Girzone, Joseph F. 1930–

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Girzone, Joseph F. 1930–

(Joseph Francis Girzone)

PERSONAL:

Born May 15, 1930, in Albany, NY; son of Peter Joseph and Margaret Rita Girzone. Education: St. Bonaventure University, B.A., 1951; received theology degree from Catholic University of America, 1955; graduate study at Fordham University.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Albany, NY.

CAREER:

Writer, public speaker, and Catholic priest. Entered Carmelite Order, 1948; ordained Catholic priest, 1955; high school teacher in New York and Pennsylvania, 1955-64; St. Albert's Seminary, Middletown, NY, faculty member, 1960-61; pastor at churches in New York, 1964-81; Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Church, Amsterdam, NY, pastor, 1974-81; writer, 1981—. Founder, the Joshua Foundation, 1995. Worked as computer salesman for Olivetti Corporation. Director of Dominican Third Order of Religious Lay People, 1964-76; member of New York State Bishops' Advisory Commission for Criminal Justice, beginning in 1973; chair of Schenectady County, New York, Human Rights Commission, 1973-74; vice-chair of Title III advisory board for New York State Office of Aging, 1974-76; member of Roman Catholic Diocesan Peace and Justice Commission, beginning in 1976; member of board of directors of Schenectady Joint Commission of Christians and Jews; president of Amsterdam Community Concerts. Co-owner of senior citizens newspaper Golden Age Sentinel. Public speaker and retreat organizer.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Liberty Bell Award, American Bar Association, 1974; Citizen of the Age of Enlightenment Award, Society for Creative Intelligence, 1976.

WRITINGS:

Kara: The Lonely Falcon (young adult), Richelieu Court (Albany, NY), 1979.

Who Will Teach Me? (nonfiction), Richelieu Court (Albany, NY), 1982.

Gloria: Diary of a Teenage Girl (young adult), Richelieu Court (Albany, NY), 1982.

Joshua (novel), Richelieu Court (Albany, NY), 1983.

Joshua and the Children: A Parable (novel), Macmillan (New York, NY), 1989.

(Author of preface) Myles Connolly, Mr. Blue, Richelieu Court (Albany, NY), 1990.

The Shepherd (novel), Macmillan (New York, NY), 1992.

Joshua in the Holy Land (novel), Macmillan (New York, NY), 1993.

Never Alone: A Personal Way to God, Doubleday (New York, NY), 1994.

(Author of introduction) Denis McBride, Impressions of a Life: Stories of Jesus, Ligouri (Ligouri, MO), 1994.

Joshua and the City, Doubleday (New York, NY), 1995.

What Is God?, Doubleday (New York, NY), 1996.

Joey: The True Story of One Boy's Relationship with God, Doubleday (New York, NY), 1997.

A Portrait of Jesus, Doubleday (New York, NY), 1998.

Joshua: The Homecoming, Doubleday (New York, NY), 1999.

(Editor) Jesus, His Life and Teachings: As Recorded by His Friends, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, Doubleday (New York, NY), 2000.

The Parables of Joshua, Doubleday (New York, NY), 2001.

The Messenger: A Parable, Doubleday (New York, NY), 2002.

Trinity: A New Living Spirituality, Doubleday (New York, NY), 2002.

Joshua in a Troubled World, Doubleday (New York, NY), 2005.

My Struggle with Faith, Doubleday (New York, NY), 2006.

Joshua's Family, Doubleday (New York, NY), 2007.

ADAPTATIONS:

The following works were adapted as audio cassettes: Kara: The Lonely Falcon, 1991; Joshuain the Holy Land, 1992; The Shepherd, 1992; and Jesus: His Life and Teachings, 2001. Joshua was adapted as a feature film, 2002.

SIDELIGHTS:

Active in the priesthood for more than twenty years, Joseph F. Girzone is the author of several best-selling novels—including Joshua and its sequel, Joshua and the Children: A Parable—about the return of Jesus Christ to present-day Earth. Also the author of two children's books and the parents' handbook Who Will Teach Me?, Girzone turned to full-time writing after being advised by his doctor to retire from active parish work.

