One day as I was browsing through my local public library, I spied Roman Catholicism by Loraine Boettner. I remembered hearing the title on Scott Hahn’s conversion tape. Hahn said that at one point in his life he had used this book against Catholics and even had convinced one of his former girlfriends to leave the Catholic Church by getting her to read this particular book. Now, he said, he wished he could tear up every copy in existence because it is full of lies.
I looked around in the section where I found Roman Catholicism. I found only three other Catholic books on the shelf: one by Henri Nouwen, one on St. Francis of Assisi, and one on St. Benedict. The saint books looked ancient.
I picked up the Boettner book and considered several options: I could check it out and renew it twice, keeping it out of circulation for nine weeks (but that increases its circulation and gives the librarians the idea that it’s a popular book); I could check it out, burn it, and say I lost it (but that’s lying, and besides, I would have to pay for the book, and they would probably buy another one); or I could sneak the book out of the library and trash it (but that’s stealing—still a sin even with the best of intentions). In the end, I hid the book behind the other books on the shelf, hoping nobody would find it for a very long time.
At the time, I was being challenged by a friend who went to a Bible church, and I knew I needed to learn more about my faith. I began to order books, tapes, videos, and DVDs from trustworthy Catholic apostolates. My home library grew. As I made little attempts to evangelize friends and family, I lent books and tapes frequently. I knew the public library didn’t have good Catholic books. At the time, it never occurred to me that I could change that.
Then one day my friend Maureen Wittmann mentioned that she had been getting good books in her public library. How? I asked. Simple, she said: Put in a request that the library buy the books I want.
My friend is a homeschooling mother of seven who’s always looking for thrifty ways of doing things. Getting the library to purchase the books she wanted was a money-saver for her. “The library is useful to me only if it has the books I need,” she pointed out.
“The library hasn’t purchased every book I’ve requested,” Maureen told me, “but it has purchased a great number of them. I recently counted more than fifty books, audio books, video/DVDs, and music CDs the library has purchased at my request. Think of the impact if more practicing Catholics did the same at their own library.”
Maureen has started an e-group for people interested in getting good books into their public library. She named her e-group after Pope Nicholas V, because he was a bibliophile who donated his personal collection to start the Vatican library.
Maureen sends out weekly e-mails to list members. She provides the title of a product and gives all of the information a librarian would need to order the book: title, author, publisher, publication date, and ISBN. She also includes reviews whenever possible. Her website (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PopeSaintNicholasV/) contains files and links to help you work with your local public library.
After I joined the list, I printed out Maureen’s suggestions and went to the library. I nervously approached the reference desk and asked a librarian if I could suggest some books for the library to purchase. The librarian was nice, said yes, and asked for my name and phone number. (Later I found out I could request new books online—a lifesaver for shy people.)
I began putting in book requests when I visited the library. Nothing happened for about six months, and I began to wonder if I was being effective. Maureen said to have patience. Then one day the library called: A book I requested was on hold for me. It turned out that my library orders books only at certain times of the year. Waiting for me was a beautiful new Catholic book. Appropriately, it was one of Hahn’s: Living the Mysteries: A Guide for Unfinished Christians (Our Sunday Visitor, 2003), which he co-wrote with Mike Aquilina.
I rushed home with my treasure. I felt so proud—I had influenced our little library. Now other people could read Hahn, too. I read it with real joy, not only because it was a wonderful book but also because it would now be available for other people. Soon after, the library began calling regularly as more and more of my requests came in.
Anyone Can Do It
We are all called to evangelize. Many of us find that daunting: We’re afraid we won’t have the right words or that we won’t know how to answer a challenge. The public library offers a wonderful opportunity to evangelize without those worries.
In deciding which books to recommend, it’s best to find out first what is in the religion section of the catalog. If your library is like mine, there are more books about Mormons than about Catholics, and the few “Catholic” books are really anti-Catholic titles such as The Da Vinci Code, Hitler’s Pope, and a few “How the Church Wrecked Me” books. You can’t remove those books (at least not legally or morally), but you can get books to counter them or balance them out.
For example, my library has at least six copies of The Da Vinci Code that are checked out constantly, so I requested The Da Vinci Hoax, a Catholic response by Carl Olsen and Sandra Miesel (Ignatius, 2004). I wanted to read the book myself, but I also thought anyone interested in the Code might find the Hoax. Sure enough, when I returned The Da Vinci Hoax, someone had requested a hold already. If I’ve influenced one person not to believe the stuff in The Da Vinci Code, it was worthwhile.
A good counter to Hitler’s Pope would be Hitler, the War, and the Pope by Ron Rychlak (Our Sunday Visitor, 2000) or Pius XII: Architect for Peace by Margherita Marchione (Paulist Press, 2000). A good counter to the “wrecked me” books would be Thank You Sister: Memories of Growing Up Catholic by Beverly Pangle Scott (Ave Maria Press, 2003) or Sisters: Catholic Nuns and the Making of America by John Fialka (St. Martin’s Press, 2003).
Next, think of those people who are coming to the library for answers to life’s questions. They deserve the truth. Choose Catholic books that teach the faith, evangelize, and inspire. Make sure the tone is respectful and charitable. Keep in mind that librarians love books that get checked out, so suggest the perennial best-sellers. Librarians also prefer books published recently. If you can demonstrate that the book has good reviews and will be popular, it is more likely to get ordered. Stories of modern day saints such as Mother Teresa and Pope John Paul II will be circulated. Children’s books, too, are sure to be checked out frequently.
The Holy Father calls us to a “New Evangelization.” The library can be a tool for evangelization if it has good Catholic books. The library is a public place. It won’t carry all the books we want, and it will carry a lot of books we wish weren’t there. But as taxpayers and citizens, we can influence the library to purchase some books we’d like to have there, and then we can pray that the right book gets into the right hands.