Waifs and strays Book

This book is a collection of essays written by Undset in the late 1920's after her conversion to Roman Catholicism. The first 4 chapters sketch the lives of 4 noted Catholic personalities - 2 Medieval and 2 Elizabethan English. Three of them have been canonized by the Catholic Church since Undset's time. The chapter on Ramon Lull is a portrait of a devout Catholic from Catalonia in what is now northeastern Spain, of the 13th-early 14th century. Angela Merici was a late Medieval/Renaissance Italian who founded the order of Ursaline sisters whose mission was the saving and education of girls. Robert Southwell was a Jesuit priest active in England in the late 16th century in the reign of Elizabeth I who was captured and hanged for treason - being a Roman Catholic priest in England at that time was legally treasonous. Margaret Clitherow was an Englishwoman who was executed for her Catholicism, also in the reign Of Elizabeth I, in 1586. The last 2 chapters deal with several moral issues. One of her points is that much of the best of European culture has Christian roots in the Medieval Catholic Church, and with the secularization of so much of Europe in modern times, its cultural roots have been severed, which will cause the eventual withering away of the culture. One of her examples is suicide - considered a grave sin by traditional Christianity, the negative attitude toward it has persisted for a long time but is nevertheless eroding away. This was prescient - in our time physician-assisted suicide is now legal in several Western European countries and in a few American states.