BOOKS: AMERICA
Hervé AUBIN (N.-D.du.Rosaire): El Fundador de los Oblatos. Short biography of Saint Eugene. Mexico City, Oficina Provincial OMI, 64 pp.
Adrien DARVEAU (Manitoba): 52 ans au service des Cris... (52 Years in the Service of the Cree and the Dene of Keewatin-Le Pas). Originally from Quebec, Fr DARVEAU came to Keewatin in 1944 when he was 28. Two years later, he was sent to the mission at Brochet, where he joined Fr Joseph EGENOLF and Bro. Urbain DROUIN, one German and the other Canadian. This is where he would spend his missionary life. Now retired at Cap-de-la-Madeleine, he tells about those years of fidelity. Numerous photos. 116 pp.
Jean DENIS (Grandin): Glanures. (Gleanings) Fr Jean Denis, born in Brittany, arrived at the mission of Good Hope in the Mackenzie in 1938. He was 25 years old. He spent his entire missionary life in this diocese at the missions of Good Hope, Fort Norman, Fort Providence, Hay River, Fort Franklin.... His account, like that of Fr Darveau, lets us see the daily routine through which the Church is built. Fr Denis is now 86, and retired at Foyer Grandin in St-Albert. 96 pp.
Mission, Vol. V, N°2, 1998. This number of Mission opens with an article by Eugène LAPOINTE: "Mission and the role of the laity in the Church." Eugène uses the example of Lesotho. "We see that the Church in Lesotho in its short history has entrusted some very important, if not fundamental, ministries to so-called non-ordained Christians. They are the real ministers of the Word for the instruction of catechumens, the preparation of children for first communion, the celebration of the Word on Sunday...." We also note an article by Frédéric Langrand: "Evangelization without missionaries: the apostolate of Inuit converts in the Canadian East Arctic." "The Inuit lay helpers played a great part in evangelization, and their contribution is comparable to that of the first missionaries. This observation runs counter to the misrepresentation inherited from the early Middle Ages according to which the lay person, unlike the priest, is considered as necessarily a non-specialist, a non-initiated...." Saint Paul University, Ottawa.
Alphonse NADEAU (St-Joseph): Roger Poirier, Missionnaire OMI. Bro. Nadeau brings to life Fr Roger POIRIER (1926-1998). Among the many accounts he has gathered, we draw attention to the one by the Provincial, Fr Claude CHAMPAGNE: "Roger was a prophet of that ecclesial intuition that affirms action for justice as one of the ways of proclaiming the Good News of the presence and action of God in our world. Like all prophets, in this prophetic mission he met with all kinds of resistance and rejection, but he was never put down.... He was a person driven by the Breath of God until the end...." Richelieu, 1999, 92 pp.
Francisco REARDON (São Paulo): Como fazer Pastoral carcerária (How to do ministry in a prison). This 'handbook on prison ministry' is published by Coordenação Nacional of Brazil, of which Francisco is director. Some of the topics taken up are: communication difficulties; the problem of sincere prisoners and the profiteers; the two sides, here and there; mistreatment and torture; prophetism in prison ministry; the pastoral agent's prayer in prison.... National Conference of Bishops of Brazil, August 1995, 120 pp.
Egbert STANG (St. Mary's): The great Springtime of Christianity. Fr Stang offers some "reflections on the Scripture readings of Sundays and Solemnities." Each reflection ends with a reference to theCatechism of the Catholic Church. No date, 616 pp.
Blair Stonechild and Bill Waiser : Loyal till Death. "This is the first comprehensive look at the Indian version of the North-West Rebellion of 1885 in Canada."Twenty-eight reserves were officially declared "disloyal"; 50 Indians were found guilty of crimes linked to the rebellion, of whom eight were executed at Fort Battleford.... Fifth House Publishers, Calgary, 1997, 308 pp.
Daniel TAILLEZ (USA): Walking in Their Footsteps. Chaplain to the Hmong in the United States, Daniel proposes some meditations on the New Testament using a series of imaginary but lively conversations to bring back to life the first disciples and witnesses of Jesus. With a foreword by Francis Cardinal George. Queenship, Santa Barbara CA, 1998, 252 pp.
Earle H. Waugh: Dissonant Worlds. Roger Vandersteene Among the Cree. Originally from Flanders, Fr Roger VANDERSTEENE (1918-1976) was sent to the Apostolic Vicariate of Grouard in 1946. Asking himself "How a Missionary Oblate, who came to Canada to convert the aboriginals ended up buried as a Cree Chief," the author "traces a remarkable missionary career: his life among the Cree, his intensive study of the Cree language and folkways, his status as a Cree medicine man, and the evolution of his views on the relationship between aboriginal traditions and Roman Catholicism. Above all, the author traces Fr Vandersteene's quest to build a new religious reality: a strong, spiritually powerful Cree church, a magnificent Cree formation of Christian life. Wilfried Laurier University Press, Waterloo ON, 1996, 344 pp.
Wojciech WOJTKOWIAK (Assumption): Wsrod Kanadyjskich Indian... (Among the Canadian Indians in the Heart of British Columbia). Poznan, 1998, 126 pp. with 24 pp. of color photos.
Ronald W. YOUNG (USA): An Examination of a Process of Evangelization through Basic Ecclesial Communities in the Light of Redemptoris Missio. A Paper submitted for the Degree of Licentiate in Missiology to the Gregorian University, Rome. 1996, 97 pp.
