This book consists of eight conference papers given to various audiences and responds to those who fail to grasp Catholic truth, whether they are inside or outside the Church. Nichols has preferred not to present the critics’ arguments in full, merely that they critique the Catholic faith.
The marrow of ‘For Modernists: Modernism a century later’ is the encyclical Pascendi dominici gregis. The first part discusses the modernist as philosopher, believer, theologian, historian and critic, apologist, and reformer. The second part is Nichols’ own categorisation of modernists today: comprehensive, kernel, sectorial, and negative. Nichols proposes as the remedy Thomistic ontology – without reference to what is now considered the Cajetanian and Suárezian trends of the anti‐modernist heyday – patristics, liturgies, the other monuments of tradition, and obedience to the magisterium. Interestingly, Nichols argues that the pre‐conciliar patristic and liturgical movements can be considered part of Pius X's move against modernism, yet are held in suspicion by traditionalist Catholics.
Chapter two, ‘For Neo‐Gnostics: Challenges to Orthodoxy and Mission,’ also centres round curial documents: Dominus Iesus and Jesus Christ: The Bearer of the Water of Life. Nichols sees St. Irenaeus as a Father tailor‐made for our times, as referenced in these documents, the Catechism, and von Balthasar. Nichols makes two interesting points. First, he places modern neo‐Gnosticism, Islam and Buddhism in the same essay. One cannot help think Nichols warrants this because they are non‐Catholic and ‘express religious experience in search of absolute truth’ (p. 40). Second, our attention is drawn to the possibility of ‘sub‐mediations [by Gautama and Mohammed] in the unique mediatorial being and action of Jesus Christ’ (p. 41) as a possibility presented by Dominus Iesus. We should include here the third essay, ‘For Academic Exegetes: Reading Scripture in the Church’, for both concern the extent to which knowledge of God is privatised or grasped at by human efforts alone. In this case it is the academy's historical‐critical method under the yoke of rationalism. Nichols summons François Dreyfus, Denis Fárkasfalvy, Ignace de la Potterie, and Pope Benedict XVI. These theologians bring study of Scripture into the Church in dialogue with patristics, liturgy and the academy's historical‐critical research, to the extent that the latter does not stand without the other referents.
‘For Feminists: How God is Father’ is an excellent summary of the Trinitarian theology of East and West. Nichols drives home the point that God is Father before he is Creator, because he is firstly Father of the Son, the Logos. This is the primordial truth which Nichols convincingly argues. Nichols makes contemporary cultural corollaries with Nietzsche and Freud's rebellion against a father figure, which Žižek takes to its conclusion in the disintegration of the Big Other. However, for a theologian fluent in the thought of von Balthasar, Nichols does not mention that von Balthasar readily describes the Father as supra‐feminine and does not hesitate to present the generation of the Son as coming forth from the womb of the Father, von Balthasar always operating within the analogia entis.
‘For Liberal Protestants: How Christ is Priest’ occupies itself with developing a priestly Christology. Borrowing Hugh of Saint‐Victor's concept of sacramenta within the Thomistic treatment of the Old Law, Nichols argues for a super‐fulfilment reading of Scripture that presents persons and institutions – Melchizedek, Zodak, Temple – fulfilled by Christ the High Priest. Reading Scripture as a whole within the Church is fundamental, which makes the chapter on scriptural exegesis good preparation. Nichols demonstrates the intercessory and sacrificial nature of Christ's priesthood from the farewell discourse and the last supper. By combining Christ's self‐understanding and fulfilment of Isaiah's Servant, and Daniel's transcendent Son of Man, Nichols presents Christ as the divine‐human Priest of the New Covenant. By introducing Margaret Barker's tearing of the Temple veil identified with Christ's flesh, Nichols further shows that Christ's taking the garment of human flesh, transfigured white on Tabor, enters with his human nature into the true Holy of Holies by his Easter victory. Perhaps for liberal Protestants, the issue is also how Christ's priesthood is participated in by Christians. Nichols states that Christ's priesthood is continued in the Church, but does not develop an apologia for this Catholic belief.
In ‘For Progressive Catholics: The Council and the Gospel of Life,’ Nichols develops his idea of attenuated existentialism as sincerity and autonomous conscience in moral decision‐making, understood as the legitimate expression of Vatican II. The hermeneutics of rupture and continuity are examined in relation to Gaudium et Spes§§12 and 22. Humanae Vitae is mentioned en passant, Evangelium Vitae is not discussed at all. These would have been more constructive for the argument. In presenting Tracey Rowland's critique of Gaudium et Spes Nichols leaves some gaps. Rowland argues that the Council failed to understand what it really meant by ‘modern,’ and did not develop a theology of culture that could dialogue with this ‘modern,’ rather than merely stating that certain sorts of integralism with modern culture were problematic. Nichols points the finger at the autonomous spheres of culture and science, but the theologians who promoted this attenuated existentialism are not examined.
‘For the Erotically absorbed: The nature of Lust’ is a needed balance to the previous chapter in understanding the human person in all its dimensions. Nichols borrows Roger Scruton's idea of well‐directed sexual desire, and leads us to the concept of delectatio (delight) in the sexual act, not merely with another body but with another person. It is within marriage that well‐directed sexual desire flourishes as self‐giving procreative love. Yet this can mutate into sexual lust when contraception is introduced, separating the unitive and procreative aspects. Further discussion of the search for happiness could have added to this chapter a pastoral grammar, hinted at in the personal accounts with converts and married couples which Nichols gives.
Lastly, ‘For Critics of Christendom: Secularization: A Catholic Response’ argues that liberal secularism has been introduced via communitarianism, and is distinguished by romantic expressiveness in the moral sphere. Secular liberalism requires a politics without memory – Nietzsche's living unhistorically – which does away with an English common narrative from which to derive a shared identity and a definition of the common good. Nichols calls for a re‐confessionalisation culturally and doctrinally by returning to Scripture, the Fathers, and the spiritual doctors and teachers. Nichols’ project is slightly monolithic without reference to the significant contribution of Irish Catholicism in England – particularly Irish spirituality, religious life, and ministry amongst the working classes during the 20th century – and more recently Eastern European and African Catholic migrants. Each of these in unique ways has contributed, and is contributing, to English Catholic culture.
This small volume lacks a concluding chapter to draw together the whole work. There is no index of names or topics, but considering the size of the book, it is hardly necessary. It is an engaging read, worth purchasing for its useful content and as a stimulus to further study.