Girzone was ordained a Catholic priest in 1955 and, for nearly ten years, taught high school in New York and Pennsylvania. He served as pastor of several Catholic churches in upstate New York until 1974, when he became pastor of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Church in Amsterdam, NY. Involved in community as well as parish life, Girzone served in organizations concerned with human rights, aging, and criminal justice while carrying out his formal religious duties. But in 1981, his stressful schedule began to take its toll on his health, and he decided to leave his parish work. Because he was unwilling to accept a pension before his official retirement age, however, Girzone made an agreement with his diocese to support himself through writing and lecturing. Already the author of one book, an allegorical work for children titled Kara: The Lonely Falcon, Girzone completed three more books by the end of 1981: Who Will Teach Me?, Gloria: Diary of a Teenage Girl, a novel for young adults about a teenager's encounter with bone cancer; and Joshua.

A popular speaker, Girzone became inspired to write Joshua while on a lecture tour. The novel is based on what Girzone imagined would have happened if Jesus Christ had returned to Earth in the 1980s. "I'd always had the feeling that there was something wrong in the way the Christian message was being passed on to people," he said in a WB interview. "There were so many troubled and bruised Christians and that just didn't make sense, because Jesus was always talking about the peace that He came to bring." Girzone wanted to write a novel conveying Jesus's message to a modern audience and addressing the often legalistic and divisive aspects of organized religion he believed might be alienating both Christians and non-Christians from Christ's teachings.

Girzone's resulting work introduced Joshua, a simple woodcarver who settles in a small New York town and spreads his message among its residents, whose characters are based on Girzone's hometown friends and acquaintances. Joshua begins visiting churches of all denominations, preaching against the sometimes prejudiced and exclusive practices of Christianity while conveying his knowledge of God as the source of inner peace, strength, and freedom. Having aroused the anger of the clergy with his reproaches, Joshua is summoned to Rome to explain his views to Vatican officials, before whom the nature of his true identity is revealed.

After completing Joshua, Girzone found himself running out of money and unable to interest a publisher in the manuscript. He was determined to publish his novel, however, even at his own expense, and upon learning that the twelve-dollar per page printing cost would be drastically reduced if he were to put the manuscript on computer disk, he decided to do so. His brother-in-law recommended an Olivetti personal computer for the task and Girzone, finding no Olivetti dealerships in his area, petitioned the company to hire him. By 1983, Girzone not only had published his book, but also, according to William Griffin in Publishers Weekly, had become one of Olivetti's top salesmen.

Girzone's next challenge lay in marketing Joshua to bookstores, which he found reluctant to risk stocking privately printed books. Girzone marketed his book himself, selling it to leaders of religious retreats, whose participants bought and recommended the book to others. After contacting numerous bookstore owners and managers, Girzone finally persuaded Gary Mele, a Waldenbooks district sales manager, to read Joshua. Impressed, Mele placed three copies in several of his district's stores, where they sold immediately. Through word-of-mouth praise, the book became a best-seller, first locally, and then nationally, when Joshua's increasing sales prompted the Waldenbooks chain to distribute it throughout the country in 1985. The novel's growing sales attracted the interest of a Macmillan subsidiary; since the book's 1987 acquisition by Macmillan, more than half a million copies have been sold.

Joshua perhaps owes its immense but quiet renown—it became a best-seller without the usual aid of major book reviews or a massive publicity campaign—to the enthusiastic personal recommendations of its early readers, a diverse worldwide group including Hindus and Jews, clergy and statesmen, believers and nonbelievers. Others point to Girzone's inspirational message of love as the source of its popularity. "A lot of healing has taken place among people who have been touched by the book," Girzone told Griffin in Publishers Weekly. "It seems to me almost as if God wanted Joshua to be written. To get it done, He had to kick me out of the mainstream of the Church, keep me away from ecclesiastical structure, and give me the freedom to do it."

