Book Reviews – March 2025

The Roots of Moral Evil. By Dietrich von Hildebrand. Edited by Martin Cajthmal. Reviewed by Dr. Alexander Montes. (skip to review)

The Deacon: Icon of Christ the Servant, Ministers of the Threshold. By Tim O’Donnell. Reviewed by Msgr. Marc B. Caron. (skip to review)

Free for Christ: Religious Obedience and Thomistic Moral Theology. By Mother Mary Christa Nutt, RSM. Reviewed by Rev. Ryan Connors. (skip to review)

Enough Silence: Creating Sacred Space for Survivors of Sexual Assault Through Restorative Justice. By Cheryl Miller. Reviewed by Aaron Martin. (skip to review)

Kneeling Theology. By Anton Štrukelj. Reviewed by Dr. Brandon Harvey. (skip to review)

The Roots of Moral Evil – Dietrich von Hildebrand

Von Hildebrand, Dietrich. The Roots of Moral Evil. Edited by Martin Cajthaml. Steubenville, OH: Hildebrand Press. 2024. 272 pages.

Reviewed by Dr. Alexander Montes.

Catholic teaching holds that pride and concupiscence lie at the root of moral evil in fallen humankind, but few have gone as far as Hildebrand to prove that point. Hildebrand’s The Roots of Moral Evil was written as extensive English notes, probably from the time Hildebrand was writing his Ethics (1960), only some of which he eventually wrote into the text of Ethics, and the rest was promised for a never completed future work. Martin Cajthaml discovered it in the archives of the Bavarian State Library in Munich and has done us great service by bringing it to light.

The forward by Professor John F. Crosby, one of Hildebrand’s most prominent students (xii–xxvii), and the introductory study by Martin Cajthaml (xix–xlv) put the book into the context of Hildebrand’s larger philosophy. For Hildebrand, evil occurs when we abandon what is intrinsically good, what he calls “value,” e.g., the intrinsic dignity of a human being, in favor of what Hildebrand calls the “merely subjectively satisfying.” I refuse to help this beggar and continue eating my delicious pastry as if the beggar were not there. “Concupiscence refers to having” (101) subjectively satisfying goods whereas “pride [refers] to a being” (101) in a superior subjectively satisfying position. They are opposed by reverence or “religio” which is the attitude of being ready to give value its due. In the introduction (1–15), Hildebrand shows that while there is a legitimate center to which the subjectively satisfying appeals (there is nothing wrong in most cases with enjoying a delicious pastry), once we abandon religio that legitimate center is completely replaced with pride and concupiscence. It is not a matter of the originally legitimate desire for pleasure going beyond boundaries, but a radical change from the attitude of religio to evil attitudes of pride and concupiscence.

The first two sections of the book both open with text found in Ethics, chapter 34 on concupiscence and chapter 35 on pride, but go further to deepen Hildebrand’s analysis of each. The section on concupiscence (17–100) focuses first on three main types of concupiscence, the passionate hard craving for pleasure (think Father Karamazov), the phlegmatic and lazy desire for consumption, and the soft aversion to all discomfort (20–23). Hildebrand then explores the relationship of concupiscence to various pleasures and pains. Hildebrand distinguishes the attitude of a saint, the attitude of a noble pagan, the morally unobjectionable attitude, the morally imperfect attitude, and finally the fully morally evil attitude toward pleasure and pains (25–31). The very experience of pleasure changes when we verge into moral evil in the morally imperfect attitude, and pleasure in disvalues (e.g., Schadenfreude) becomes possible for the first time. Particularly of interest is Hildebrand’s analysis of both physical and spiritual laziness (acedia) in this section (90–100).

The section on pride (100–155) explores five forms of pride: satanic pride, which hates and seeks to overthrow values and usurp their “metaphysical lordship,” self-glorification, where pride seeks to use values as a means of glorifying oneself, the pride of exterior lordship (e.g., ambition for political power), vanity (e.g., in one’s appearance), and haughtiness (102–112). Hildebrand explores the fact that the higher the value coveted for self-glorification, the worse the pride (114–129). Pharisaical pride in one’s supposed moral goodness is behind only satanic pride in its evil. As with concupiscence, it is possible to take pride in nonexistent values (the pharisee is in fact not morally good) and express disvalues (e.g., pride in haughty virility).

