Religious Biographies

The Rainman's Third Cure is the tale of a young man caught between these apparently antipodal options and the journey that leads him from the privileged halls of power to Greenwich Village jazz bars to jail to the White House, lessons from a man who literally held the power of life and death over others, to government service and international success on stage and screen.

Excerpt from the book: I know how it feels to be behind a door that can be opened only from the outside, for I have been a prisoner in three different prisons. I learned a great deal in prison as this was a very difficult class in the schoolroom of life. When you are in a difficult class with a good teacher, you learn much—and my teacher was very good. It was Jesus Himself! “I wish I could share with you what I learned during my imprisonment, but I am old and I cannot travel much now. Since we cannot speak personally together, I have decided to visit you through this little book.

David Bussau grew up in New Zealand boys' homes where expectations of the young men were grim. David shattered those expectations, emerging as an enterprising teenager running a rented hot dog stand. Numerous business ownerships and financial success followed, and with that success, a vision to provide natural disaster relief and aid to the poor in Australia, Indonesia, India, and beyond. Today David's work continues through Opportunity International, a worldwide aid organization that offers small business loans to help the poor start and grow their own businesses.

The 12th-century Christian mystic Hildegard of Bingen has been described as "...a visionary, scientist, diplomat, and poet." Created by Dr. Nancy Fierro, CSJ, Hildegard of Bingen and Her Vision of the Feminine transports us through space and time to the medieval cloisters where Hildegard struggled to express her spirituality. How she succeeded in a world open only to men holds lessons for every woman in every age.

When Charles Mulli was a child, his family repeatedly abandoned him, and he lived in fear of his abusive, alcoholic father. With an extraordinary will, the young Kenyan struggled to feed and educate himself and, encountering hope in the gospel, found a reason to live and to forgive. Later, as a multimillionaire and father of eight, the entrepreneur sold his businesses to devote himself to caring for street children throughout Kenya. Since 1989, Charles and his wife, Esther, have taken into their protection thousands of the most vulnerable through Mully Children's Family.

Raised in a militant atheist family, Sy Garte fell in love with the factual world of science. He became a respected research biochemist with an anti-theistic worldview to bolster his work—and he had no intention of seeking a God he didn't believe in. That is, until the very science he loved led him to question the validity of an atheistic worldview.

He burst upon the fusty corridors of Victorian spirituality like a breath of fresh air, regaling the prime minister with his sense of humor, and touching the lives of seven presidents.

Marcantonio Colonna's The Dictator Pope has rocked Rome and the entire Catholic Church with its portrait of an authoritarian, manipulative, and politically partisan pontiff. Occupying a privileged perch in Rome during the tumultuous first years of Francis' pontificate, Colonna was privy to the shock, dismay, and even panic that the reckless new pope engendered in the Church's most loyal and judicious leaders.

For a Christian, the way to reach perfection is to strive for holiness. What is true perfection? Christ's words are clear, sublime and disconcerting: "Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect." To have God as our model is a dizzying thought! Yet the Church reminds us that, "All the faithful, whatever their condition or state in life, are called by the Lord to that perfect holiness." The Church teaches us that holiness is not the concern of a privileged few, nor does it only pertain to Christians of the past.

Darkest England and the Way Out is the classic work of Salvation Army founder William Booth. He and his wife Catherine went from a modest ministry in London to a global movement of Christian soldiers marching down the streets of cities and towns everywhere. They were persecuted, imprisoned, beaten, and even martyred for the cause of Christ.

Ockham Explained is an important and much-needed resource on William of Ockham, one of the most important philosophers of the Middle Ages. His eventful and controversial life was marked by sharp career moves and academic and ecclesiastical battles. At 28, Ockham was a conservative English theologian focused obsessively on the nature of language, but by 40, he had transformed into a fugitive friar, accused of heresy, and finally protected by the German emperor as he composed incendiary treatises calling for strong limits on papal authority.

In December 2011, 21-year-old Victoria’s Secretmodel Kylie Bisutti stunned the fashion industry when she chose faith over fameand fortune and made the switch from supermodel to role model. In I’m No Angel, Kylie shares her story - from her early years struggling to make it big in the cut-throat world of modeling, her big break winning the Victoria’s Secret Runway Angel competition, and the disillusionment and spiritual warfare that followed, to the moment she realized she could no longer reconcile her career with her Christian beliefs and surrendered her life to God.

Few figures have had such an influence on history as Jesus of Nazareth. His teachings have inspired discussion, arguments, even war. Yet few have ever held forth as movingly as Jesus on the need for peace, forgiveness, and mercy.

As a Stanford grad in the midst of getting her PhD in psychology, Sadhvi Sarawati was comfortable with her life. Despite years of grappling with an eating disorder and trauma from her early childhood, she felt as if she was successfully navigating her way through early adulthood. When she agreed to travel to India to appease her husband - and because she loved the food - Sadhvi would have never imagined that she would be embarking on a journey of healing and awakening.

For those considering walking the Camino de Santiago or just interested in learning more about it, the author shares what led him to his pilgrimage, his initial concerns, the preparation and experiences while walking, the time and financial investment, and his reflections after the walk. He offers a look at the Camino journey that begins before you take your first step and does not end even after your last.

Irish missionaries Fr Des Hartford and Fr Rufus Halley travelled to the Philippines, a country divided by violence and sectarianism, in the late 1960s. For many years they lived peacefully in the Muslim-dominated areas of the island of Mindanao, working to bring about a positive dialogue between the Christian and Muslim communities there. But in a volatile environment where kidnappings and attacks were everyday fears, both priests ultimately found themselves caught up in the conflict, to terrifying effect.

In the wake of the French Revolution, Napoleon Bonaparte, First Consul of France, and Pope Pius VII shared a common goal: to reconcile the church with the state. But while they were able to work together initially, formalizing an agreement in 1801, relations between them rapidly deteriorated. In 1809, Napoleon ordered the Pope's arrest. Ambrogio Caiani provides a pioneering account of the tempestuous relationship between the emperor and his most unyielding opponent.

It's 1970. A dark Wisconsin night. A once-shy farm boy, now in his 20s, stands on a bridge over a river. He's left the farm, studied for the clergy, and done a stint in the air force. He's a proofreader now. He's seen faraway places, but tonight he's in Wisconsin overlooking the dark water. He's about to see the face of God, to become a God-realized man. From this momentous turning point, Harold Klemp's life would never be the same.

Quel était donc le secret de Marthe Robin, cette petite paysanne qui, malade, paralysée, vivant loin de la célébrité dans une discrétion absolue pendant 60 ans, a reçu plus de 100 000 personnes...

Yvette Manessis Corporon grew up listening to her grandmother's stories about how the people of the small Greek island Erikousa hid a Jewish family - a tailor named Savvas and his daughters - from the Nazis during World War II. Nearly 2,000 Jews from that area died in the concentration camps, but even though everyone on Erikousa knew Savvas and his family were hiding on the island, no one ever gave them up, and the family survived the war. Years later, Yvette decided to track down the man's descendants - and eventually found them in Israel.