Beautiful Souls: Saying No, Breaking Ranks, and Heeding the Voice of Conscience in Dark Times, by Eyal Press. Farrar, Straus, and Giroux. 2012.

   This book may shake you to your roots. It is not for the weak of heart. It shows the awfulness of evil and tells why ordinary people defy authority and convention, when their conscience says "No".  Press gives stories of resisters who let conscience speak, giving a message they are willing to follow. He shows that it is true believers who are not really radicals who want to overthrow the whole system, but ordinary folks, true believers who are brave enough to stick to their convictions.
   Some of the stories he tells will make chills run up your back. He visits Austria in 1938 when a police officer refuses to enforce a law preventing Jewish refugees from entering his county. Earlier he sees a Serb from Vukovar defying officials in order to save the lives of Croats. Another time he relates the story of a high member of the military in the time of the Second Intifada refusing to serve in the occupied territories. A whistleblower in a financial industry lost her job for refusing to sell a toxic product.
   When there is economic calamity and political unrest, this author makes close investigations of the choices and dilemmas present when principles collide with the decisions one is called upon to make. Which way to go is the question.
   Courage is not always about going into a blazing fire to save a victim. It takes as much bravery, according to Press, to defy an unethical corporation as it does to resist a totalitarian regime. This book helps readers understand why a minority stands on principle when a majority fails to do so. This is a book for the 21st century; it is about conscience, group pressures, ethics, and psyches; it gives no simple answers to matters of conscience.
   The four chapters are entitled: Disobeying the laws, Defying the group, The rules of conscience, and The price of raising one's voice. The Prologue ends with this sentence: "It is never easy to say no, particularly in extreme situations, but it is always possible, and so it is necessary to try to understand how and why ordinary women and men sometimes make what is difficult but possible real."

St. Francesco Antonio Fasani (1681-1742): November 27

   Born in Lucera (southeast Italy), Francesco entered the Conventual Franciscans in 1695. After his ordination 10 years later, he taught philosophy to younger friars, served as guardian of his friary and later became provincial. When his term of office ended, Francesco became master of novices and finally pastor in his hometown.
    In his various ministries, he was loving, devout and penitential. He was a sought-after confessor and preacher. One witness at the canonical hearings regarding Francesco's holiness testified, "In his preaching he spoke in a familiar way, filled as he was with the love of God and neighbor; fired by the Spirit, he made use of the words and deed of Holy Scripture, stirring his listeners and moving them to do penance." Francesco showed himself a loyal friend of the poor, never hesitating to seek from benefactors what was needed.
   At his death in Lucera, children ran through the streets and cried out, "The saint is dead! The saint is dead!" Francesco was canonized in 1986.