A common response to the claim that pride and concupiscence are the root of all moral evil is “what about hatred, the very antithesis of love?” In the third section we get Hildebrand’s most in depth views on hatred and how it is ultimately traceable back to concupiscence and especially pride (157–191). However, Hildebrand’s view is nuanced, while some forms of hatred are clearly rooted in pride (esp. satanic pride), others are not so easily linked, e.g., hatred springing from revenge or fanaticism. A gangster who is betrayed by another gangster as they pursue a certain object may be consumed with hatred for the real injury the betrayal has caused. Here the object of hurting the hated person, revenge, becomes a satisfaction-in-itself, independent of the initially desired pleasurable object which prompted this situation (165). Or consider a religious fanatic whose hatred of sin turns into a hatred of the sinner (166). Hildebrand introduces the irascible center. We have a natural, not yet morally illegitimate hostile reaction to offenses, which can degenerate into hatred to the person who committed the offence (170). Yet this very sliding into hatred speaks of pride and the spiritual laziness of concupiscence (170), and, thus, Hildebrand can conclude that even here pride and concupiscence can be found.

The fanatic shows us an example of the theme of the fourth and final section: becoming trapped in the immanent logic of an activity. Hildebrand’s main example is a person who is working on an essay and remembers he has left his notes in a locked drawer with a missing key. The person becomes so fixated on opening the defiant drawer that he spends more time than it is worth, he could have just as easily completed the essay without the notes in less time (196). This obsession may seem innocent enough, but there is both concupiscence here in a lazy refusal to reflect on the situation and pride in trying to force open the “defiant” drawer. Or consider a general so wrapped up in the logic of winning a war that he never considers whether the war is in fact just (like how the fanatic gets caught up in the logic of fighting error to the point of hating the sinner) (197). I find this to be one of the most interesting concepts in the book. While Hildebrand remains largely focused on the individual, becoming trapped in the immanent logic of an activity could be applied to larger social structures of sin (e.g., in how corporations cause environmental devastation as they become locked in the immanent logic of the markets).

Overall, this book is a deep meditation on the nature of evil as we experience it as fallen human beings. While Hildebrand’s writing includes some subtle technical terminology, the book overall is very readable even for those less familiar with his philosophy. I would recommend it to anyone hoping to better understand the mysterium iniquitatis.

Dr. Alexander Montes is a staff scientist at the University of Rochester Medical Center. He received his Ph.D. in philosophy from Boston College, and he wrote his dissertation on Dietrich von Hildebrand’s philosophy of freedom.

The Deacon – Tim O’Donnell

O’Donnell, Tim. The Deacon: Icon of Christ the Servant, Minister of the Threshold (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 2020). 192 pages.

Reviewed by Msgr. Marc B. Caron.

Deacon Tim O’Donnell has done the Church a great service by writing this book about the diaconal ministry. All too often, recent publications about the diaconate have been very weak theologically, relying on sentimental and vague notions of service, broadly understood. In contrast, Deacon O’Donnell’s presents a meticulously researched and well-grounded contemporary theology of the diaconal office. He makes extensive use of the most recent commentaries on the Scriptural and patristic references to the ancient diaconate. He shows a comprehensive grasp of the many complementary but disparate historical reasons which prompted the Church in the mid-twentieth century to restore the diaconate as a permanent rank of holy orders. Deacon O’Donnell deftly references the various liturgical texts for the ordination of deacons. He engages many of the significant contemporary theologians of the diaconate, including some like Alphonse Borras of Belgium and Didier Gonneaud of France, who are not necessarily very well known to average readers in the English-speaking world. All in all, Deacon O’Donnell’s work makes a serious contribution to the Church’s growing appreciation and understanding of the rank of the diaconate within the one sacrament of Holy Orders.

There are any number of approaches to arriving at a clearer understanding of the sacramental nature of the diaconate. Deacon O’Donnell adopts two for his template: the deacon as the icon of Christ the servant and the deacon as the minister of the threshold. These two models become the organizing principles for the entire book. The deacon as prototypical servant in the Church has indeed become the most common way for understanding the diaconal office. Bishop Shawn McKnight and others have also commented at length in recent years on the deacon’s role as a go-between or bridge between the church and society.

