Pope Francis has impressed Catholics and non-Catholics alike with his displays of compassion and kindness for the less fortunate. Many will recall that on Holy Thursday in 2013 Francis visited an Italian youth prison, where he said Mass and washed the feet of 12 young inmates, including a Muslim boy and two girls, one a Catholic and the other a Muslim. It was the first time … [Read more...]
‘Yoni’ tells hero’s story with little art, much treacle
If you learn one thing from the documentary Follow Me: The Yoni Netanyahu Story, it’s that the title character was a poster boy for patriotism. The movie tells you this so many times, in fact, that you can probably enter it for a five-minute portion and walk away with this theme. The eldest brother of Israel’s current prime minister and a top 20 finalist in a 2005 poll of the … [Read more...]
‘Unbroken’ tells riveting tale of airman’s survival
For weeks, Unbroken has been perched at or near the top of the nonfiction best-seller list, and for good reason. The book tells the riveting story of a World War II airman who survived for 47 days in 1943 on a raft in the Pacific Ocean before Japanese soldiers captured him and held him in brutal conditions for the rest of the war. The airman, Louis Zamperini, was a … [Read more...]