Unconformed to the Age: Essays in Catholic Ecclesiology (Renewal within Tradition)
Digital Logos Edition
Overview
Since her founding by Christ, the Church on earth has recognized and sought to preserve her identity as “one complex reality” (Lumen Gentium 8) formed of both the invisible and the visible, the charismatic and the institutional. Yet within modern Catholic life and theology the ordered unity of these dimensions is increasingly obscured and undermined by distortive tendencies toward democratization, bureaucratization, and secularization. Such contemporary errors threaten not only the Church’s self-understanding but also her mission to restore all things in Christ. In Unconformed to the Age, renowned Australian theologian Tracey Rowland addresses the theological and ecclesiological deviations underlying the present ecclesial disorder, including the prioritization of praxis over truth, the occlusion of the Cross from its central position in the Church’s life, and the substitution of a secular, corporate vision of the Church for its true construal as Christ’s Body and Bride—“Catholic Inc.” versus communio. Engaging especially with the thought and writings of Joseph Ratzinger as well as other twentieth-century theological luminaries, Rowland provides both insightful diagnosis of these current pathologies and a multifaceted illumination of the mystery of the Church, underscoring the Church’s divinely given vocation to bring all people into communion with the Trinity, imbuing human actions, lives, and cultures with the grace of the Incarnation.
The Apostle Paul tells us, ‘Do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind’ (Rom 12:2). In this volume of essays, Tracey Rowland provides a clarion call for the renewal of our mind to know and love the Church—and not try to conform the Church to the dictates of the present Zeitgeist.
--Fr. Andrew Hofer, O.P. Dominican House of Studies
In this book, the eminent Ratzingerian scholar Tracey Rowland addresses central topics related to ecclesiology, old and new. She demonstrates that Tradition is in our Catholic DNA, and she does it with both erudition and elegant simplicity, which makes her a disciple of Joseph Ratzinger, in content and even in style. This is a rich and keenly insightful book that will gain the attention of faraway readers, like me, a Byzantine Catholic delighted to read such a necessary mysteric Theology.
--Alin Tat Babeș-Bolyai University
As one may expect of a Ratzinger Prize awardee, with unequalled precision Tracey Rowland shares with the reader critical ecclesiological fault lines as they have developed over the past seventy years. Rowland points to the real danger of the Church mutating into a faceless bureaucracy. Catholics must master the transition from a pre-Vatican II view of the Church as hierarchy, to understanding her foremost as the Church from the Cross and the side of Jesus Christ. From the Eucharist and from the altar she must be the Church ever afresh—as Communio with the Lord and the Saints. Rowland ably demonstrates that while the human lens may change, the Church remains actually selfsame. Unconformed to the Age is theological mystagogy! This is a most necessary, healing, and uplifting book!
- Title: Unconformed to the Age: Essays in Catholic Ecclesiology
- Author: Tracey Rowland
- Series: Renewal Within Tradition
- Publisher: Emmaus Road Publishing
- Print Publication Date: 2024
- Pages: 200
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Logos Research Edition
- ISBNs: 9781645853985, 1645853985
- Resource ID: LLS:NCNFRMDGCCLSLGY
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Metadata Last Updated: 2024-10-02T18:28:49Z