O’Donnell recognizes that contemporary scripture scholars question whether those designated in Acts 6 are indeed the historical ancestors to today’s deacons. Despite acknowledging those doubts, O’Donnell relies heavily on the traditional association between the Seven in Acts 6 and deacons today. Perhaps greater reserve on this point would have been advisable. Likewise, Deacon O’Donnell admits in passing that all three ranks of the sacrament of holy orders are ranks of service. Nevertheless, he seems to make service the distinguishing mark of this one rank, when actually the consecration to the service of God, the Church, and the world is something the diaconate shares with both the presbyterate and the episcopacy. In fact one could argue, based on the hierarchical nature of the three ranks of holy orders, that bishops, not deacons, are meant to be the servants par excellence of the Church and that presbyters are charged to live lives of humble service to an even greater degree than deacons.

Much has also been made of the deacon’s role as a bridge or link between the priestly ranks of the hierarchy and the lay faithful, between the world of religion and the secular work, and between liturgy and charity. O’Donnell does much to flesh out what this mediating function means for the deacon himself, for the Church, and for the world. There are any number of sociological or functional implications for understanding the deacon in this way. From the perspective of sacrament theology, it would have been helpful for O’Donnell to add how the nature of the deacon himself, sharing the ministerial reality of the sacrament of orders with the priestly ranks on the one hand, and sharing the diakonia of all the baptized with the laity on the other, renders the deacon perfectly suited to exercise this mediating role.

Since married deacons make up the overwhelming proportion of deacons in this country and around the world, it is not surprising that O’Donnell also treats how the sacrament of marriage relates to the sacrament of holy orders in the diaconal rank. Many married permanent deacons will find those pages enlightening and inspiring. On the other hand, there are also celibate deacons, largely widowers, even though their numbers are small. Moreover, there are permanent deacons, almost entirely members of religious orders, who have never married; their number is infinitesimally small. O’Donnell can be commended for helping married deacons to appreciate the beauty of both sacraments which they live out. But it is important to recognize that marriage is not intrinsic to the diaconate per se. The diaconate cannot depend on the theology of marriage for an explanation of its own nature and meaning, even if married deacons, at the experiential level, often wonder how to integrate both realities into their lives as spouses, fathers, and members of the clergy.

O’Donnell’s work is scholarly to be sure, but very accessible to readers. It will be immensely helpful in diaconate formation programs and in seminary courses on the sacrament of holy orders. Deacons and priests alike will also find it thought-provoking regarding the consecration to service and communion they have both received in ordination. One hopes that it will become a standard text in reading lists about the diaconate. Few other recent works on the diaconate have captured the historical and theological sources of the modern diaconate as well as O’Donnell’s.

Msgr. Marc B. Caron is the Vicar General of the Diocese of Portland (Maine). He holds a doctorate in sacramental theology from the University of St. Mary of the Lake/Mundelein Seminary and is a former faculty member of St. John’s Seminary in Brighton, Massachusetts.

Free for Christ – Mother Mary Christa Nutt, RSM

Nutt, Mother Mary Christa, RSM. Free for Christ: Religious Obedience and Thomistic Moral Theology. Steubenville, OH: Emmaus Academic, 2024. 381 + xiv pages.

Reviewed by Rev. Ryan Connors.

The vital task of ensuring that all members of a religious institute maintain a sound account of vowed obedience remains a perennial challenge to the flourishing of religious life. In fact, the difficulties religious life has faced in the post-conciliar period can, in some respects, be attributed to inadequate theories about — and a serious commitment to — living religious obedience.

The Religious Sisters of Mercy of Alma, Michigan stand as one of the fruits of the renewal of religious life called for by the Second Vatican Council. With Free for Christ: Religious Obedience and Thomistic Moral Theology, their current Superior General, Mother Mary Christa, RSM, offers a scholarly and most necessary rendering of how to understand properly the vow of obedience. Inadequate accounts of obedience — present in the Church both before and after the Council — will benefit from the recovery of the wisdom of the Common Doctor of the Church.

