Böcker av Gerard Skinner

The Douai Martyrs are a group of one hundred and fifty-nine men who were martyred for the Catholic Faith in England and Wales between 1577 and 1680. The vast majority of the martyrs were priests who were trained at Douai College in northern France before risking their lives by returning to Britain to minister undercover, trying to avoid capture by the State and a barbaric death. Beatifying many of the Douai Martyrs in 1987, Pope St John Paul II declared:'Each of them chose to be 'God's servant First'. They consciously and willingly embraced death for love of Christ and the Church. They too chose the Kingdom above all else. If the price had to be death they would pay it with courage and joy. Blessed Nicholas Postgate welcomed his execution 'as a short cut to heaven'. Blessed Joseph Lambton encouraged those who were to die with him with the words 'Let us be merry, for tomorrow I hope we shall have a heavenly breakfast.' Blessed Hugh Taylor, not knowing the day of his death, said: 'How happy I should be if on this Friday, on which Christ died for me, I might encounter death for him.' He was executed on that very day, Friday 6 November 1585. For them this price was small compared to the riches they could bring to their people in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.'

The Spencers reached the peak of their wealth in the eighteenth century; in the nineteenth century they achieved the commanding heights of political power; by the end of the twentieth century they knew the extremes of celebrity. Ignatius Spencer (1799-1864), great, great, great uncle of Princess Diana, renounced his wealth and position in society in order to serve the poor, begging his way around the British Isles and beyond, wearing the rough black habit of the Passionists, the austere religious order he had joined. He was welcomed by popes, cardinals, and aristocrats and loved by the poor and destitute, particularly in Ireland where, even during the famine of 1845-52, and against the rising tide of Irish nationalism, this son of a former First Lord of the Admiralty, brother of both a former Chancellor of the Exchequer and of the governess to Queen Victoria's children, aroused the warmth and admiration of tens of thousands of the Irish as he travelled the length and breadth of Ireland preaching in hundreds of churches and chapels. This is the story of a remarkable nineteenth-century figure who for some was 'a dirty, mad mendicant' and for others no less than a saint. Today Ignatius Spencer, already recognized for his life of heroic virtue, is under consideration for canonization.

EVER SINCE HIS DEATH IN 1890, Newman's name has inspired the thinkingand the devotion of many. The story of his conversion is legendary andyet, as the future Pope Benedict XVI observed, 'Throughout his entire life,Newman was a person converting, a person being transformed, and thus healways remained and became ever more himself.' Newman's genius and hisprolific output of so many types of writing have, in turn, given rise toinnumerable books and articles, these most frequently being academic studiesof some theme or other of this eminent Victorian's thought.Presenting aspects of the life of Cardinal Newman and letting him speak tous in his own words, Fr Skinner draws from the tens of thousands of pagesthat this great pastor penned and presents Newman as a priest, 'A Father ofSouls'. In a series of easily readable sketches we follow Newman's life fromthe time when he first realised that God was calling him to the ordainedministry until his last years as a priest and Cardinal in the BirminghamOratory that he had himself founded. Important themes such as his preachingare seen alongside the means by which he felt he was most sustained andstrengthened for his life's not insignificant trials. Seven of Newman'ssermons conclude this volume.In the words of Pope John Paul II, Cardinal Newman's 'remarkable life,void of sham and ambition, but steeped in a prayerful communion with theUnseen, while it remained alive to the problems of his age in Church andsociety, continues to inspire, to uplift and to enlighten'.Much attention has rightly been given to Newman's scholarship and to hisextensive writings, but it is important to remember that he saw himself firstand foremost as a priest. In this Annus Sacerdotalis, I urge you to hold up toyour priests his example of dedication to prayer, pastoral sensitivity towardsthe needs of his flock, and passion for preaching the Gospel.Pope Benedict XVI, Address to the Bishops of England and Wales,1 February 2010FR GERARD SKINNER is a priest of the Diocese of Westminster. He wasborn in Portsmouth and, after studying at the Royal Academy of Music,London, he trained for the priesthood at the Venerable English College inRome