Blood on The Rosary by Sue Smethurst and Margaret Harrod

Paperback: Blood on the Rosary (1 March 2020) by Sue Smethurst and Margaret Harrod is a heartfelt, brave and inspiring memoir about the power of speaking out.

A brave nun. Her twin brother. The secrets and lies that would tear them apart.

Twins share a special bond, a connection that cannot be put into words. Margaret Harrod shared that bond with her twin brother Michael. Inseparable as children, they both  gave their lives to the Catholic Church at age 22, Margaret becoming a nun and Michael a Salesian priest.

Now the brother Margaret adored is in jail after pleading guilty to multiple child abuse charges, and the unlikely whistleblower was Margaret, his courageous twin sister.

It cost Margaret everything, but she could not stay silent any longer about the damage her brother was wreaking in his community. Margaret knows of that damage firsthand, having had that trust betrayed herself.

Blood on the Rosary is the extraordinary story of how the brave nun took on the church, fighting for more than a decade to bring paedophile priests to justice, including her own brother.

Blood on the Rosary is currently available from Dymocks Booksellers in Australia and on amazon.com.

About the authors: Sue Smethurst is a senior journalist with The Australian Women’s Weekly. She has spent 20 years in media working across television, radio and magazines. Her career has taken her around the globe interviewing the likes of Crown Princess Mary of Denmark, Kylie Minogue, Olivia Newton John and Christopher and Pixie Skase. In addition to her editorial career, Sue has worked on and off camera with A Current Affair and Sunrise, and spent five years as a commentator with Neil Mitchell on 3AW. Blood on the Rosary is her seventh book, and her book, Behind Closed Doors, was a finalist for the 2016 Sisters in Crime Davitt Awards. Sue lives in Melbourne with her husband and two children. Her website is www.suesmethurstmedia.com.

Margaret Harrod leads by example. Despite years of abuse, the former nun, who went on to become a much loved teacher, does not view herself as a victim but as an empowered woman who has managed to grasp her life with both hands in order to be able to reach her dreams. Throughout her healing journey, Margaret held fast to her dream of assisting other women. After leaving teaching, she became a crisis supporter and advocate at Lifeline before establishing a successful life coaching business specialising in empowering women who have suffered sexual abuse. She is passionate about challenging her clients to recreate themselves and achieve their dreams. Margaret has been married to Rod for 27 years and lives in Canberra. They have two grown up children.

When One Denies The Existence Of God

The Bodies Of Others: The New Authoritarians, COVID-19 And The War Against The Human by Naomi Wolf

Hardback: Our pre-March 2020 world is gone forever. Irretrievable. 

For in league with mass surrender to all-powerful technology, the “restrictions” against human assembly, speech and gathering, culture and worship brought on by pandemic panic have brought new cultural norms frighteningly at odds with traditional Western notions of freedom and independent thought. Indeed, in our fear of public ostracism and shaming and our ready abandonment of free, open, spontaneous, individualistic, egalitarian and tolerant expression, we in the West today live in a world of CCP-style regimentation and conformity. It is a world in which all human endeavour - all human joy, all human fellowship, all human advancement, all human culture, all human song, all human drama, all worship, all surprise, all flirtation, all celebration - is behind a digital pay wall. A world in which we must ask permission of technology to be human. 

This is a world we must challenge and change.

The Bodies of Others: The New Authoritarians, COVID-19 And The War Against The Human (2022) shows how these forces - from Big Tech and Big Pharma to the CCP and our oligarchical elites - seized upon two years of COVID-19 panic in sinister new ways, to not only undermine our Republic but to fundamentally reorient human relations. 

But we, the people of the world, did not vote to abandon our old systems and destroy our old ways so absolutely they could never be recovered. And Wolf shows how, against overwhelming odds, we still might win.

The Bodies of Others is #4 on Amazon's Most Sold list, and a Wall Street Journal, USA Today and Publishers Weekly Nonfiction Book Best Seller. 

The Bodies of Others is dedicated to the 2049 Generation.

The book can be purchased from Amazon (UK and USA) and most chain bookshops (Waterstones, Barnes and Nobles).

About the author: Dr Naomi Wolf is a graduate of Yale University and a Rhodes Scholar. She completed a DPhil in English Language and Literature from the University of Oxford in 2015. Wolf was a research fellow at the Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies Department at Barnard College, and had a consultancy at the Athena Center for Leadership Studies, also at Barnard. She held a research fellowship at the Rothermere American Institute at the University of Oxford for her research on John Addington Symonds. She was a Distinguished Fellow in the Senior Common Room at New College, Oxford. 

