Commentary taken from http://www.familypublications.co.uk/ and from material supplied by the Editor
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WILL IT BE BENEDICT XVI, the first Pope of
the twenty-first century, who will canonize John Henry Newman –
the best-known English churchman of the nineteenth century – and
declare him a Doctor of the Church?
Peter
Jennings is Press Secretary to the Most Reverend Vincent Nichols, Archbishop
of Birmingham, and the Archdiocese of Birmingham. He is also Press Secretary
to the Birmingham Oratory. A journalist, writer and broadcaster, he
has specialised in Religious Affairs, and in particular the Catholic
Church and the Vatican, since the mid-1970’s. FOR FURTHER INFORMATION ABOUT THE BOOK AND REVIEW COPIES FAMILY PUBLICATIONS OXFORD http://www.familypublications.co.uk |
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"AIDS
in Africa How did it ever happen ?" Written by Frank
Ham  "
This book offers a unique personal perspective on the HIV/AIDS crisis
in Africa. It is a first person narrative of a European who tested positive
in the early eighties. The author owes his survival to tell the tale not
least to the drugs, which in his home country are accessible to any person
who is HIV positive. Frank Ham visited Malawi in 1999 and repeatedly thereafter to try and understand precisely why AIDS has been so much more prevalent in Africa than the West. He pins much of his analysis on the scarcity and affordability of the drugs, without which the lives of millions are being destroyed or threatened. He also considers environmental factors, the role of the Christian churches, and how AIDS is affecting the continent's youth. The narrative challenges and breaks the silence on many dimensions of the disease which are still widely taboo. Indeed finding a publisher in Africa for a frankly written account of AIDS, from the point of view of a homosexual was no mean feat. " 999087624X 223pp 2004 Kachere Series £11.95 / $22.95 - Cased Price: £11.90 ABOUT THE AUTHOR (Taken from the book cover) "Frank Ham, an Englishman in Holland Born near London in 1945, the author spent most of his childhood in Holland where his father worked for the Dutch airline, KLM. After Primary School there and Seconday School in England, he joined the White Fathers in 1963 with the intention of becoming a missionary priest. However, after three and a half years training, the gradual realisation of his homosexuality and a feeling at the time that it was not compatible with the priesthood brought an early end to this career. After several temporary jobs, he eventually re-trained as a computer programmer, which is a job he still does to this day. He lived and worked in London until 1982, and then after a brief stay in Berlin, he moved to Amsterdam, where he has lived for the past 21 years. He tested HIV-positive in 1984, and although he now uses the new drugs, he survived for 18 years without, thanks probably to an unusally strong immune system. But most of his friends — infected before they even knew of the virus — were dead by the end of the century. He visited Malawi in 1999, the first of seven visits, precisely to try to understand why Aids has hit Africa so much harder then the west, and it was his failure to persuade European politicians of the enormity of the catastrophe there that led him to write this book. Frank Ham is not his real name. He chose to use it as a pen-name some years ago to protect relatives of friends who died of Aids." |
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"Mud
and Mosaics, An African Missionary Journey In the Introduction to this book Fr Rathe writes : "Mud
and Mosaics" is quite a substantial piece of work, running
to 24 chapters. The full text (plus illustrations) can be found on
Page 40 of the HISTORIES section. CLICK
HERE to go straight to it.
We are indebted to Robbie Dempsey for the work
involved in scanning this publication for us.
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"Destined
for a Mission"
John
and Margaret Morton have kindly lent us a copy of Fr Kevin's book.
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Kevin,
as he likes to be called, is a White Father (now the Missionaries
of Africa). He was born in Wakefield, West Yorkshire, England
in 1921, While studying for the priesthood in France dring World
War II, he was imprisoned by the Nazis on suspicion of espionage.
A good part of this autobiography describes the circumstances
of his detention and his life with the other students and priests
in the prison at St Denis. It also gives us poignant details of
his isolation in Cell #59 at Fresnes, where he was sentenced to
be shot. Powerful prayers led to his eventual release. He continued
his studies after the war and was ordained a priest in 1949. He
was a missionary in Tanzania, Africa, for sixteen years.Return to Top