(This column by Bishop Donald J. Hying originally appeared in the Dec. 22, 2005, edition of your Catholic Herald as [...]

I know this is a little late for many of you Christmas shoppers, but for those who are still thinking [...]

First off, administrative information: With the Christmas holiday approaching, we will be closed starting Sunday, Dec. 18 through Monday, Jan. [...]

"Proof of Heaven" by Mary Curran Hackett. William Morrow (New York, 2011). 291 pp., $14.99.

This is the cover of "Proof of Heaven" by Mary Curran Hackett. The book is reviewed by Nancy L. Roberts. (CNS)Colm may be only 7, but he knows a lot: He's very sick, he may not recover and his mother, Cathleen, loves him fiercely. In just a few pages of "Proof of Heaven," author Mary Curran Hackett creates an absorbing world that challenges us to think about love's possibilities and limits, the concept of an afterlife, and where God is in all of our earthly suffering.

Colm is a frail boy whose heart suddenly stops beating without warning, requiring EMTs to revive him time and time again with defibrillation paddles. Yet no clear-cut diagnosis immediately emerges. Nothing can be more heartbreaking than a child's life-threatening illness, and Colm's plight evokes many intense feelings among the characters.

Cathleen, a single mother, has always found comfort in her rock-ribbed Catholic faith. Now she wonders if eventual heaven can ever "surely make sense" of this spectacle of life's chaotic randomness to which she is a reluctant witness. Her brother Sean, a firefighter used to emergency calls, is stunned by his inability to save the life of someone he dearly loves. One time when Colm's heart suddenly stops beating, Sean begins to pray for the first time in years as he gives the boy CPR.

"A Catholic Brain Trust: The History of the Catholic Commission on Intellectual and Cultural Affairs, 1945-1965" by Patrick J. Hayes. University of Notre Dame Press (Notre Dame, Ind., 2011). 440 pp., $75.

This is the cover of "A Catholic Brain Trust: The History of the Catholic Commission on Intellectual and Cultural Affairs, 1945-1965" by Patrick J. Hayes. The book is reviewed by Mitch Finley. (CNS) Catholicism, as a tradition and as an institution, has a history of intellectualism that goes back to its very beginnings. St. Paul was an intellectual of the first order. A thousand years before St. Anselm, Paul acted on Anselm's motto, "faith seeking understanding." Names such as Ignatius of Antioch, Augustine of Hippo and Thomas Aquinas lead directly to Catholic intellectuals in our own era.

But respect for the role of the intellect in the life of faith has gotten precious little respect in the history of American Catholicism specifically, at least not outside the realm of academia – and sometimes not even there. At the same time, whatever its weaknesses from a post-Vatican II catechetical point of view, one not insignificant virtue of the Baltimore Catechism was that it addressed faith on the level of cognition, thus teaching ordinary Catholics that, at the very least, faith is reasonable and intellectually defensible.

One bright exception to the general American Catholic disinterest in the intellectual life is the subject of "A Catholic Brain Trust," a book which, unfortunately, will appeal almost exclusively to academics. Still, the intellectually hardy soul among the educated nonprofessorial also will find in this volume considerable inspiration for the ongoing cultivation of the intellect in the life of faith. For, as author Patrick J. Hayes – assistant archivist for the Baltimore province of the Redemptorists, in Brooklyn, N.Y. – illustrates admirably and in well-documented detail, there was, until 2007 when it was disbanded, a group of American Catholic intellectuals from various disciplines who got some respect.

NEW YORK –– Felony child endangerment presented as "life lessons" constitutes the theme, such as it is, of "The Sitter" (Fox).

Landry Bender, Kevin Hernandez, Max Records and Jonah Hill star in a scene from the movie "The Sitter." The Catholic News Service classification is O – morally offensive. The Motion Picture Association of America rating is R – restricted. Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian. (CNS photo/Fox)Director David Gordon Green and screenwriters Brian Gatewood and Alessandro Tanaka run the gamut of degradation, tossing in some racism for good measure.

Jonah Hill plays Noah, a schlubby failure whose only goal is to gain happiness for his mother Sandy (Jessica Hecht). Noah has been kicked around all his life, or at least ever since his successful father Jim (Bruce Altman) abandoned the family.

To let his mother attend a party where she might find a new romance, Noah agrees to baby-sit three neighbor kids: Slater (Max Records) Blithe (Landry Bender) and Rodrigo (Kevin Hernandez), all of whom have issues of their own.

Slater – the oldest, at all of 13 – is dealing with the budding realization that he's gay; Blithe is foul-mouthed and seeks a hard-partying lifestyle; and Rodrigo, a foster child from South America, likes explosives and has a bladder-control problem.

When Noah hauls them to a drug dealer to buy cocaine for Marisa (Ari Graynor), whom he hopes to make his girlfriend, all goes, er, well until Rodrigo steals a $10,000 "egg" of the drug which Noah breaks. He spends the rest of the night hurtling around New York City trying to make things right for himself, dealing with his own pain, and "solving" problems for the children with oversimplified lectures.

NEW YORK –– A disappointing salute to an often disappointing social event, "New Year's Eve" (Warner Bros.) wastes a talented [...]