FATHER AL’S BIBLIOGRAPHY

Though Father Al left our world in 1992, we are fortunate to count on his writings to remind us of the history of his life-saving mission and to guide us in accessing a life of purpose, dedicated to the poor.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Over the years, Father Schwartz wrote several books, including:

Killing Me Softly: The Inspiring Story of a Champion of the Poor – Aloysius Schwartz

This autobiographical account of the last years in the life of the internationally acclaimed founder of several Boystowns and Girlstowns – in Korea, the Philippines, and Mexico – is as moving as it is inspiring. In it the author recounts his ongoing battle with Lou Gehrig’s Disease (ALS) while trying to maintain and staff his growing number of homes for orphaned youngsters, a residential village for destitute, homeless, and handicapped men, two full service hospitals, a fledgling congregation of religious women, the Sisters of Mary and another of men, the Brothers of Christ.

The Starved and the Silent: The Dramatic Encounter of an American Priest With Christ’s Poor in Korea – Aloysius Schwartz

Although this book is autobiographical in form, the story of the author’s life is only the backdrop against which is played out the drama of “the starved and the silent” people of Korea – a drama of privation so complete and despair so intense as to be almost beyond the imagination of a member of “the affluent society”. Father Schwartz explains first the circumstances which led him to become a parish priest in Busan, Korea, rather than a missionary; then he describes his parish activities as pastor, economist, social worker, and psychologist among a people incredibly different from us in their way of life, their needs, and their goals.

Poverty: Sign of Our Times – Aloysius Schwartz

Christ’s presence in the poor: that is the reality to which too many Christian eyes are dimmed. Yet all our talk of reform and renewal will come to naught unless the Church – and we are the Church – faces the challenge of poverty. Today the Church is, in the eyes of most of the world, almost a middle class phenomenon, the Comfortable Church.

This disturbing book should shake our complacency. There is urgency and holy anger in its pages. But time is running out, and there is need for the anger and anguish of concern. The work raises questions in stark perspective and tells us that unless the Church becomes the Church of the Poor, it cannot hope to speak to modern man.

A Heart for the Poor: The Thought and Spirituality of Msgr. Aloysius Schwartz – Rev. Msgr. Jesus-Romulo C. Ranada

The thought and spirituality of Fr. Al reveals a Father whose heart goes out especially to those who are poor among his children. Not that he has favorites, but that he wants to generate more love for those who have none, or who have less, in order for these less fortunate ones to be loved and become themselves love, and so fill the world with the same gift that is love.