Archbishop Chaput's New E-book.

Anyone thinking that Archbishop Charles Chaput would bite his tongue in his new e-book A Heart on Fire: Catholic Witness and the Next America would be quickly disabused of that notion from the very beginning where Chaput has this quote from Herman Melville's The Confidence-Man;

Truth is like a thrashing-machine; tender sensibilities must keep out of the way.

If I have anything negative to say about the e-book it would be that the book is far too short. Archbishop Chaput recognizes the problems we face in this country today - as quoted by in this review of the book, Chaput writes,

“Our national leadership in 2012 seems deaf to matters of religious freedom abroad and unreceptive, or frankly hostile, to religious engagement in public affairs here at home.”

I first learned of the Archbishop's e-book from this review by the Catholic League. After reading the book, I was wondering why it wasn't just released as an essay - and published on any number of Catholic websites - It wasn't until I saw this on National Catholic Register that I learned that the e-book was written to be the forward to a new edition of Chaput's 2008 book Render Unto Caesar: Serving the Nation by Living Our Catholic Beliefs in Political Life which is scheduled for release this summer (the e-book includes an excerpt from the earlier work).

If you've already read Render Unto Caesar as I have, downloading the e-book for your Kindle or Nook is well worth the 0.99. If you haven't read the earlier book and plan on reading the 2012 edition, I'd save my dollar and wait until the new edition comes out.