Robert Royal offers insightful overview of vast Catholic intellectual tradition in the 20th century

Comprehensive book examines philosophy, theology, literature, history, and more
 
San Francisco, November 17, 2015 – In this wide-ranging and ambitious volume, A Deeper Vision, author Robert Royal, a prominent participant for many years in debates about religion and contemporary life, offers a comprehensive and balanced appraisal of the Catholic intellectual tradition in the twentieth century. The Catholic Church upholds both faith and reason, and Catholicism has given risen to extraordinary ideas and whole schools of remarkable thought, not just in the distant past but throughout the troubled decades of the twentieth century.
 
Royal presents in a single volume a sweeping but readable account of how Catholic thinking developed in philosophy, theology, Scripture studies, culture, literature, and much more in the twentieth century. This involves great figures, recognized as such both inside and outside the Church, such as:

• Philosophers Jacques Maritain, Bernard Lonergan, Joseph Pieper, Edith Stein, Alasdair MacIntyre, and Charles Taylor
• Theologians Romano Guardini, Karl Rahner, Henri du Lubac, Karol Wojtyla, Joseph Ratzinger, and Hans Urs von Balthasar
• Literary artists Charles Peguy, Paul Claudel, George Bernanos, Francois Mauriac, G. K. Chesterton, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Christopher Dawson, Graham Greene, Sigrid Undset, J. R. R. Tolkien, and Czeslaw Milosz
• Historian Christopher Dawson, and many more

Royal argues that without rigorous thought, Catholicism – however welcoming and nourishing it might be – would become something like a doctor with a good bedside manner, but who knows little medicine. It has always been the aspiration of the Catholic tradition to unite emotion and intellect, action and contemplation. But unless we know what the tradition has already produced – especially in the work of the great figures of the recent past – we will not be able to answer the challenges that the modern world poses, or even properly recognize the true questions we face.
 
This is a reflective, non-polemical work that brings together various strands of Catholic thought in the twentieth century. A comprehensive guide to the recent past - and the future.

Francis J. Beckwith, Professor of Philosophy and Church-State Studies at Baylor University, explains, “There is no better expositor of the Catholic Intellectual Tradition than Robert Royal. Intimately acquainted with its sources, history, and contours, Royal offers the reader a compelling account of the tradition and the role that it plays, and ought to play, in the Church’s encounter with the world.”
 
Fr. Matthew Lamb, Professor of Theology at Ave Maria University, calls A Deeper Vision, “A pivotal book. Royal shows how each generation in the great Catholic intellectual tradition processes down the centuries in millennial long conversations with those preceding them. This ongoing procession contributes to a vast and complex cathedral of mind and heart, far more enduring than those of stone, wherein human dignity is discovered to be a gift, a finite participation, in the very mystery of the Triune God.”
 
“This masterful book makes clear that the past century, for all its terrible horrors, was also a time of extraordinary Christian fruitfulness” says Matthew Levering, Professor of Theology, at Mundelein Seminary. He continues, “Royal is a cultural commentator with rare scholarly breadth and balance.  His judgments regarding major 20th century theologians and theological movements should be required reading for all graduate students and seminarians. Royal is even more in his element when he assesses the great Catholic poets, historians, and novelists who graced the past century.  This masterful book comes as a much needed encouragement in the midst of the deepening storms of our own time.  For if the twentieth century shows that where sin abounds, grace abounds all the more, surely this too will be the ultimate story of our own century.”
 
About the Author: Robert Royal is the president of the Faith & Reason Institute in Washington DC and editor of the online column series The Catholic Thing. He is the author, editor, and translator of more than a dozen books, and he writes and speaks frequently on questions of culture, religion, and public life. His work has appeared in a wide variety of publications in the United States and abroad.
 
Robert Royal, the author of A Deeper Vision, is available for interviews about this book.
To request a review copy or an interview with Robert Royal, please contact:
Rose Trabbic, Publicist, Ignatius Press at (239) 867-4180 or rose@ignatius.com
 
Product Facts:
Title: A DEEPER VISION
The Catholic Intellectual Tradition in the Twentieth Century
Author: Robert Royal
Release Date: November 2015
Length: 619 pages
Price: $26.95
ISBN: 978-1-58617-990-8 • Softcover
Order: 1-800-651-1531 • www.ignatius.com