In 1989 Girzone followed his grass-roots success with a sequel, the parable Joshua and the Children, in which Joshua returns again, this time to a community—often compared to Northern Ireland—torn apart by violence and religious conflict. A stranger to the townspeople, Joshua recognizes that many of the town's adults are too emotionally involved in the destructive power struggle to change their ways, so he befriends children from each of the village's warring parties. Joshua shows his young friends how to trust and love one another in the face of terrorism and fear, imbuing them with his powerful legacy of healing and joy.

Girzone again reached a wide audience with Joshua and the Children, and like Joshua, it also became a best-seller. "I really feel that writing is the perfect outlet for my work as a priest," he commented, speaking of his books' success in WB. "You reach a lot more people by writing books. And you get a chance to explain what you want to explain in a lot more depth and in a way that lasts…. As you can see, the message of Christ will always be relevant to the people of every age. Basically, [Joshua's] message is the same message that Jesus brought us 2,000 years ago," the author concluded. "It's there in all its simplicity and always will be."

Girzone followed with two additional volumes in his Joshua series. Joshua in the Holy Land places the eponymous character in the contemporary Middle East, where, wandering about the desert, he finds and returns a lost lamb to a prominent sheik, whom he then befriends. After Joshua miraculously heals a snakebite suffered by the sheik's granddaughter, he begins his mission to bring peace to the embattled region. Joshua successfully effects reconciliation among Christians, Jews, and Moslems through the Children of Peace, a popular movement that reforms governments and society as it gains strength and numbers. Girzone's mysterious protagonist reappears in Joshua and the City, set in a modern metropolis where Joshua confronts and ameliorates various social problems, including prostitution, drug addiction, and poverty. Through his kindness and good works, Joshua becomes an inspiration in the life of a young prostitute who attempts to proposition him; a depressed wealthy woman and her husband; and several troubled African-American youths.

Joshua came to the big screen in 2002 via a feature film adaptation with Tony Goldwyn in the title role. The movie had a limited release and received mixed reviews, but its timing coincided with two new Girzone books, The Parables of Joshua and The Messenger: A Parable. The former revisits Joshua as he retells Jesus' parables with a modern twist. As Girzone writes in the introduction, "I have heard the most callous people comment with such great piety on the parables that I could not help but wonder if we haven't made parables pleasant-sounding fables about human situations past, but with no present-day meaning." Thus the environment, materialism, abortion, and capital punishment all become topics of Girzone's book. While John Mort in Booklist wondered if such messages needed contemporizing—"don't even the irreligious feel that the stories of the prodigal son or the rich man are great life lessons?"—a Publishers Weekly contributor thought that "fans of Girzone will be delighted by another Joshua read, although it's not quite up to par." The Messenger presents a new character, Francis, as a modern-day messenger of God who confronts hostility from the institutional Catholic Church, which perceives him as threatening to their own agendas. This book, which "appears to be a barely disguised autobiographical tale of Girzone's own life," as a Publishers Weekly critic commented, does not measure up to Joshua's "fresh, folksy" appeal.

In a nonfiction work, Never Alone: A Personal Way to God, Girzone shares his own struggles and offers hope in the unconditional love of God. According to Dennis M. Doyle in a Commonweal review, Girzone "defines spirituality as a ‘mystical friendship with Jesus’ requiring that ‘we open ourselves to God, and show a willingness to follow his grace in our lives.’" Girzone also asserts the importance of prayer and observes the surprising accountability that comes with such newfound freedom. A Publishers Weekly reviewer described Never Alone as an "easy-to-read, but by no means simplistic book." A Kirkus Reviews critic praised Girzone's "humanity and insight," concluding that Christians and non-Christians alike "will find much of value here."

