The Kucera Center operates the Loras College Press and sponsors the Frank and Ida Goedken Series.  The series includes books that explore spiritual life in one of the most diverse regions of North America, the Upper Mississippi River Valley.

            For more information on the series or to order any of the books below, please contact us.

BOOKS IN THE SERIES

Go Forth and Teach, a sequel to With Faith and Vision  
The Rev. Thomas Toale, General Editor   

Refresh your memory and reminisce with others by reading this limited edition collection of histories of all Catholic schools which served the archdiocese since it's founding.  Go Forth and Teach, Continuing the Challenge is a sequel to With Faith and Vision, which was published in 1967 under the direction of Monsignor Justin Driscoll, Superintendent of Schools from 1953-1967.  This original publication included a brief history of each parish and school of the archdiocese as well as histories of the Catholic colleges and religious communities.

Go Forth and Teach, Continuing the Challenge is a "popular" history, reflecting the work of many individuals from local sites.  Many shared their memories and expertise in providing the information and verifying the accuracy of the document.  Thanks to these contributors and to the Loras College Press for publishing this latest collection.  This history reveals many heart-warming tales in addition to acknowledging the deep commitment of so many throughout the years.

Skiing at Midnight 
A Nature Journal from Dubuque County, Iowa.  Kevin Koch, Ph.D.

Dubuque County, Iowa.  In this wonderful book nature-writer Kevin Koch trains a keen eye on the world of one particular place.  But through the descriptive qualities of his prose and the images he sets to poetry, we find ourselves traveling across a landscape that is at once outside of us and deeply interior.  His introduction takes us "down to the core" and sets us on a course that, by turns, is both public and private, crowded and abandoned, a garden and a prairie.  It also begins a route that leads where the narrative itself ends: with the music of God's grace.

Foundations: The Letters of Mathias Loras, D.D., Bishop of Dubuque
Transcribed, translated, and edited by Robert F. Klein, assisted by Sr. Benventua Bras, O.P.

From the Loras College Press and the Kucera Center for Catholic Studies, with additional support from the Center of Dubuque History, this limited edition book, edited by Robert Klein, is a collection of letters written by Mathias Loras, the first Bishop of Dubuque and founder of Loras College, and tells the story of his adventures from his early days in France to his missionary travels, to setting up the Diocese of Dubuque.

Man of Deeds: Bishop Loras and the Upper Mississippi River Valley Frontier, by Thomas E. Auge, Professor Emeritus of History at Loras College, edited by Amy Lorenz, Professor of Modern Languages and Cultures at Loras College, with a preface by Andrew J. Auge, Professor of English at Loras College.

From the French Revolution sweeping through the streets of Paris to a steam boat churning past the Iowa prairie, Man of Deeds chronicles the amazing life and times of Bishop Mathias Loras. 

Born into a wealthy family just a year before his father died under the guillotine, Loras grew up in the turmoil of post-revolutionary France.  Religiously devout from a young age, he was a childhood friend of future saint Jean-Marie Vianney.  After becoming a priest, Loras began the kind of clerical career that could have advanced him to the upper echelons of the Catholic hierarchy in Europe.  Instead, he decided to put his faith into action by becoming a missionary on the American frontier.  

After working to build some of the first Catholic churches and schools in rapidly growing Alabama, Loras was appointed the bishop of the new Dubuque diocese in 1837.  Coming to a region just opening up to westward expansion, Loras helped establish Catholicism in what is today Iowa and Minnesota, as well as parts of Illinois, Wisconsin, and Nebraska. 

This book is a fascinating portrait of a frontier bishop arriving in a rough river town to establish a diocese spread over an enormous wilderness territory, one almost completely lacking in churches and clergy.  A deeply spiritual man, Loras was also capable of savvy land deals, adroit fundraising, and delicate political maneuvering.  He recruited priests and women religious, established towns and built churches and schools to serve them, ministered to Native Americans, forged Catholic-Protestant cooperation, and negotiated conflicts between different ethnic immigrant groups. 

The story this book tells is one that resonates across the landscape of the upper Midwest today, as the work of Mathias Loras is still evident in the ongoing ministry of its religious institutions and the rich spiritual lives of its people.

Thomas E. Auge taught History at Loras College for nearly 30 years.  He retired in 1987 and died in 2002.  He is remembered fondly by his students, colleagues, and the entire Loras College family.

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