The Thomistic virtue-based renewal of moral theology anticipated by the Second Vatican Council and given papal approbation by Pope John Paul II in the 1993 encyclical letter Veritatis splendor has borne fruit in the Church especially through the work of the Dominican Friars. The work that remains is for moral theologians to apply St. Thomas’s virtue-based moral reasoning to specific areas of the Church’s life. Mother Mary Christa’s book takes its place as the standard point of reference on this essential aspect of religious life, described through the lens of Aquinas’s moral vision.

The book unfolds in six chapters. The first chapter delineates modern errors concerning freedom and its relationship to the law, the goal of happiness in the moral life, and the necessary place of prudence and the other virtues. The chapter engages two texts as examples of pre-conciliar and post-conciliar views on obedience respectively: Louis Colin, C.SS.R., The Practice of the Vows, trans. Suzanne Rickman (Cork, Ireland: The Mercier Press, 1954) and the three-volume work of Sr. Sandra Schneiders, I.H.M., especially Religious Life in a New Millennium, Vol. 3, Buying the Field: Catholic Religious Life in Mission to the World (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 2013). Perhaps surprisingly, the text under review describes the ways in which both texts, in different ways, fail to appreciate the classical and Thomistic synergy of liberty, law, and virtue. For both authors, authority limits freedom, and happiness is absent as the goal of the Christian or religious life.

Nutt recalls Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange’s quotation of an unnamed contemplative nun who declares “people have often lost sight of the intrinsic value of religious profession. . . . For this great error, casuists . . . are responsible.” (See Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P., The Three Ages of the Interior Life: Prelude of Eternal Life, vol. 2, trans. Sr. M. Timothea Doyle, O.P. (St. Louis, MO: B. Herder Book Co., 1948). Put simply, obligation-based accounts of the moral life will fail to describe accurately the freedom — and flourishing — that vowed obedience instills.

The second and third chapters are metaphysically rich. They consider the place of analogy, participation, and divine and secondary causality in the moral life. The author offers an extended treatment of the relationship of freedom, the law, and the necessary place of the beatitudes in Christian living. Chapter four treats the virtue of religion as a potential part of justice. Here the author demonstrates how certain modern philosophical commitments undermine the central place religion occupies in the virtuous life. Of particular interest is the author’s treatment of the place of religion in Christ’s humanity. The fifth chapter treats directly religious obedience according to St. Thomas Aquinas. The author explains: “through the vow of obedience, the religious person, in a sense, uniquely becomes a person of worship in imitation of and through participation in the life of Christ” (229).

The book’s sixth chapter treats several contemporary questions within the theology of religious life. The author shows herself in command of the secondary literature and relevant debates among contemporary Thomists. The text seeks to ascertain what from the field of psychology can be brought to bear on questions of obedience and religious life. The author draws upon the work of the Dutch authors Conrad Baars (1919–1981) and Anna Terruwe (1911–2004). The text treats the important questions of when claims to obedience should be refused and what sorts of matters rightly fall under obedience. The author recalls the teaching of Pope Leo XIII in Quemadmodum (1890) regarding the illicitness of superiors demanding a revelation of conscience.

In the final portion of this chapter the author considers how St. Ignatius of Loyola and traditional Jesuit conceptions of obedience could fall subject to the charge of voluntarism. While carefully treated, I suspect not all readers will concur with the author’s generous interpretation that Jesuit accounts of obedience are not necessarily prone to this error.

The Religious Sisters of Mercy of Alma have dedicated their lives to aiding the poor, sick, and ignorant. With this important book, Mother Mary Christa offers a healing remedy for the uninstructed, and thereby, enslaved persons of our time. We remain in the author’s debt as this book will be necessary reading for religious, especially superiors and those entrusted with the work of formation.

Rev. Ryan Connors is Rector of the Seminary of Our Lady of Providence (Rhode Island). He is the author of many publications including Rethinking Cooperation with Evil: A Virtue-Based Approach (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2024) and Moral Theology: An Introduction (Cape Girardeau, MO: ECT Press, forthcoming).

Enough Silence – Cheryl Miller

Miller, Cheryl. Enough Silence: Creating Sacred Space for Survivors of Sexual Assault Through Restorative Justice. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2024. 157 pages.

Reviewed by Aaron Martin.

