Three Books & a review

Three recently arrived books you may want to know about.

First, Light in Darkness by Alyssa Lyra Pitstick. Subtitled "Hans Urs von Balthasar and the Catholic Doctrine of Christ's Descent into Hell," it takes on one of the controversial teachings of a much regarded but thought by many to be dodgy Catholic theologian.

Among the people to recommend it on the book's cover are Aidan Nichols, Thomas Howard, John Saward ("a searching critique" that shows von Balthasar's teaching on the subject "to be seriously at odds with the teaching of the Fathers and Doctors of the Church"), Richard John Neuhaus, and David Bentley Hart. Her argument with Jesuit priest Edward Oakes in First Things can be found here and here.

Several of us got to known the not-yet-Dr. Pitstick at a conference on the imagination sponsored by the magazine and the International Institute of Culture a few summers ago, and were impressed.

Second, The Essential Pope Benedict XVI, edited by John F. Thornton and Susan B. Varenne. In 464 pages of small but readable type, the editors offer forty of his "central writings and speeches" on the Church, the liturgy, theology, Scripture, the priesthood, and Christian morality, as well as a selection of sermons and all of God is Love. It also includes a substantial introduction by the editors, a selected bibliography of works by and on the pope, and an index. If you want to understand Benedict's thought, work your way through this book.

Third, published by Ignatius and our friends at the National Catholic Bioethics Center (the director, John Haas, has been a contributing editor of Touchstone) is then Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger's On Conscience. The book contains his two keynote addresses to the Center's bishops' conferences, "Conscience and Truth" (1984) and "Bishops, Theologians and Morality" (1991).

While I'm pointing you to things, let me point you to a one book review by a contributing editor: in the latest New Oxford Review Anne Gardiner reviews Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion. The issue also includes a critical review of our contributing editor Darryl Hart's A Secular Faith. We have a review of the book in the works, though I have no idea what the reviewer will say about it.