In the Lógos of Love: Promise & Predicament in Catholic Intellectual Life ed. by James L. Heft, Una M. Cadegan (review)

Taking the words of Pope Benedict XVI and Walker Percy as their inspiration, in 2013 organizers from the University of Dayton and the Institute for Advanced Catholic Studies at USC gathered Catholic scholars from around the country to reflect on four themes related to the hopes and challenges of the Catholic intellectual tradition (CIT) in the twenty-first century: (1) the historical context of Catholic intellectual work in the United States, (2) the place of CIT in the contemporary academy, (3) how controversies over gender and sexuality have shaped recent Catholic intellectual work, and (4) how media has transformed Catholic intellectual life. Eager to share the fruit of their conversations, the editors offer this volume, not so much as a how-to manual for faculty formation, but as a resource for generating conversation about CIT.

Una Cadegan’s chapter opens the volume by arguing that, despite crises internal and external to the church and conflicts between Catholic and prevailing modern attitudes toward uses of knowledge, the resources of CIT are more accessible and urgently needed than ever. Michael Diaz follows with a theological reflection on why a relational approach to truth—as evident in Trinitarian relationality, Latino theology, and Pope Francis’s ministry—is necessary for replacing current cultures of fear with cultures of hospitality. Turning the reader’s attention to the academy, Paul Griffiths suggests that gratitude is the appropriate attitude of Catholic scholars toward their “pagan” (i.e., secular) host institutions and that, despite occasional friction, the future of Catholic intellectual life lies precisely within pagan research universities. In the following chapter, Amelia Uelmen proposes that two habits of inquiry into CIT, the “sacramental spirit” and “narrative rationality,” can help to overcome the historical lack of integration of CIT within professional schools.

Pivoting back to broader social concerns, Leslie Tentler presents public debates about contraception during 1964–1968 as a model of the sort of open exchange with laity that would constitute a more adequate response to contemporary issues of sexuality than the current reign of silence. Exploring the contested issues of gender symbolism, the procreative end of marriage, and same-sex unions, Nancy Dallavalle argues that recognizing both the integrity of human embodiment as male and female and the possibility that same-sex relationships meet the criteria for traditionally sanctioned marriages would enable the Catholic Church to embrace what it values most in the human person. Vincent Miller assesses that the strategies of catechism, censorship, and correlation that enabled the church to form its members with unprecedented effectiveness in the age of national-scale mass media actually impede the church’s sacramental mission in the era of the new media. Examining media coverage of Catholicism during the AIDS crisis, Diane Winston describes how secular outlets’ reporting of key events presented a picture of Catholicism’s resistance to modernity that differed markedly from the multiple notions of that complicated relationship that emerged in Catholic reporting. In the capstone chapter, Scott Appleby calls for engaging young adults and renewing the church by taking a globalized approach to Catholic social engagement and spirituality, noting precedents and current signs of promise for such efforts.

While there is nothing ground breaking about the broad conclusions presented by the editors (5), the real value of this volume lies in the finely textured picture of contemporary Catholic intellectual life painted in different strokes by the various contributors. Each chapter presents highly relevant descriptions of present cultural realities and the efforts of Catholic scholars to avail themselves of the resources of CIT in diverse contexts. The volume honors the catholicity of CIT by attending to the concerns of women, the LGBTQ community, and Latinos. The editors’ inclusion of topics of importance to Catholic families is also most appropriate in light of the recent Synod on the Family and the increasing pressures faced by academics with families...