Dr Wolf has taught Victorian studies as a visiting professor in the Humanities Institute at Stony Brook University, as well as advocacy literature at The George Washington University. She has lectured on the themes in her latest book Outrages at the Ashmolean Museum, at Balliol College and at Mansfield College, and to the undergraduates in the Faculty of English Language and Literature, all at the University of Oxford, as well as for the Inaugural Rhodes LGBTQ+ Forum, held at Rhodes House, Oxford, where she also taught nonfiction writing to the Rhodes Scholars for several years. Wolf was an advisor on women’s issues and messaging to both the Clinton reelection campaign and to the Gore 2000 presidential campaign; cofounded the Woodhull Institute for Ethical Leadership and the American Freedom Campaign; and is CEO of DailyClout.io, a news site and legislative database on which she and her team explain US state and federal legislation weekly, interview national elected officials, and report on democracies worldwide. Wolf holds an honorary doctorate from Sweet Briar College, and was a Glamour Woman of the Year.

Her most recent books include the New York Times best sellers Give Me Liberty and The End of America, as well as the landmark best seller The Beauty Myth. Wolf lives in New York City.

P/S I apologise for not checking all comments on my blog and more importantly, replying to them expeditiously. I have since remedied this. Thank you for your understanding.

Beyond Belief: How Pentecostal Christianity Is Taking Over The World by Elle Hardy

Hardback: Beyond Belief: How Pentecostal Christianity Is Taking Over The World (2021) is a fascinating exposé of the global revolution you’ve never heard of: a deep-pocketed, tech-savvy Christian movement reshaping our societies from within.

How has a Christian movement, founded at the turn of the twentieth century by the son of freed slaves, become the fastest-growing religion on Earth? Pentecostalism has 600 million followers; by 2050, they will be one in ten people worldwide. This is the religion of the Holy Spirit, with believers directly experiencing God and His blessings: success for the mind, body, spirit and wallet.

Pentecostalism is a social movement. It serves impoverished people in Africa and Latin America, and inspires anti-establishment leaders from Trump to Bolsonaro. In Australia, Europe and Korea, it throws itself into culture wars and social media, offering meaning and community to the rootless and marginalised in a fragmenting world.

Reporting this revolution from twelve countries and six US states, Elle Hardy weaves a timeless tale of miracles, money and power, set in our volatile age of extremes. By turns troubling and entertaining, Beyond Belief exposes the Pentecostal agenda: not just saving souls, but transforming societies and controlling politics. These modern prophets, embedded in our institutions, have the cash and the influence to wage their holy war.

About the author: Elle Hardy is an Australian-born journalist and foreign correspondent usually based between the USA and the UK. She has reported from the United States, the former USSR and North Korea, among a long list of places. Her work has appeared in GQ, Lonely Planet, Foreign Policy and Business Insider, and on ABC Australia.

The Iconoclast: Shinzo Abe And The New Japan by Tobias S Harris

Hardback: The Iconoclast: Shinzo Abe And The New Japan (2020) is a revealing profile of Japan’s longest-serving prime minister and his controversial legacy.

Shinzo Abe (1954-2022) entered politics burdened by high expectations: that he would change Japan. In 2007, seemingly overwhelmed, he resigned after only a year as prime minister. Yet, following five years of reinvention, he masterfully regained the premiership in 2012 and, until his resignation in 2020, dominated Japanese democracy as no leader had done before.

Abe inspired fierce loyalty among his followers, cowing Japan’s left with his ambitious economic programme and support for the security and armed forces. He staked a leadership role for Japan in a region being rapidly transformed by the rise of China and India, while carefully preserving an ironclad relationship with Trump’s America.

The Iconoclast tells the story of Abe’s meteoric rise and stunning fall, his remarkable comeback, and his unlikely emergence as a global statesman who laid the groundwork for Japan’s survival in a turbulent century.

About the author: Tobias S Harris is a Senior Vice President of the advisory firm Teneo, covering Japan and East Asia. Since working for a Japanese legislator in 2006-2007, he has run the blog Observing Japan, commented on Japanese politics for major publications and on television and radio programmes; and conducted graduate research at MIT and the University of Tokyo. From 2014-2020, he was a research fellow at the Sasakawa Peace Foundation USA, where he studied Japan’s political economy and analysed public opinion polls. His website is http://www.observingjapan.com.

Conspiracy Theorist

Bicycle Is The Slow Death Of The Planet

Ad Usum Delphini

A Writer's Inventive Faculties Will Not Work Unless He Is Free To Say What He Feels

Christus Vincit: Christ’s Triumph Over The Darkness Of The Age by Bishop Athanasius Schneider in conversation with Diane Montagna

Paperback: In this absorbing interview, Bishop Athanasius Schneider offers a candid, incisive examination of controversies raging in the Church and the most pressing issues of our times, providing clarity and hope for beleaguered Catholics. 

