In the Beginning Was the Internet

by Edward N. Haas


Formats

Softcover
£21.00
Softcover
£21.00

Book Details

Language : English
Publication Date : 23/02/2001

Format : Softcover
Dimensions : 8.25x11
Page Count : 708
ISBN : 9780759613744

About the Book

In this lengthy book of almost 700 pages, its sixty-four-year-old author has gathered together a few letters, several e-mail transmissions, and several items posted to the internet at a web site known as the Catholic Information Center. These communications took place between November of 1996 and December of 1997, and, in content, each deal with topics, which are mostly theological in nature. For example, faith, grace, secret sins, and the Catholic position on slavery are among the topics discussed.

These communications were part of a series of discussions directed at individuals who, for the most part, regarded the author as a devil out to pervert the teachings of Jesus Christ. For that reason, much in these pages is bitter to say the least.

On the other hand, one will also find in these pages a great wealth of highly relevant quotations from prominent Catholic sources spread out over the entire two thousand years of Catholic history. In one sense, then, this is a markedly detailed stroll down the most famous memory lane of them all, which is to say the one generated by what is--by far!--the most successful institution in history: The Catholic Church.

Perhaps, like the author, you hunger to read not only the Bible but every line ever left to us by every pope and by every council, Father of the Church and Doctor of the Church approved by the popes. But, unlike the author, perhaps you have not the wherewithal to spend decades in the kind of seclusion, which makes it possible to devour hundreds of theological volumes. In that case, you may find this book a tour of just the right length to leave you with this blessing: a satisfying sense of having adequately fulfilled a dream you had long thought would never be fulfilled to any extent this side of the grave.


About the Author

Born April 13, 1936, in New Orleans, Louisiana, the author graduated from Jesuit high school, in New Orleans, in 1953. A single fruitless semester studying music at Loyola University of the South in New Orleans was followed by almost two years of floundering in a sea of confusion, and the author then joined the U. S. Air Force on Dec. 7, 1955. Honorably discharged in April of 1960, the author underwent another two and a half years of floundering so severe, he came extremely close to a mental breakdown. In desperation, he gave away everything he owned and, for thirteen years, took to the life of a wandering hermit. In search of as much time and energy as possible for inner reflection upon self, God, and the nature and purpose of reality, he criss-crossed the United States on foot four times. At first, he lived off of whatever food and clothing he could beg; but, after learning how to live on a dollar a day or less, he turned to working at various monasteries in the winter time in exchange for the two to three hundred dollars required to feed and to clothe himself during the next spring, summer, and fall of walking. The monasteries also provided access to libraries in which he could read, and extract notes from, the great writings of the Catholic Church. In the course of that thirteen-year odyssey, there was a four year period during which he refused to speak to anyone (except on very rare occasions) and communicated only by means of written notes.

In August of 1975, the author’s father lost his mind, and the author’s siblings insisted he was the only one in the family with the time and ability to tend to their father in his hour of need. Thus, after thirteen years, the author’s preferred lifestyle came to an end. Dire poverty then gave way to economic independence, and total seclusion gave way to what little privacy can be enjoyed by bachelors who prefer to avoid partying and to stay home and--as much as possible--to bury themselves in as much reading and writing as the world around them will allow.

After his father’s death in 1981, the author took care of his mother until her death in 1996. In this book, the self-educated author of dozens of mostly unpublished books and pamphlets seeks to share with others the avenues of thought down which his mind was lead by thirteen years of heroically intense inner concentration followed by twenty-two years of moderately intense inner concentration.