Reviews for This Church, these times

The average rating for This Church, these times based on 2 reviews is 4.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2014-05-10 00:00:00 Patrick J Smith Jr The writing style of Peter Hebblethwaite (1930-1994) was described by the New York Times as calm, scholarly and witty. All three characteristic come through in this book, which is a snapshot piece assessing the first decade after the Second Vatican Council. The book’s title refers to “the Church’s new and manifest turbulence” (p. 14). (For better or worse, this is a characteristic that can be said to continue into the present day.) It is worth reading the book’s final chapter carefully, in which the view shifts from the past decade to the predictable future. Would that the author, described again by the New York Times as “dean of ‘Vaticanologists’ in the English-speaking world” had lived longer; we would have had his clear-eyed appraisal of the Church’s subsequent decades to our considerable benefit. For, as was true in 1975, “the Council was not an end but a beginning.” (p. 17) “The notion of the Church ‘settling down’ at some future date is contrary to its pilgrim calling. There will be no point in the future where everything will fall into place, when all the changes have finally been made and the lost Golden Age restored.” (p. 230) “Authority ends by sanctioning what it at first deplored. The new is never welcome in advance.” (p. 203)

Review # 2 was written on 2019-11-05 00:00:00 Stephen Galbraith This is an easy to read book on Cardinal Ratzinger’s view of the state of the Church. Although it was published in 1985, most of not all of it remains relevant and just as Important today as the Church still debates the best ways to faithfully implement Vatican 2. The interview format allowed for the text to be divided into chapters by topic, making the book a perfect read for someone new to Ratzinger’s thought.