He addresses such topics as widespread doctrinal confusion, the limits of papal authority, the documents of Vatican II, the Society of St Pius X, anti-Christian ideologies and political threats, the third secret of Fatima, the traditional Roman rite, and the Amazon Synod, among many others. 

Like his fourth-century patron, St Athanasius the Great, Bishop Schneider says things that others would not, fearlessly following St Paul’s advice: “Preach the word, be urgent in season and out of season, convince, rebuke, and exhort, be unfailing in patience and in teaching” (2 Tim 4:2). His insights into the challenges facing Christ’s flock today are essential reading for those who are, or wish to be, alert to the signs of the times. 

Reminiscent of The Ratzinger Report of 1985, Christus Vincit (2019) will be a key point of reference for years to come.

About the authors: Athanasius Schneider was born in 1961 in Kyrgyzstan to a German family and baptized with the name Antonius. In 1973, the family emigrated to Germany. He joined the Order of Canons Regular of the Holy Cross in Austria in 1982 and received the religious name Athanasius; he was ordained a priest in Brazil in 1990. Having earned a doctorate in Patrology at the Augustinianum in Rome, he has taught since 1999 at the seminary in Karaganda, Kazakhstan. In 2006, he was ordained bishop in the Basilica of St Peter in Rome and appointed titular bishop of Celerina and auxiliary bishop of Karaganda. From 2011 to the present, he has been auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Saint Mary in Astana, Chairman of the Liturgical Commission, and Secretary General of the Conference of the Catholic Bishops of Kazakhstan. Bishop Schneider is the author of two books on the Holy Eucharist: Dominus Est—It Is the Lord and Corpus Christi: Holy Communion and the Renewal of the Church.

Diane Montagna is an American journalist based in Rome. 

Humiliated Repetition Of Mass Culture

Upton Sinclair (1878-1968), American Writer, Muckraker and Political Activist

Call Upon God

 

A Life Of Hermann Cohen: From Franz Liszt To John Of The Cross by Timothy Tierney

Paperback: Venerable Hermann Cohen (1820-1871) was a noted German Jewish pianist, who converted to the Catholic Church. He was a star pupil of the great composer/pianist Franz Liszt in Paris in the mid-1800s. Cohen became an international concert pianist in his own right and mixed with many of the famous names of the day. He provided piano accompaniment for Giovanni Mateo De Candia ( Mario), the Pavarotti of his day, on concert platforms in Paris and London. 

After converting to Catholicism, Hermann Cohen became a Carmelite friar and priest and preached throughout Europe. In1862, he officially restored the Carmelite Order to England (Kensington Church and Priory). In France, he became friends with many future French saints. These will all be mentioned in the course of the story. 

One of his many Canticles, The Divine Prisoner's Little Flower, greatly influenced Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, often known as the Little Flower. 

Hermann Cohen inspired Raphael Kalinowski to turn from a worldly life and become a Carmelite like himself. (Timothy Tierney also wrote a biography of Saint Raphael Kalinowski in 2016).

Hermann Cohen was also known as Augustine Mary of the Blessed Sacrament OCD (French: Augustin-Marie du Très Saint-Sacrement), or better known as Father Hermann. He was instrumental in introducing the widespread practice of nocturnal adoration of the Blessed Sacrament.

In Timothy Tierney's book - A Life Of Hermann Cohen: From Franz Liszt To John Of The Cross (2017) - you will witness, through his rich and fluent narrative, the encounter with Father Hermann, a genius who savoured the intoxicating highs of success as an artist and the despairing depths of a gambler enslaved by his addictions but through music, the atheistic Cohen experienced and discovered the spiritual realm brought about by an overwhelming intense experience of submission while playing the organ for a Benediction service in the former Church of Saint Valère in Paris in May 1847.

The cause for Father Cohen's canonization has been accepted for investigation by the Holy See.

About the author: Father Timothy Tierney joined the Carmelite Order in his native Ireland. After ordination as a priest in Dublin, he spent two years in ministry in Ireland. In addition to his seminary studies for priesthood in Dublin, Timothy holds a BA degree in Ecumenical Theology from London School of Theology (now affiliated to Middlesex University) and a BD from the University of London. From 1969 until 1939, he worked in various Carmelite communities in the UK. Timothy came to Australia in 1993. His most recent appointment was as a member of the Carmelite Community in Morley, Perth, Western Australia.