These are the covers of “Salt and Light: Church, Disability and the Blessing of Welcome for All” by Maureen Pratt and “A Cry Is Heard: My Path to Peace” by Jean Vanier with Francois-Xavier Maigre. The books are reviewed by Brian T. Olszewski. (CNS)

By Brian T. Olszewski (CNS)”Salt and Light: Church, Disability and the Blessing of Welcome for All” by Maureen Pratt. Twenty Third Publications (New London, Connecticut, 2018). 114 pp, $16.95.
“A Cry Is Heard: My Path to Peace” by Jean Vanier with Francois-Xavier Maigre. Twenty Third Publications (New London, Connecticut, 2018). 144 pp, $16.95.
One might be surprised that in a book of 114 pages, 16 of them are devoted to the introduction. Yet those are critical pages for Maureen Pratt’s “Salt and Light” as they explain why parishes need to examine how they welcome members with disabilities, how they minister to and with them, and how they invite them to minister within the faith community.
Pratt, a journalist who has lupus erythematosus, which she describes as “a chronic autoimmune condition that has no cure and can sometimes be life-threatening,” praises the church in general for its willingness to address the needs, particularly catechetical needs, of people with disabilities, and to make accommodations, e.g., ramps, elevators, enhanced listening devices, etc.
But she notes it is about more than that; the necessary ingredient in welcoming those with disabilities is “the right attitude.”
Pratt helps readers form that attitude through chapters that define disability; explain welcome and how it is to be extended; address catechetical formation; and delve into outreach, vocations, social life, etc. Each chapter begins with a question, e.g., “How do you welcome others into your life?” and concludes with “food for thought” and a prayer.
Those who serve parishes as ordained ministers, catechists, liturgical ministers, members of various councils and committees, and in any manner will benefit from “Salt and Light.” However, this is not a book for a shelf in the parish office.
Anyone familiar with Catholic outreach to those with developmental disabilities is aware of Jean Vanier, founder of L’Arche and co-founder of Faith and Light. In that awareness one knows of the call he accepted and the commitment he made to serve the other-abled. That commitment has inspired others throughout the world to do the same.
“A Cry Is Heard” is autobiographical, but in a manner and style one would expect from a 90-year-old faithful servant to the developmentally challenged who has something to say about people he’s met, experiences he’s had, and having a deep and loving relationship with God.
Readers will receive Vanier’s thoughts on St. Teresa of Kolkata, St. John Paul II, Dorothy Day and others whose names they might not recognize but who are important to the author. They’ll read about his experiences, e.g., L’Arche’s roots and growth, how it was received by the Pontifical Council for the Laity in the 1970s and the international impact the ministry has had.

(Olszewski is the editor of The Catholic Virginian, newspaper of the Diocese of Richmond, Virginia.)

By Brian Welter (CNS)
“Forty Reasons I Am a Catholic” by Peter Kreeft. Sophia Institute Press (Manchester, New Hampshire, 2018). 132 pp., $14.95.
“Forty Anti-Catholic Lies: A Myth-Busting Apologist Sets the Record Straight” by Gerard Verschuuren. Sophia Institute Press (Manchester, New Hampshire, 2018). 341 pp., $19.95.
Well-known philosopher and author Peter Kreeft and apologist Gerard Verschuuren both adopt simple yet at times challenging approaches to the truth of the faith. The short chapters and simple language make their books accessible to a variety of readers, from recent converts to those wanting to better present their beliefs to the perplexed.
As apologists, both authors directly address contemporary post-Christian culture and the frequent biases and accusations against the church. Yet they do so without maligning anti-Catholics. They thus model a powerful way to carry out St. John Paul II’s new evangelization.
Kreeft’s “Forty Reasons I Am a Catholic,” more personal than “Forty Anti-Catholic Lies,” given Kreeft’s reference to his own Catholic journey, addresses a wide range of issues, including secular society, infallibility, purgatory and Catholic community.
Though it surveys a wide range of topics, “40 Reasons I’m a Catholic” does address the essential issue of Scripture and tradition in some depth. The author argues convincingly that certain Protestant views of scriptural primacy are not only historically untrue but also illogical, concluding: “The church was both the efficient cause (the author) and the formal cause (the definer) of the New Testament.”
This historical fact leads to an even greater point: “No effect can be greater than its cause … and the infallible is greater than the fallible; therefore, the infallible cannot be caused by the fallible.” Thus, when Protestants claim that the church is fallible, they are undermining their own understanding of the Bible.
His confidence in the church never wavers. If the church’s claim about Jesus is wrong or untrue, “how to account for her wisdom, her holiness (her saints), her survival, and her fidelity to Christ’s teachings through 2,000 years of history?” This book adds a welcome dimension to Kreeft’s scholarly output.
Verschuuren’s wide-ranging “Forty Anti-Catholic Lies” presents a more scholarly and challenging argument. Despite the variety of topics covered, like Kreeft’s book, it never confuses or veers off topic. The chapters are assembled into seven broad themes including “Catholicism and the Bible” and “Catholicism and Science.”
The author addresses Protestant concerns more than those of non-Christians, such as pointing out the “biblical” nature of Catholic spirituality.
Other areas of contention addressed include historical events or realities often turned against the Catholic faith, including the Galileo affair, the Crusades, and the Inquisition. Regarding the latter, the author reminds readers of how attacks on the church often depend on erroneous argumentative techniques, such as the fallacy of judging the past by today’s standards: “What methods did the Inquisitors use? They basically used methods that civil courts would also use at the time.”
Verschuuren also addresses the exaggerated claims often made against the church: “Modern researchers have discovered that the Spanish Inquisition applied torture in 2 percent of its cases. Each instance of torture was limited to a maximum of 15 minutes. In only 1 percent of the cases was torture applied twice, and never for a third time.”
The author says the “gruesome lists of instruments of torture” that we have all heard of were post-Reformation fabrications.
Readers will come to see that many of our Christian brothers and sisters have abused the truth in a centuries-long anti-Catholic campaign. Perhaps “40 Anti-Catholic Lies” can therefore be seen as an attempt at a painfully necessary aspect of ecumenism, where Catholics need to address biased Protestant perspectives with robust correctives.
Some topics are fun to read, such as the chapter on apparitions. The prudent and even meticulous way ecclesiastical authorities deal with these reflects the church’s important protective function. The church prevents its members from getting caught up in harmful and even evil movements yet tolerates a wide range of practices, beliefs and communities. Apparitions can help Catholics “to enrich, deepen, or strengthen their faith.”
Perhaps surprising to some, the author observes that “the Catholic Church does not easily give in to what some consider a spiritual need of Catholics for ‘special’ visions, revelations, and apparitions.”
Both books would add greatly to the Catholic’s arsenal. The wide-ranging discussion of course comes at the price of in-depth discussion on any one topic, but the titles never promise anything but a survey. What they both do is whet readers’ appetites for greater in-depth discussion of widespread falsehoods regarding the church and its teachings.

