 From the desk of William Fahey, Ph.D. President, Thomas More College Publisher, Sophia Institute Press
Because my work these days seems ever more like that of Noah, building an ark and stocking it with things we need to survive. When the rains began to fall, he gathered a small group, shut the doors, and bravely set out across the deep. Seven months he sailed that trackless sea before Mt. Ararat offered dry land to save his people.  Today, not rain but a flood of words, words, words is drowning our Catholic culture: Netflix, YouTube, Facebook,print ads, email, blogs, posts, tweets, spam and — floating in on that vast verbal tide — one million new books that will be published this year alone! Yes, I said "one million." One million new books published this year alone!
To keep our Catholic culture from being swept away, I'm assembling a small group of people and organizations, and inviting the participation of good folks like you. Like Noah, we're boldly setting out into the deep, seeking not to find, but to provide dry land to save our Catholic people — and anyone else who yearns to know and love our God. * I began this work in earnest two years ago, when they named me President of Thomas More College here in New Hampshire.  In the intervening 24 months, and with the assistance of its fine faculty and staff, I've significantly strengthened Thomas More's Catholic identity while bringing her the financial stability that so long eluded her. Then just four months ago, Sophia Institute Press asked me to become her President, too, and to marry her Catholic apostolic efforts to those of Thomas More and of our sister institution, Holy Spirit College in Atlanta. Back in February, Sophia was listing sharply to starboard, close to sinking. With God's help and yours — I raised half of the money we needed to restore her. We bailed her out, plugged her leaks, and righted her. Although still fragile, today she's sailing smartly across the sea. We reprinted 25 Sophia titles that had fallen out of print (see list below). Relying on God's Providence and your help to bring us funds we'll need next month, we've just ordered the reprinting of twelve more (also listed below). God willing, by this fall we will have rebuilt our clunky website, made most of our books available in electronic form, and released ten new titles, including: The Book of Miracles Christopher: A Novel The Bones of St. Peter The Truth about Thérèse The Most Beloved Woman Viper: A Catholic Mystery St. Thomas Aquinas and His Work The Catholic Church and the Bible The Little Book of the Blessed Virgin MaryThe Spanish Match: A Novel of Catholic Spain * Yes, in just four months, our ship has been righted and is now sailing smartly. Indeed, she reminds me somewhat of the 22 new bright new graduates on whom I conferred degrees last Saturday at Thomas More College: eager, energetic, yet untested, even fragile.  Still, like the solid Catholic books we publish, each is a powerful new instrument that, working together, we have now placed in the hands of God so that His will may be done. You know, when I'm tempted to worry for the future of these new graduates (and even about Sophia), I recall what Flannery O'Connor once said about the books she wrote: "When a book leaves your hands, it belongs to God. He may use it to save a few souls or to try a few others, but I think that for the writer to worry is to take over God's business."
And when the students we form or the books we publish leave our hands, we're confident that, regardless of the storms that may follow or the rains that come, God will use them — like the great Ark itself — to save a few souls. * So we built . . . but never alone. * Noah had sons and daughters to help him build the ark and tend its passengers; Flannery O'Connor had editors, publishers, and advertisers; our students have their parents and teachers. So, too, we here at Sophia rely on you to help us make known the truth of Jesus in our world that has been drowned in a flood of words, words, words. Your prayers we need, for sure, and I'm grateful for them: but we also need your contributions to pay the printer for the twenty-four books we must get into print these next few months: books that will bring to Sophia the stability we were able last year to bring to Thomas More College. Will you help? Will you use this Paypal button to donate $100 today to help us get into print the books listed below? Or $50? Even $25 would help enormously.  You may remember that in the letter I sent you in March when things here were much more difficult, I quoted Mother Teresa:
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*If you would prefer not to use paypal, you can add a contribution
directly to your shopping cart at our on-line store.
directly to your shopping cart at our on-line store.
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