Recently, advocates for child sex abuse victims inside and outside the Catholic Church have encouraged the use of trauma-informed language and approaches to create a safe space and healing opportunities for victims. This is because, as Cheryl Miller explains, “[o]ften survivors are dismissed, ignored, or overlooked. We have done a horrible job of expecting accountability from the perpetrator by looking the other way, failing to report, and allowing toxic paternalistic environments where predators are free to groom and assault.” (1) These tendencies have been present in a variety of organizations, including the Catholic Church, Protestant congregations, associations like Boy Scouts, and other similar groups. They are tendencies that cross religious, socio-economic, geographical, and other boundaries; they are common to all kinds of groups and organizations.

Miller’s new book addresses why some of the previous failures happened and how institutions can respond to protect people from different forms of abuse. To expound on her ideas, Miller organizes her discussion into three sections: (a) a conceptual understanding of restorative justice, (b) a look at survivors and offenders of sexual abuse, and (c) practical steps for leaders to apply what they learned in the book. To make her points, Miller uses the example of “Clara,” a personification of “fictionalized composite characters” (2) that Miller has worked with through the years. Clara’s was “not a typical family. It was just Clara and her father. When Clara was three, her mother was arrested for selling drugs.” (17) Clara’s father was a deacon in his church. He also sexually abused her.

The focus of Miller’s work is to explain how restorative justice principles and practices can bring about healing for victims of sexual abuse. Miller defines Restorative Justice as “a way of responding to conflict, misbehavior, and crime that makes things as right as possible for all who were impacted. Restorative Justice includes recognizing the conflict or harm, repairing the damage (physical and relational) as much as possible, and creating future accountability plans and/or agreements that will prevent the same thing from happening again. Restorative Justice includes programs, processes, and procedures that are guided by Restorative Justice Principles.” (19) To implement Restorative Justice Principles, we must ask “three different questions: Who has been harmed? What are their needs? and Whose obligation is it to meet those needs?” (19)

These are not necessarily the first questions an institution asks when a crisis comes, but these questions are a good starting point for developing a preventative program and for future healing. Those three questions help an institution develop a plan to incorporate the “five crucial elements” of a restorative justice program: “direct voice, stakeholder focus, accountability, clarity around values, safe/structured environment.” (21)

As Miller describes each of these key elements, she interweaves the story of Clara and discussions she had with her interlocutor in the restorative justice process. Clara’s father had passed away and she was not able to find closure with her actual abuser. But she was able to progress in her healing by speaking with another man who had abused his own daughter. Together, they worked through a restorative justice framework and helped each other process their own grief. That encounter allowed Clara the space she needed and the time to heal in a safe space.

Restorative Justice is a useful tool for helping abuse victims, and some in the Church — like those at the Saint Thomas University (Minnesota) Law School — have done good work spreading the word and training people to work in this area. It’s not something that one should attempt to implement without proper training, as misguided “help” could actually lead to more trauma.

And while we want to do everything we possibly can to help abuse victims, we can all agree that it would be better if the abuse had never happened. “If churches want to help prevent such crimes from occurring, they must be proactive.” (113) What being “proactive” means is different for different churches or other organizations that have had addressed abuse in the past. And as technology and other societal trends change quickly, every organization needs to react and adapt to those changing dynamics. But being proactive must mean at least that an organization is progressing through what Miller calls the two stages of organizational development. “Phase one involves examining the existing culture within your church, organization, or workplace. Phase two is implementing restorative justice concepts and processes.” (136)

The first phase of identifying an organization’s current culture and its abuse-prevention systems should include best practices from other industries. Organizations should be “preoccupied with failure,” as one framework puts it. Institutions should take even the smallest flaws in the system as opportunities to improve because those flaws can be signs of deeper problems. Organizations do not implement a one-size-fits-all system; they appreciate the complexity of the particular organization and adjust the system to the complexity. Successful organizations are continually monitoring operations and making real-time adjustments to changes in the external environment. These organizations are also resilient, meaning that they learn from errors and use them as opportunities to improve rather than having errors stop them in their tracks. Finally, successful organizations defer to experts. That is, when there is a crisis in the organization, they look to the people with the requisite experience and expertise regardless of where they are located on an org chart.