Joshua in a Troubled World finds the wise and gentle Joshua experiencing distrust and prejudice in the post-9/11 world. As he travels around Washington, DC, Joshua attracts the attention of the FBI with his appearance as a person of Middle Eastern background. Twice taken in for questioning and followed doggedly, Joshua continues his mission in the nation's capital, visiting a number of prominent Middle Eastern Muslims, Christians, and Jews, and organizing them into a loose coalition of peace-seekers. When these influential individuals visit their home countries, they bring their native spiritual and political leaders into the fold, resulting in a new and strongly felt declaration of peace among the members of the diverse religions. Library Journal reviewer Tamara Butler observed that readers would find this and all other Joshua novels a "kinder and gentler alternative" to other popular religious series that portray Jesus's return in more violent, apocalyptic terms.

Though Girzone has provided religious inspiration to thousands through his years as a priest and via his numerous books, he admits that he has also experienced times of spiritual conflict and doubt. In My Struggle with Faith, Girzone offers a "beautifully crafted reflection on the Christian faith and struggle," commented Anthony J. Elia in the Library Journal. He considers directly and in-depth the "central spiritual quandaries shared by many," Elia observed. Girzone looks at sometimes troubling, sometimes confusing issues such as literal versus metaphorical interpretations of the Bible; religion versus science; various misconceptions about Jesus and his life, and the most fundamental question of all, the existence of God. He also discusses more direct issues, noted Jeanette Leardi in the Dallas Morning News, such as priestly celibacy and marriage, religious activism and evangelism in the context of a democracy, and independence of bishops and other religious leaders from dictates handed down by the Vatican. At the core of the book, Girzone explores the doubt, disbelief, and depression that were attendant on his search for his core beliefs, and his "various struggles to reconcile his personal faith with the tenets and workings of today's Vatican," Leardi stated. A Publishers Weekly writer concluded: "In his simple, readable prose, Girzone paints a beautiful portrait of faith."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Bestsellers 90, Issue 1, Thomson Gale (Detroit, MI), 1990.

Girzone, Joseph F., The Parables of Joshua, Doubleday (New York, NY), 2001.

PERIODICALS

Booklist, January 1, 2001, John Mort, review of The Parables of Joshua, p. 869; May 15, 2001, Nancy Spillman, review of Jesus, His Life and Teachings: As Recorded by His Friends, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, p. 1765; October 1, 2002, Ray Olson, review of Trinity: A New Living Spirituality, p. 288; November 15, 2004, John Mort, review of Joshua in a Troubled World, p. 531.

Business Wire, November 8, 2004, "TBN Announces the Broadcast Television Premiere of the Inspirational Film Joshua Slated to Debut Thanksgiving Day at 2 p.m. and 7 P.M. PST."

Commonweal, September 9, 1994, Dennis M. Doyle, review of Never Alone: A Personal Way to God, p. 21.

Dallas Morning News, September 20, 2006, Jeanette Leardi, "Reviews of Religious Books and Web Sites," review of My Struggle with Faith.

Fort Worth Star-Telegram, April 18, 2002, Robert Philpot, movie review of Joshua.

Kirkus Reviews, January 1, 1994, review of Never Alone, p. 35.

Library Journal, April 1, 2002, Melanie C. Duncan, review of The Messenger, p. 86; February 1, 2005, Tamara Butler, review of Joshua in a Troubled World, p. 60; May 15, 2006, Anthony J. Elia, review of My Struggle with Faith, p. 106.

People, November 6, 1989, Lucinda Smith, "Father Joseph Girzone's Joshua Parables Put a Best-selling End to His Quiet Retirement," p. 75.

Publishers Weekly, October 6, 1989, William Griffin, "PW Interviews: Joseph F. Girzone," p. 78; March 14, 1994, review of Never Alone, p. 29; March 27, 2000, "For the Easter Basket," p. 78; January 15, 2001, review of The Parables of Joshua, p. 68; February 18, 2002, review of The Messenger, p. 74; August 26, 2002, review of Trinity, p. 63; November 29, 2004, review of Joshua in a Troubled World, p. 21; March 13, 2006, review of My Struggle with Faith, p. 61.

WB, November/December, 1989, interview with Joseph F. Girzone.