Brother Booker Ashe: “It's Amazing What the Lord Can Do” (Marquette University Press), by Willy Thorn

The legions whose lives were touched by the late Brother Booker T. Ashe and his House of Peace, the revolutionary social service community center at 17th and Walnut in Milwaukee, will have their memories enriched by Willy Thorn's well-organized, politically astute and morally sensitive biography. Others will just be inspired. “His guidelines for improving the standing of blacks in the Church, and the Catholic Church's standing with blacks, may be his most enduring legacy,” Thorn writes. The book is rich with testimonies from Ashe's associates and public figures, and includes stunning quotes from Ashe's published interviews on race, economics and social justice. “We are the church of the poor or we are not the church of Christ,” Ashe argued. Thorn provides perfect sketches of the Capuchin Order's founder, Francis of Assisi, Ashe's predecessor in poverty and unconditional love for “the least of my brothers.”

Celebrating the publication of the book will be a discussion by six of the many people whose recollections fill its pages, 1:30-2:30 p.m. Feb. 26 at St. Francis of Assisi Parish, 1927 N. Fourth St.