Seven remarkably good and brand-new Catholic books

By Dr. Jeff Mirus ( bio - articles - email ) | Nov 03, 2026 | In Reviews

When I first got started in what might be called a Catholic intellectual apostolate in the mid to late 1960s, the Church in the West had just been overwhelmed by secularism. The post-war Christian generation of the mid-twentieth century enjoyed too much relief and prosperity to think clearly about the need for God, and placed too little emphasis on raising their children with deep religious conviction. The abandonment of reality had begun earlier in the universities, but by the mid-60s the loss of faith among both many Catholic priests and an enormous number of Catholic intellectuals was clear for all to see.

In 1966, I went off to college—but fortunately I had been warned what to expect by the priest in my parish who taught CCD to high school seniors. Oddly enough, I had been arguing with my Protestant friends ever since the very late 1950s (I turned twelve in 1960). But by the mid-60s, it was no longer Catholic vs. Protestant. It was genuine Christian Faith of every kind against the world.

In some ways, the situation today is considerably better. There are still too many people using the Catholic name to spout theological nonsense, and the Church is not nearly as monolithic as it had at least seemed to be (albeit ignoring university theology departments) in the 1940s and 1950s. But by the late 1960s and 1970s, most of the old tried and true Catholic publishing companies were courting heretical authors. One had to be very careful indeed about where one bought “Catholic” books. This pretty well explains why Fr. Joseph Fessio founded Ignatius Press in 1978. It also explains why I helped Dr. Warren Carroll to get Christendom College going 1977 and, in 1985, founded a small Catholic publishing company called Trinity Communications—which ended up morphing into CatholicCulture.org.

Now I am getting old, slowing down, and in some ways failing to keep up. One of those ways relates to reading all the good books that are currently pouring out from new or renewed Catholic publishers. Here are seven new books worth noting that have come across my desk in just the past few weeks from four different Catholic publishers. It is a happy dilemma that one person can no longer keep up with the steady flow—but there is something for everybody in this group (summarized in alphabetical order by author):

W. Tyler Allen, A Catechism of the Strange: Stigmata, Relics, and the Miracles that Shape the Soul. Loyola University Press. 2026. 272pp. Paperback. $13.99.

This covers the stigmata, sacred relics, incorrupt bodies, purgatory, Eucharistic miracles, transverberation of the heart and the wound of love, bilocation, hierognosis (supernatural perception of sacred things), angels, dreams, interior locutions, and shining like the sun, as exemplified in holy men and women down through history. Tyler Allen is the host of the St. Anthony’s Tongue podcast.

Mike Aquilina, The Church Fathers for Our Time. Emmaus Road Publishing. 2026. 214pp. Paperback or eBook. $16.99.

Mike Aquilina gathers together and reshapes his writings and scripts on the Fathers of the Church over the past twenty years. For example, Mike launched CatholicCulture.org’s Way of the Fathers podcast and hosted it for its first four years—but he had been immersed in the study of, and in writing about, the Fathers for many years before that. This new book is not a series of chapters on individual Church Fathers but rather a thematic exploration of the key concerns they articulated: Witness, culture wars, liturgy, and a mission to the ends of the earth.

Scott Hahn, The Emmaus Paradigm: An Interpretive Key to the Scriptures. Emmaus Road Publishing. 2026. 124pp. Hardcover. $14.95.

Scott Hahn (with Celeste Fortenberry), Kingdom Come: Unveiling the Mystery of Salvation History. [A study of 1-2 Chronicles]. Emmaus Road Publishing, 2026, 164pp, Hardcover. $24.95; eBook $17.95.

In The Emmaus Paradigm, Scott Hahn explores how Our Lord Himself unfolds the plan of salvation as expressed through the Old Testament and the culmination of that plan in the Eucharist itself. In Kingdom Come, Hahn and and Celeste Fortenberry explore the layers of typology in 1 and 2 Chronicles to explore what is revealed about salvation history culminating in the the earthly kingdom of God, which is the Church.

Jayd Henricks, To Make All Things New: On the Church, Reform and Renewal. Ignatius Press, 2026, 144 pp. Paper $17.95; eBook $11.67.

Jayd Henricks is president of Catholic Laity and Clergy for Renewal (CLCR) and has eleven years of experience working at the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. With an STL in systematic Theology from the Dominican House of Studies, Jayd is extremely well-positioned to write this concise but impassioned recipe for a deeply authentic renewal of the Church. This is part of the Ignatius Press “Urgent Issues” series, with chapters on such matters as true and false reform, the sensus fidelium in the age of synodality, and the shepherds we need.

Christopher Kaczor, Vital Conflicts: Debating Abortion, Gender Treatments, and Claims of Conscience. Ignatius Press, 2026, 220pp. Paper $18.95.

Divided into three parts—Abortion, Gender Treatments, and Claims of Conscience—this well-organized book provides a comprehensive answer to all of the false arguments which drive the attacks on children in the womb and gender change, along with the desperate need for conscientious objection in healthcare, without a corresponding right to “conscientious provision”. This is by far the most complete and cogent discussion of these issues that I have seen.

Peter Martino, Resurrection on Trial: A Judicial Inquiry into the Christian Claim of the Resurrection of Jesus. Sophia Institute Press, 2026. 317pp. Paper $19.95. eBook $9.99.

Having read most of the earlier books on the Resurrection of Christ—and having defended the Resurrection over the years on CatholicCulture.org—I can safely endorse Martino’s book as the most comprehensive treatment of this all-important subject. Written in the form of a judicial inquiry, the text considers all aspects of the claim of Resurrection for Jesus Christ and settles the case in a way that can leave no room for doubt—beyond a healthy caution concerning the miraculous—in the mind of any sincere inquirer into the claims made for Jesus of Nazareth. The book includes thirty-three chapters, four appendices, a personal witness, and an extensive bibliography.