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Books for Christmas 2023

Oldies-but-still-goodies, as well as newer releases.

(Image: Valentin Antonini/Unsplash.com)

Advent-2023 is as short as Advent can be, so this annual column on Christmas gift books that will inspire, entertain, inform, or all of the above comes a bit earlier than usual; it also includes oldies-but-still-goodies as well as newer releases.

Tom Holland’s Dominion: How the Christian Revolution Remade the World (Basic Books) has done more to challenge the regnant secular myths about the development of our civilization than any other recent volume. As the dust jacket puts it, succinctly, “Christianity is the principal reason why, today, we think it nobler to suffer than to inflict pain; why we assume every human life has equal value.” Holland is an accessible writer, so Dominion makes the perfect gift for that off-to-college youngster.

The Theology of Robert Barron, by Matthew Levering (Word on Fire Academic). One of America’s finest younger theologians explores the thought of one of the U.S. Church’s most dynamic leaders while exploding the silly notion that doing theology today involves repeating abstract formulas from the past. Bishop Barron drives that point home himself in Light from Light: A Theological Reflection on the Nicene Creed (Word on Fire Academic); Synod-2023 would have been vastly improved if its discussions had wrestled with this compelling explication of Christian faith rather than slogging through its turgid Instrumentum Laboris (Working Document).

Nigel Biggar and I don’t agree on everything, but I will say without hesitation that he is one of the most fearless of academics in confronting the woke plague corrupting higher education throughout the western world. Colonialism: A Moral Reckoning (William Collins) is the latest example of Biggar’s sturdy scholarship, readability and courage — a book that cost Oxford’s Regius Professor of Moral and Pastoral Theology emeritus endless grief when les enfants terribles of the Cancel Commissariat took exception to this thoughtful and balanced assessment of an important historical phenomenon. The focus is on the British Empire, but the lessons are applicable to other experiences of colonization for both colonizers and colonized.

Erik Varden, author of Chastity: Reconciliation of the Senses (Bloomsbury Continuum), is the bishop of Trondheim in Norway and the former abbot of a Trappist monastery in Leicestershire. His blog, Coram Fratribus (Among Brethren), is a steady source of insight and a primer in literary craftsmanship. Now, in Chastity, Bishop Varden explains just why that much-misunderstood virtue is a matter of living what John Paul II called “the integrity of love.” The book doesn’t release in the U.S. until January 2, but you can pre-order it now — perhaps in tandem with Bishop Varden’s earlier works, The Shattering of Loneliness: On Christian Remembrance and Entering the Twofold Mystery: On Christian Conversion, both published by Bloomsbury Continuum.

There are many challenges in American Catholicism today, but the resolution of one will likely have a tremendous impact on the wider society — and especially on the children of the inner-urban poor, who are cannon fodder in the teachers’ unions’ quest for wealth and power without accountability. In The Survivability of Catholic Schools: Vigor, Anemia, and a Diffident Flock (Rowman & Littlefield), veteran Catholic educator Michael P. Caruso, SJ, explores the many facets of meeting that challenge with insight born of experience.

Aidan Nichols, OP, is one of the most productive theologians in the Anglosphere and, like Robert Barron, a living refutation of certain misconceptions about theology now regnant in Rome. His Conciliar Octet: A Concise Commentary on the Eight Key Texts of the Second Vatican Council (Ignatius Press) was invaluable when I was preparing To Sanctify the World: The Vital Legacy of Vatican II (Basic Books); he’s also the only person who has ever made Gerard Manley Hopkins’ poetry make sense to me (Hopkins: Theologian’s Poet [Sapientia Press]). Now comes Apologia: A Memoir (Gracewing), in which Father Nichols recounts his personal, spiritual, and intellectual journey in a readable volume that also serves as a useful history of modern Catholic contentions.

Tired of the antics of John Fetterman, Marjorie Taylor Green, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Matt Gaetz, and the other caterwauling brats in the congressional playpen? Remind yourself that giants once walked the land by savoring Affection and Trust: The Personal Correspondence of Harry S. Truman and Dean Acheson, 1953-1971 (Knopf). These two robust patriots never seemed to understand that Dwight D. Eisenhower was a crafty politician and serious statesman, but they got a lot else right; Acheson was also a master stylist, whose wit and bite are equally amusing and bracing.

And then there is Willa Cather’s Shadows on the Rock (Vintage), a fitting way to mark that great storyteller’s sesquicentennial and to be reminded of the sacramental sensibility that infuses her work.


