In 1992, celebrated novelist Ann Patchett launched her remarkable career with the publication of her debut novel, The Patron Saint of Liars. On this 25th anniversary, read the best-selling book that is "beautifully written... a first novel that second- and third-time novelists would envy for its grace, insight, and compassion" (Boston Herald). St. Elizabeth's, a home for unwed mothers in Habit, Kentucky, usually harbors its residents for only a little...

Not since his runaway bestseller, The Cardinal Sins, has Father Andrew M. Greeley written such a searing and topical novel about the state of the Catholic Church. The Priestly Sins tells the story of Father Herman Hoffman, a gifted and innocent young man from the distant prairies of the Great Plains. In the first summer of his first parish appointment, Hoffman is swept up in The Crisis after witnessing child abuse in the parish rectory. He tells...

Thomas Berry (1914–2009) was one of the twentieth century's most prescient and profound thinkers. As a cultural historian, he sought a broader perspective on humanity's relationship to the earth in order to respond to the ecological and social challenges of our times. This first biography of Berry illuminates his remarkable vision and its continuing relevance for achieving transformative social change and environmental renewal. Berry began his studies...

The irrepressible Bishop Blackwood Ryan returns as his Cardinal dispatches Blackie to The University on the South Side of Chicago to investigate a baffling locked-room mystery. Someone has assassinated a Russian Orthodox monk in his office at the Divinity School-despite the fact that the door of his office was bolted shut from the inside and no killer was found within. Who shot Brother Semyon Ivanivich Popov? There were only four professors in the...

A gripping and compassionate tale of family and faith, whispers and accusations, and the deeply hidden truths we're compelled to uncover. After surviving a near-fatal accident, thirty-year-old Lizzy Mitchell faces a long road to recovery. She remembers little about the days she spent in and out of consciousness, save for one thing: She saw her beloved deceased uncle, Father Mike, the man who raised her in the rectory of his Maine church until...

Gregory Barrett, a classmate of Father Dowling's, left the priesthood twenty-five years ago. Now, after all these years, a woman threatens to bring a multimillion-dollar suit against him, alleging he sexually exploited her when he was still a priest and she was sixteen. Barrett has no memory of her, but is devastated at what these claims will do to his career as a radio host and to his new family. So he comes to Father Dowling for advice. Father Dowling,...