Richard P. McBrien - Catholicism

This is the third edition of Father Richard McBriens Catholicism , which in its previous two editions has become a true best-seller with more than one hundred and fifty thousand copies in print. Ninety percent of new books printed in America each year sell only between one and five thousand copies. What makes Catholicism so popular?

First, it fills an obvious gap in the English-speaking world. The Church underwent an enormous transformation during and following Vatican Council II. I completed my doctoral studies in theology in 1945 and subsequently taught dogmatic and moral theology. About a decade later (after I ceased teaching) we had, thanks to Vatican Council II, a fresh, challenging, and new view of the Church, the laity, the liturgy, religious freedom, the sacraments, ecumenism, and many other theological aspects of Catholic life. Protestant theology at its best was largely affected, too.

How could one update oneself on all these new vistas? Catholicism was the answer for me. During my annual retreat in a small cabin on a lake in northern Wisconsin, the eerie cry of the loons in the background, I spent long hours each night in front of a roaring fire, reading and savoring every word, seeing the contrast of the old and the new in theology, both Catholic and Protestant, clearly and fairly delineated in an extraordinarily clear and competent fashionno esoteric reasoning, no bombast, no pious piffle, no unintelligible theological jargon. Catholicism deals with the deepest Christian mysteries in simple, lucid, and understandable English prose. But even more, in reading Catholicism , we see clearly and understand in depth the theological transformations that took place in Vatican Council II, and subsequently.

The growing millions of intelligent and questioning college- and university-educated Catholics in America today are prominent in many fields, but perhaps least educated in the theology of the modern Catholic Church. I am always amazed at the number of young Catholic students who arrive at Notre Dame today, theologically illiterate even though many have attended Catholic high schools and have grown up in Catholic homes. Perhaps their Catholic parents never really understood the theological transformation of Vatican Council II. Even I, as a theologian who followed the council closely, needed the systematic and comparative insights of Catholicism . I wish that every one of our students could take the course Catholicism, taught by Father McBrien each year. Those who do are no longer theologically illiterate Catholics.

The first edition of Catholicism was supplemented by a new one-volume edition that incorporated a fair number of changesclearer or more precise statements that were occasioned by critical readers of the first edition.

This current third edition is also greatly improved. It begins with a brilliant elucidation of What is Catholicism?a new version of what I thought was the best chapter of the first two editions, but unfortunately came at the end of the book. Now it introduces the book and puts all that follows in a clear perspective.

There are several new chapters that complete the total synthesis of Catholicism that follows.

All too few Christians read theological books today, and I believe that is the reason why so many Christians are uninformed, lukewarm, and just plain confused as they face an ever more complicated world. Catholicism is a book that any intelligent Anglican, Protestant, Orthodox, or Catholic Christian can and should read with great profit for the mind as well as for the soul.

(Rev.) Theodore M. Hesburgh, C.S.C.
President Emeritus, University of Notre Dame