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About George Weigel 521 Articles
George Weigel is Distinguished Senior Fellow of Washington's Ethics and Public Policy Center, where he holds the William E. Simon Chair in Catholic Studies. He is the author of over twenty books, including Witness to Hope: The Biography of Pope John Paul II (1999), The End and the Beginning: Pope John Paul II—The Victory of Freedom, the Last Years, the Legacy (2010), and The Irony of Modern Catholic History: How the Church Rediscovered Itself and Challenged the Modern World to Reform. His most recent books are The Next Pope: The Office of Peter and a Church in Mission (2020), Not Forgotten: Elegies for, and Reminiscences of, a Diverse Cast of Characters, Most of Them Admirable (Ignatius, 2021), and To Sanctify the World: The Vital Legacy of Vatican II (Basic Books, 2022).

7 Comments

  1. Two books: The Edge of Sadness by Edwin O’Connor (fiction) and Death on a Friday Afternoon by Fr. John Richard Neuhaus.

  2. “… while exploding the silly notion that doing theology today involves repeating abstract formulas from the past.” Not sure what is meant here. Is this more relentless, Ressourcement taunting toward the Thomistic past; more red-flagging toward the “silly” bull; more reductionism of what may be actually helpful in some way to us now, if we didn’t reduce pre-Vatican II to all uselessness? Nor do I understand how this practice of the past relates to today’s Synodality, unless Mr. Weigel means to say that pre-council Thomism is the Synodality of the past. But does not the present Synodality reject the past in many ways for a more progressive future? We do not need more dynamic leaders (dunamikos : power). (Lord knows we have too many already). We need more clear and consistent shepherds.

    • Weigel is making a direct reference to the recent motu proprio from Pope Francis, on theological study, which opens with this line: “Promoting theology in the future cannot be limited to abstractly re-proposing formulas and schemes of the past.” i don’t read Weigel’s remark at all as a bashing of Thomism; rather, he appears to be saying that Francis has misread the current situation.

      • Thank you Carl. Apparently I overreacted. I thank you for actually being the one making the direct reference (use of citation and quotation marks).

  3. 2 points regarding George Weigel’s recommended book list:

    1. Bishop Barron always lets faithful Catholics down, sooner or later. This includes his full-throated support of the harmful overall approach of the Synod on Synodality despite his pushback against the synod’s promotion of some things in violation of Catholic moral principles. In his own words, Bishop Barron states that

    “The summary statement very accurately expresses the fact that the overwhelming concern of the synod members was to listen to the voices of those who have, for a variety of reasons, felt marginalized from the life of the Church. … Women, the laity in general, the LGBT community, those with disabilities, young people, men and women of color, etc. have felt unappreciated and, most importantly, excluded from the tables where decisions are taken that affect the whole life of the Church. I can assure everyone that their demand to be heard was heard, loud and clear at the synod. And I’m glad it was. …Therefore, if there are armies of Catholics who feel excluded or condescended to, that’s a major pastoral problem that must be addressed with humility and honesty. And I can say, as someone who has been a full-time ecclesiastical administrator for the past twelve years, I am delighted to receive the counsel of laity in regard to practically all aspects of my work. Expanding the number and diversity of those who might aid the bishops in their governance of the Church is all to the good, and bravo to the synod for exploring this possibility.” (“My Experience of the Synod” by Bishop Barron. Nov. 21, 2023)

    Note how Bishop Barron enthusiastically accepts the false narrative of the need to “listen” to many supposedly oppressed “marginalized” groups within the Church. This narrative is just another manifestation of left wing, Marxist-type propaganda rubbish that is being used by leaders of the Synod to promote its agenda of destroying the traditional hierarchical Church established by our Lord. Because of this, many wrong prescriptions will be provided by Bishop Barron and others to “cure” non-existent problems and thereby bring about greater problems and harm to the Church based on numerous falsehoods accepted as truth.
    ___

    Keep the above (among other disappointments) in mind when considering Weigel’s recommendation of the book about the “theology” of Bishop Barron.

    2. Weigel obstinately refuses to accept Church teaching on the immoral use of the Atomic bombs by the US in World War II. Moreover, he actually supports the immoral bombing, but note the following:

    “Code of Canon Law, Canon 752 – While the assent of faith is not required, a religious submission of intellect and will is to be given to any doctrine which either the Supreme Pontiff or the College of Bishops, exercising their authentic Magisterium, declare upon a matter of faith and morals, even though they do not intend to proclaim that doctrine by definitive act. Christ’s faithful are therefore to ensure that they avoid whatever does not accord with that doctrine.”
    ___

    “519. May atomic weapons be justly used?

    No, for the damage they cause is so extensive and indiscriminate, and with such long-term effects on the natural world, that it cannot avoid harming the innocent.”
    (From “Credo” by Bishop Athanasius Schneider. 2023)

    Bishop Schneider summarizes the long-standing position of the Catholic Church against the use of atomic weapons that started with Pope Pius XII’s condemnation of the use of the atomic bombs at the end of World War II and repeated without exception by every Pontiff since that time, and also found in other Church documents.
    ___

    Keep these things in mind when considering Weigel’s recommendation of the book about Harry Truman as well as his own praise of Truman.

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