(Welter has degrees in history and theology and teaches English in Taiwan.)

By Mark Judge (CNS)
NEW YORK – ” Baseball and comic books, two colorful American originals, come together in “The Comic Book Story of Baseball: The Heroes, Hustlers, and History-Making Swings (and Misses) of America’s National Pastime” (Ten Speed Press) by author Alex Irvine and illustrators Tomm Coker and C.P. Smith.
This factually jam-packed and beautifully designed book is suitable for most older teens and adults. Still, parents should be cautioned: Baseball is a sport that has always included rough and crude language, a couple of instances of which are reproduced here (censored with asterisks).
There also are references to the drug use that occurred during the “steroid era” of the game in the 1990s.
The art is done in a beautiful realist style featuring artistic renderings based on reproductions of historical photographs. The basics are all here: Abner Doubleday, who supposedly invented the game in 1839 (this has been debunked as mostly myth); Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, Cy Young, and superhuman Hall of Fame pitcher Walter Johnson.
There’s the “Murderer’s Row” 1927 New York Yankees; and Joe DiMaggio, Bob Gibson and Sandy Koufax.
More recent greats take the field as well, including (and this is a very small sampling) Lou Brock, Hank Aaron, Rickey Henderson, Greg Maddux, Roger Clemens, flipping shortstop Ozzie Smith, dazzling relief pitcher Mariano Rivera and Red Sox slugger David Ortiz. The great ballparks, like Wrigley and Fenway, are celebrated, and there’s a section on Japanese baseball.
Yet Irvine and his collaborators also cover the scandals and the more obscure history and factoids of the game. There’s the infamous 1919 “Black Sox” scandal of a World Series thrown for money, and the disgrace of black ballplayers being forced to play in the Negro Leagues until the Brooklyn Dodgers’ Jackie Robinson reintegrated the game in 1947.
In 1970, pitcher Jim Bouton published a juicy memoir, “Ball Four,” that exposed the drug use and other excesses of several players. As Irvine notes, Bouton “blew the lid off baseball’s long-held tradition of clubhouse omerta.”
There was also the modern steroid period, during which home run tallies where inflated due to performance-enhancing drugs.
On the lighter side, Irvine, Coker and Smith (names that sounds like double-play combination) reveal the quirkiness that has always been part of baseball. The Yankees were the first team to put number on their uniforms in 1929, so that fans in the “cheap seats” could identify their favorite players. There’s William Arthur “Candy” Cummings, who invented the curveball in 1867 based on how tossed clamshells flew in an arc.
Also here is Charley Pride, the Negro League player who became a country music star and now owns part of the Texas Rangers. Of course, no baseball book would be complete without Berraisms, those pithy quips from famous Yankees catcher Yogi Berra.
“Ninety percent of baseball is mental,” Berra said. “The other half is physical.” Berra was on 10 World Series teams, more than any other player.
In sum, the book amounts to a well-pitched delight.
The graphic book contains two partially censored vulgar expressions. The Catholic News Service classification is A-II – adults and adolescents. Not otherwise rated.

(Judge reviews video games and comic books for Catholic News Service.)