Both Phase One and Phase Two require honesty and humility in identifying and implementing safeguards, as well as the perseverance to see them through. Miller’s work is both a sobering look at the current situation in many organizations and a hopeful look at how organizations can protect potential victims and to help victims heal. It is worthwhile reading for those who work in this area or who want to understand more about the trauma experienced by sexual abuse victims.

Aaron Martin, JD, PhL, and his wife live in Phoenix, AZ with their four children. Aaron owns his own law practice and serves in various ways in the Diocese of Phoenix. He also is a member of the USCCB’s National Review Board. He writes at martinlawandmediation.substack.com. All opinions expressed here are his own.

Kneeling Theology – Anton Štrukelj

Štrukelj, Anton. Kneeling Theology. Washington D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 2023. 259 pages.

Reviewed by Dr. Brandon Harvey.

The language of “kneeling theology” or “doing theology on one’s knees” may be unfamiliar to some. For others, it may very well be central to their theological and pastoral efforts. More recently in 2023, Pope Francis said again that Benedict XVI did theology on his knees. I recall requiring my graduate theology students to read an address by Benedict XVI on how Balthasar did theology on his knees. While some theologians prior to Fr. Hans Urs von Balthasar did theology on their knees, although the disposition and integration had become less common in some centuries, it was Balthasar who actually coined the phrase. Fr. Anton Štrukelj’s book Kneeling Theology is both an introduction to this idea and also an introduction to Joseph Ratzinger, who became Pope Benedict XVI, as well as Balthasar and other Communio theologians. Štrukelj not only knew many of the theologians examined throughout the book but was blessed to have some of them as teachers. For example, he not only had Balthasar as a teacher in 1977, Balthasar also wrote the foreword to Štrukelj’s dissertation. Fr. Anton Štrukelj is a priest in the Archdiocese of Ljubljana, Slovenia, a theology professor, author, and served as a member of the International Theological Commission from 1997-2003.

The English translation of Kneeling Theology begins with translated forewords from the German and Russian editions, Cardinal Christoph Schönborn and Archbishop Thaddaus Kondrusiewicz, respectively, and then the foreword to the American edition is provided by the Archbishop Elden Francis Curtis. Then follows an introduction by Fr. Štrukelj which explains the inspiration behind this work and offers four subsections serving as introductions to select sections of the rest of his book: Benedict XVI, Fr. Hans Urs von Balthasar, Adrienne von Speyr, and connections with the Church in Slovenia. These forewords with the introduction are important, as they provide the key for understanding the focus and layout of the book.

What follows are fifteen chapters which could be considered as four sections of the book. The first six chapters focus on biographical introductions to Ratzinger, Balthasar, Speyr, and their impact on the idea of a kneeling theology. The next six chapters cover a range of their theological topics and insights. The third section focuses on two Slovenian Servants of God, Anton Strle and Anton Vovk, that impacted not only the author, but the ecclesial, spiritual, and theological landscape of Slovenia. The book ends with a chapter entitled “The Purification of Memory,” which builds upon St. John Paul II and Joseph Ratzinger, to survey how to understand the sins of Christians in relation to the Church.

Two additional points regarding the author’s approach should be mentioned. While the book is not written in a way that excludes the laity or deacons, there are occasions when the focus of a given kneeling theologian more explicitly connects to the priesthood, but not in a way that is impossible for deacons or laity to translate for their purposes. The other aspect, and one which recurs throughout the book, is the heavy emphasis on block quotations by the five gifted theologians mentioned above. He prepares the reader for this in the opening paragraphs of his introduction: “Servant of God Anton Strle, a Slovenian priest and theologian, was asked one day by a friend, ‘Why do you quote constantly from others when you write? Why do you not reveal more of your own thoughts?’ This observation reminds me that Professor Strle’s method greatly influenced my own way of writing and teaching” (1). In the second paragraph he concludes with, “By being part of this theological company [of these five theologians], I have received important support and insights, which I prefer to give directly to the reader in the form of quotations rather than interjecting my own, no doubt inferior formulations.”

