Letters from the Desert by Carlo Carretto, and: Why is the Third World Poor? by Piero Gheddo, and: The Desert is Fertile by Dom Helder Camara (review)

994 BOOK REVIEWS bility of the Self," Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 30 (1969), 7-21, and Empirical Knowledge (Prentice-Hall, 1978), a most impressive anthology Chisholm edited with Professor Robert J. Swartz. This latter selection of readings is constructively edited around the very same issues Chisholm raises in The Problem of the Criterion. In conclusion, the Department of Philosophy at Marquette University is to be commnded for its continuation of the impressive series of Aquinas Lectures. The 1973 Lecture-The Problem of the Criterion-certainly merits its place among the distinguished listing of previous presentations. Denison University Granville, Ohio ANTHONY J. LISSKA Letters from the Desert. By CARLO CARRETTO. New York: Maryknoll Orbis Books, 1972. Pp. 146. $3.95. Why is the Third World Poor? By PIERO GHEDDO. New York: Maryknoll Orbis Books, 1973. Pp. 143. $3.95. The Desert is Fertile. By DoM HELDER CAMARA. New York: Maryknoll Orbis Books, 1974. Pp. 61. $3.95. These three books represent fairly well the kind of help Maryknoll's Orbis Books are offering these days. The Carretta book is on prayer. The author, a very active layman in Catholic Action in Italy for twenty-five years, gave it up at the age of forty-four to become a Little Brother of Jesus. He heard the call to prayer and went into the desert. After a while he began to jot down things. "Nothing systematic, nothing important. A few ideas matured in solitude and taking shape around an activity which has been without a doubt the greatest gift the Sahara has given me: prayer." The book was an instant success in Italy where, since its appearance in 1964 it has gone through twenty-four editions. It has been translated into Spanish, French, German, Portugese, Arabic, Japanese, Czech, and now, gracefully enough, into English. I hope it goes into twenty-four more editions . It breathes with life, with fresh insights, with wisdom, with love. Dominicans will surely appreciate the brief meditation on the rosary as a contemplative prayer (pp. 47-51). The Gheddo book, also a translation from the Italian, is by a missionary priest who is also editor of Mondo e Missione. I don't suppose the word " prayer " appears in the whole book; it nonetheless could have been written only by a man deep in the spirit of Christ, i. e., the spirit of Christian intelligence and love. The book's obvious virtue is its balance. The main point is that the poverty of the Third World cannot be blamed on any BOOK REVIEWS 995 one cause: colonialism, neocolonialism, capitalistic or communistic exploitation , or whatever. No, the causes are very complex, beginning with a fatalistic view of life in many of the peoples of the Third World, a lack of any inner drive to progress, a static rather than a dynamic culture. All this is aggravated by the exploitation of the developed countries, but the solution is not now to banish the industrial sophisticated countries from the underdeveloped ones. Gheddo hates easy slogans and quick put downs. He cites facts and figures; he points to world conferences and studies on poverty and development, shows how experts differ in their analyses and programs. He is very practical. Still, the book does not leave the reader with a feeling of hopeless frustration. On the contrary, it is an excellent primer for anyone truly interested (and what Christian cannot be?) in understanding the serious problems of the Third World, in doing something about them. As everyone knows Dom Helder Camara, archbishop of Recife in northwest Brazil, is the most notable Christian spokesman for the poor in Latin America. This book is a collection of short meditations and poems written for those individual men and women who feel themselves born to serve their neighbor, who are ready for any sacrifice to help the vast human family seek unity through love and justice. Dom Helder has in recent years become disenchanted with institutions. " I dreamt for six years of a large, liberating moral pressure movement. I started Action for Justice and Peace. I travelled half the world. I appealed to institutions, universities , churches, religious groups, trade unions, technicians' organizations , youth movements, etc. After six years I...