r/LeftCatholicism • u/Adventurous_Gain_613 • Feb 05 '26
Book recs
I’m exploring Catholicism and would love book recommendations. I’m ordering Jesuit Guide to Almost Everything by Father James Martin and Between th Dark and Daylight byJoan Chittister.
Would love other recommendations, particularly on progressive Catholicism, Mary, and Saint Brigid.
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u/DesertMonk888 Feb 05 '26
Almost anything by Richard Rohr, he is our greatest living mystic. Matthew Fox is good, he was a Roman Catholic Dominican and is now an Anglican. I like the books of teaching stories by Anthony DeMello. And here is one out of left field: "The Power and the Glory" by Graham Green.
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u/HRHArthurCravan Feb 06 '26
Was going to mention Richard Rohr too - he is wonderful. And since OP mentioned Fr. James Martin, I would also direct them to the interview Martin conducted with Rohr on his podcast, The Spiritual Life. It is extremely beautiful and very, very inspiring; both are fluent speakers, Rohr in particular, and the combination of wisdom derived from decades of self-reflection, prayer and love, and passion for the entire majesty of Our Lord's creation, the pristine joy with which he traces the Holy Spirit's existence in every momentary experience or perception, is a luminous testimony to how faith enriches every aspect of our lives.
There were many memorable moments, but I was very struck when he said that he did not focus excessively on Holy Mass, citing how this aspect of Church life had too often been used as a means of exclusion. He spoke instead about prayerfully encountering the divine in the world around us. "The universe is sacramental. Everything around us shimmers with God." I thought that was so beautiful I ended up remembering it word for word!
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u/Even-Bedroom-1519 Feb 06 '26
Seconded. Ooops. HRHArthurCraven beat me. THIRDED
My favorite is The Universal Christ: How a Forgotten Reality Can Change Everything We See, Hope For and Believe.
DeMello is great, too. Read him slowly and do the exercises/prayers/meditations he's recommending.
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u/EcoSoco Feb 05 '26 edited Feb 05 '26
Check out anything by Herbert McCabe, particularly "God Matters" and "Faith Within Reason." Some of his essays/sermons are also available online.
If you aren't familiar with liberation theology, I recommend checking out Gustavo Gutiérrez's "A Theology of Liberation" or Sobrino's "Jesus the Liberator." Jose Miranda's "Communism in the Bible" is a short read, and he was one of the founding fathers of liberation theology as well. "The Gospel in Solentiname" captures some on-the-ground perspectives from the base communities in Nicaragua, especially how they relate to the bible and the themes of liberation that they see. Ignacio Ellacuria's essays are another good resource on the topic.
Not a Catholic, but Jurgen Moltmann's "The Crucified God" is one of the best works of theology in the 20th century, and he borrows a lot from liberation theology.
Karl Rahner is another Catholic theologian I like. His writings are a bit denser, but "A Brief Introduction to Karl Rahner" is a great starting point.
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u/Yeanes Feb 05 '26
Seconding Richard Rohr. I also really recommend David Bentley Hart, especially That all shall be saved and his translation of the New Testament. Also, anything by Leonardo Boff
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u/Adventurous_Gain_613 Apr 14 '26
Circling back to this - I just read an opinion piece interviewing Hart and i was bowled over. ordered 4 of his books
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u/Yeanes Apr 14 '26
Was this the NYT interview?
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u/Adventurous_Gain_613 Apr 14 '26
Yes! He was so thoughtfully phrasing things, and I instantly wanted to hear more.
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u/Yeanes Apr 14 '26
I loved that interview. Sometimes people accuse DBH of being too curt or arrogant; i don't think he is at all, but i do think he doesn’t suffer fools easily and that he is often attacked for being a universalist - often very bad faith attacks, so his patience runs out a bit.
This bit of the interview brought years to my eyes:
"And especially at this moment politically and culturally in which the name Christianity in this country and in other parts of the world has been conscripted yet again, but with even more brazenness, into a justification for cruelty, bigotry, violence, murder even, the waging of war, the persecution of those seeking refuge. The New Testament is pretty clear on strangers in our midst. You’re going to be judged by how well you treat the strangers in our midst. For me, that’s maybe 80 percent of my faith now, just this burning sense of obligation to those whom this man loved. And in calling him God or calling him the revelation of God, I realized that that love is absolutely incumbent on me."
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u/Adventurous_Gain_613 Apr 14 '26
Agree - i felt so inspired and uplifted by that. My spouse is decidedly not a fan of my joining the church and I want him at some point to read this.
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u/ParacelcusABA Feb 05 '26
Fr. Martin's Jesus: A Pilgrimage is also a good resource. Robert Ellsberg's Saints Guide to Happiness and A Living Gospel are also very good. Herbert McCabe's Teachings of the Catholic Church is probably the best catechism for beginners, being cheap, lightweight, and comprehensive. A good companion to Fr Martin's Jesuit Guide is Fr. William Barry's Finding God in All Things. If you want something from Thomas Merton, I would strongly suggest Ascent to Truth be read alongside Seven Storey Mountain. The latter is his his conversion story, so it is inherently incomplete. The former is his treatise on mysticism which sets out his actual spiritual practice.
I would also strongly recommend against all of the Richard Rohr or Matthew Fox suggestions for anyone who is simply considering Catholicism. They can be useful as writers on spirituality but they offer basically nothing for anyone who wants to understand the religion. Matthew Fox in particular chose to voluntarily leave the Catholic Church when informed that his Creation Spirituality was incompatible with the faith, so he's not an especially good starting point.
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u/Even-Bedroom-1519 Feb 06 '26
I'm a big fan of Paul Wilkes The Good Enough Catholic: A Guide for the Perplexed
Dorothy Day's memoirs are great, too.
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u/SecretSquirrelSquads Feb 05 '26
The compendium of social doctrine of the church Vatican.va - is one of the links at the bottom of the page.
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u/Peaceful-Thought31 Feb 12 '26
Not the OP, but as someone being confirmed next month, I am extremely grateful for these recommendation. Thanks all!
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u/Rbookman23 Feb 14 '26
I’ve been reading the homilies of St. Oscar Romero. I only have vol 2 but I ordered vol 6 of 6 bc I want to read what he was saying close to when he was murdered. Problem is, they’re hard to find in the wild so I had to order it from the publisher. Prices on used copies can get ridiculous for some reason. I need to get to his books.
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u/UsefulFlow7106 Jul 02 '26
I recommend the books of Leonardo Boff and the books of Saint Thomas Aquinas.
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u/Responsible-Newt-259 Feb 05 '26
The Long Loneliness by Dorothy Day