The 1980s and 1990s, the height of the AIDS crisis in the United States, was decades ago now, and many of the stories from this time remain hidden: A Catholic nun from a small Midwestern town packs up her life to move to New York City, where she throws herself into a community under assault from HIV and AIDS. A young priest sees himself in the many gay men dying from AIDS and grapples with how best to respond, eventually coming out as gay and putting his own career on the line. A gay Catholic with HIV loses his partner to AIDS and then flees the church, focusing his energy on his own health rather than fight an institution seemingly rejecting him. Set against the backdrop of the HIV and AIDS epidemic of the late twentieth century and the Catholic Church's crackdown on gay and lesbian activists, journalist Michael O'Loughlin searches out the untold stories of those who didn't look away, who at great personal cost chose compassion--even as he seeks insight for LGBTQ people of faith struggling to find a home in religious communities today. This is one journalist's--gay and Catholic himself--compelling picture of those quiet heroes who responded to human suffering when so much of society--and so much of the church--told them to look away. These pure acts of compassion and mercy offer us hope and inspiration as we continue to confront existential questions about what it means to be Americans, Christians, and human beings responding to those most in need.

Boston Globe journalist and Catholic commentator Michael O’Loughlin opens a wonderful window into the heart and revolutionary mission of Pope Francis by examining his extensive and revelatory use of social media—published to coincide with the pontiff’s visit to the United States in September 2015. Michael O’Loughlin uses Pope Francis’s almost daily “tweets” to his 21 million followers to explain why this pope has captured the world’s imagination and to explore his strategy and vision for the Catholic Church. Grouped by the Pope’s most pressing concerns—forgiveness, mercy, injustice, poverty, war, joy, the environment, and more—The Tweetable Pope uses Francis’ pithy 140-character (or fewer) missives as a prism to view the biographical, historical, and spiritual context of his messages and how each is part of a larger vision. O’Loughlin contends that these seemingly simple communications provide a direct line to the Pope’s heart, illuminating a peaceful, loving, and courageous visionary committed to restoring the church to the original Christian tenets of its founder, Jesus Christ—love, mercy, grace, and compassion—and reshaping it as a force for change to help the most needy. A thoughtful and enlightening examination of how the pope is using this exciting and fascinating new medium to communicate directly to his flock, The Tweetable Pope is an inspiring and moving testimony of how we, too, can be more centered on what matters most to God.

All that we see occurs through the medium of light, whether as power in electromagnetic radiation, or as brightness visible to the human eye and mind. So pervasive is this illumination of light in our lives that it also has a metaphoric and symbolic function as enlightenment or knowledge. That duality of meaning lends a special emphasis on the perception of light as awareness or truth, above and beyond what we perceive through simple eyesight. The poems and photos in Let There Be Light attempt to explore all facets of that phenomenon of enlightenment, the visible and the spiritual, and the value of metaphor in doing so is a powerful tool. We should look beyond the merely physical parameters of our existence so we become more conscious of ourselves as spiritual hybrids on a mission to become more self-aware. About the Author Michael J. O'Loughlin has wandered mountains in America for forty-plus years as climber, hiker, skier, and High School/college teacher and principal. Now retired, O'Loughlin continues to explore mountain vistas throughout our western states. Glaciers, rivers, and rock pitches of this hemisphere's mountains provided rich tableaus for his camera and notebook. Six books of pictures and verse integrate his poetry and photography in a context Michael describes as "neither escapist nor alarmist, but grounded in an awareness of cyclic themes in our existence as spiritual individuals interacting within cultures and wilderness." His signature subjects include the majesty of outdoor sanctuaries and varying spiritual and psychological facets of human reactions to beauty, fatigue, fear, and triumph. Recently, Michael's lens and verse have focused on the surreal sandstone of Sedona, Arizona, where he and his wife, Isobel, are planning a second climb.

Michael J. OaLoughlin is now a school principal after serving for twenty years as a teacher of English in Puerto Rico and Vermont, at the State University of New York, and as an adjunct professor for Syracuse University. Although he earned master degrees in secondary English and educational administration, he attributes his real education to athe school of hard knocks, a raising seven children. His six daughters and one son, who recently returned from Iraq after a stint with the Marines, frequently serve as a focus for his poems. His time spent in wilderness with those children is also a stage for relating what he sees in nature to what he has learned as a father. His early poetry was more like open verse, but in recent years, he has adopted the sonnet as his preferred format. He and his wife, Isobel, reside in northeast Maryland.