The five authors, with emphasis given to Ratzinger and Balthasar, are presented with the hope to communicate examples of the spiritual vocation of the theologian, examples of the integration of sanctity and theology. For this reason the book moves in and out of biographical information and theological comments. The first two chapters are dedicated to Joseph Ratzinger as a means of showcasing the nature and mission of theology before exploring the spiritual dimension in the life and thought of Balthasar, and Speyr. Through Ratzinger the reader discovers his servant and steward disposition to theology. Ratzinger explains that theology is not about one’s own ideas or preferences, but about the Divine Word, but first the theologian must know Him, and in knowing Him can serve as a witness (42–43). The intellectual and spiritual dimensions must remain united and integrated within the theologian. The learning process, whether in program studies or research, must flow from the inner demands of encounter and love (41). Ratzinger then specifies that his goal was not his own methodology but rather thinking within the communion of the Church, which meant the Word as the point of departure, biblical hermeneutics, the Church Fathers, and the other great Christian thinkers of the Christian intellectual tradition (52). Ratzinger desired theologians to enter (more) into the pastoral life of the Church and to nourish their scholarship by prayer (57). The closing sections of these opening chapters explore the late pope’s insights into the nature and mission of theology, including the relationship between faith and reason, the absolute necessity of faith for theology, and the ecclesial vocation of the theologian.

The foundation laid by Ratzinger’s thought provides a meaningful springboard for exploring Balthasar, and then Speyr. Quoting Balthasar himself, one finds his books have three trends. The first, the uniqueness of Christ and its impact on anthropology and the potential of the human person. In this context the late Swiss theologian states, “I insist on the inseparability between theology and spirituality, their separation being the worst disaster that ever occurred in the history of the Church” (73). The second trend, one might call the unity of truth. There must be a unity between theological treatises. He lists Christology with the Trinity, Incarnation with the Paschal Mystery, and the continuity of Salvation History as examples. He warns against a fragmentation within theology. The final trend is “to insist on the theology of the Evangelical Counsels and to show that they contain nothing of a flight from the world because through them one dedicates oneself to the salvation of the world in the wake of Christ and of his eucharistic self-giving” (73). Whether in Štrukelj’s book or in works by Balthasar, one can now look for such trends in Balthasar and consider their importance for the theologian and doing theology on one’s knees.

Fr. Štrukelj brings Balthasar’s analysis of the separation between theology and spirituality into focus in his section “Holy Theologians: ‘The Pillars of the Church’” and the sections that followed (74). He begins with an essential but hopefully not a surprising fact: great theologians of the past were also great saints. These complete personalities lived an integrated life; their lives, teaching, and prayer existed in a holistic unity. Saints are presented as not only models for holiness but also models for theologians, as the saints reveal theology in practice. The saints display in their lives what is also central for theological teaching and research: hearing and obeying the Word, proclaiming the Word, and the life and response of prayer that makes possible and develops this disposition towards the Word. Kneeling theology understands that theology is not possible without the unity of sanctity and ecclesial witness. Štrukelj comments, “If spirituality is the yeast of theology, then only saints are able to produce a living theology” (83). In subsequent chapters he introduces the reader to the example of a living theology in the holy friendship and co-laboring in the Truth between Balthasar and mystic Adrienne von Speyr.

Kneeling Theology addresses a wide range of important issues. One difficulty is that sometimes the connective tissue and transitions between chapters, sections, or authors are not always explicit. This is especially in chapters thirteen and fifteen. Part of this issue may be the differences in how the work is received by Americans and by Slovenians. This is why the forewords and introduction are essential for this work. More analysis throughout could help to deepen connections, deepen the overall thesis of a kneeling theology, and smooth out the transitions where needed. Despite this, it remains an excellent resource for those beginning or renewing their formation for orders or lay ministry, or vocation as a theologian. It not only introduces the reader to the importance of the relationship between prayer and theology, but also introduces the reader to saintly theologians, their works and ideas, and to the overall gift of the Communio theologians.

To borrow some of Ronald Reagan’s famous words from his 1967 inauguration speech as governor: Perhaps Catholics today have “lived too long” with the contribution and legacy of the Communio theologians introduced in this book. Good theology, kneeling theology, is a “fragile thing and it’s never more than one generation away” from being forgotten. To both renew the work of theologians and those in immediate pastoral ministries — either by its insight into the nature of theology, or the rediscovery of the great saintly theologians of our recent past, or both — Fr. Štrukelj’s Kneeling Theology is an insightful and important work.

Brandon Harvey, D.A., teaches for Catholic International University, where he also serves as assistant director of undergraduate programs.