In his first book, Teaching Teens Religion, spiritual leader Danny Brock spoke to the values of instructing Catholicism. In his second book Catholicity Ain't What It Used To Be, Brock turns that inside out and speaks to the values of learning from religious living itself.
Brock will be back in his former hometown of Prince George on Sunday for a reading and discussion about this freshly pressed new book.
"It is an inventory: where have I been? What have I done? How does that affect my thinking?," he said, describing the short vignettes arranged into life-lesson anecdotes - each story its own chapter. He touches on topics Catholics and the church itself struggle with in the modern context. He recounts the experiences he has lived in relation to those topics, and sheds light on how he felt and acted as a result.
These facts and impressions were blended in the classroom. He is a longtime teacher in Catholic schools. His position in Prince George was at the now discontinued O'Grady Catholic High School up until about 1999 when he moved to Victoria where he is now the director of religious education at Saint Andrew's Regional Catholic High School. He has a master's degree in Pastoral Ministry.
"I'm just trying to figure stuff out, work out ideas and concerns - stuff I think all Catholics should be thinking about," he said. "Every Catholic should be looking into their role in regard to residential schools. Every Catholic should be looking at themselves about the issue of the clergy's sexual abuse. About bullying within Catholic schools. About dances at Catholic schools. I just pose these things out there as reflections on the past and considerations for the future."
As a pedagogue and an academic, but someone who appreciates a casual lifestyle of appreciation for daily life, he deliberately kept his stories within the realm of discussion rather than judgments or decrees from his point of view. He ran the book past someone he considered a conservative Catholic and also past someone openly questioning faith, but neither felt offended by the stories. That was Brock's cue that the intended effect of the book was probably settling as wished with the public.
"My first book was a how-to book mostly for people involved in teaching at some level. That's my field," he said. "This book is for a wider audience. It's about listening, learning and giving thought to what God is calling us to do now, in these times, with the benefit of history and the gifts of modern knowledge."
He said the writing exercise alone was a teaching tool for himself.
"I heard it said that if you want to learn how to do something really well, teach it. Well now I know that if you want to learn something really, really well, you write about it. It really forces you to be on the ball you want to be on. I actually call myself an author because I just have to when there is a bunch of pages between two covers and your name on the front, that's just literal. But I would not call myself a writer; that's not fair to writers."
He is a storyteller, though, no matter how he chooses his definitions of self. He once shook hands with John F. Kennedy before JFK became President of the United States (Brock was born American) and that, too, ends up in this collection. "It was more like I grabbed his wrist, but I clarify that in the book," he said. From analytical impressions of the most recent Popes to halcyon memories of his youth, life is a series of opportunities leading one to another, and through this book he hopes to inspire some fresh and optimistic thinking for those on his Catholic journey with him.
Brock will be at Immaculate Conception School library on Sunday at 2 p.m. The event is free, light refreshments will be served, and his book will be for sale and available for signing.
