Francis Phillips, Author at Catholic Herald

Francis Phillips

Fulton Sheen’s brilliant guide to Jesus’s last hours

July 18, 2019

Stephen F Auth’s The Missionary of Wall Street (Sophia Institute Press, 184pp, £14.40/$15) is subtitled From Managing Money to Saving Souls on the Streets of New York. It reads as if one were watching a particularly gripping film with a traditional storyline: the cops fighting robbers with all the attendant dangers of a game of

The epic Russian novel you’ve never heard of

July 15, 2019

I have been reading Vasily Grossman and the Soviet Century, a biography by Alexandra Popoff. Not widely known in this country, Grossman, a Ukrainian Jew born in 1905 who died in 1964, has been justly described as “the Tolstoy of the 20th century”, because of his vast novel, Life and Fate, which treated similar themes

‘I’m happy this public fight is over’: A friend on the court case over Fulton Sheen’s remains

July 12, 2019

Although he died in 1979, Archbishop Fulton Sheen remains in the news. A famous and much-loved communicator of the Faith during the 1940s and 1950s in America, his TV series Life is Worth Living was watched by millions when they were broadcast. They are still thought of as a touchstone for how to spread the

An incredible tale of conversion and forgiveness

July 08, 2019

On the face of it, and with its cover photo of a wartime marriage, Before & After by Alison Wilson (Constable, £16.99) might suggest an elderly widow’s fond memoir of past years. This impression would be entirely wrong. Indeed, behind the straightforward eloquence of her prose style, Wilson’s story grows more extraordinary with the turning

Fr Rutler’s guide to avoiding mediocrity

June 27, 2019

Fr George Rutler, well known to Catholic readers on both sides of the Atlantic, famous for his pithy wit and wise counsel, is one of those voices crying out for truth in the confused wilderness of modern life. His new book is Grace & Truth: Twenty Steps to Embracing Virtue and Saving Civilisation (EWTN, 160pp,

Jean Vanier’s legacy: What it’s like to be a L’Arche assistant

June 26, 2019

The news of the recent death of Jean Vanier, founder of L’Arche, has sparked renewed interest in this apostolate to those with learning disabilities. When, in 1964, Vanier opened his small house in Trosly-Breuil, north-east of Paris, to two men who had been cared for an institution, he could not have known that this act

What it’s like being a missionary on Wall Street

June 21, 2019

Having blogged about The Missionary of Wall Street recently, I was keen to ask its author, Stephen Auth, some questions about his intriguing “mission”. For a start, is he still working on Wall Street? Very much so, he tells me: “Many of the skills one develops as a missionary of the Lord – perseverance, self-mastery,

A political conversion remarkably free from bitterness

June 18, 2019

I have just read journalist Melanie Phillips’ autobiography, Guardian Angel: My Journey from Leftism to Sanity, published by Bombardier Books in the US. The title is typically robust and challenging, much as her views have always been; as a courageous, counter-cultural voice I have often agreed with Phillips’s viewpoint when I have heard her speak

The witty, cynical lost novel that reflects on the big questions

June 14, 2019

It is generally agreed that something happened to the culture in the 1960s. Immediately during the post-war period, higher education was still in the hands of the mandarin classes and deference was paid to their superior knowledge and authority. There was even a popular advertising poster of the 1950s which read “Top People take The

Hungary’s history helps explain the current problems in the West

June 07, 2019

I was chatting to my sister not long ago on the topic of Brexit and the EU (what else is there to talk about these days?) and pointed out that individual European countries were not always entirely happy with the edicts flowing from Brussels. She riposted, “Look at Hungary! Their Prime Minister is now bribing

Why the Via Crucis is not just for Lent

May 20, 2019

It might seem unseasonal to blog about Caryll Houselander’s The Way of the Cross after Easter (Gracewing/Angelico Press, £5.95); my justification is that some people make this devotion on Fridays throughout the year, in memory of Good Friday. First published in 1955, the year after her death, The Way of the Cross is one of

We can all defend priests from spiritual attack

May 16, 2019

Those who think that praying for priests is part of our ordinary duty demanded by Christian charity should look at the state of the Church today, especially that of her hierarchical members. As the late Fr John Hardon SJ, quoted in Praying for Priests: An Urgent Call for the Salvation of Souls (by Kathleen Beckman,

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