had higher hopes for the chapter on the conclave. I also wish this book had been hardcover instead of softcover, as this would make the perfect book to put on your coffee table. Those two criticisms aside, it was still a very good book, and it was refreshing to escape the secular media trying to grasp and explain the retirement of Pope Benedict XVI and the election of Pope Francis. I recommend it for those looking to read the viewpoint of two Catholic journalists or those just looking to see if they missed anything that happened in the whirlwind of events.The wonderful photographs really do  make the book come alive and could even be used to explain some of the basics of Pope Francis to your children.

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