The Gentle Traditionalist: A Catholic Fairy-tale from Ireland

“This is one of the most unusual books I’ve ever read. It’s a spiritual journey, a romance and a quest; a reflection on history and a discourse on faith and tradition; a fable and a meditation about place and location… written throughout with passion and engagement, with a touching and deep-seated love for Ireland.”

— MARY KENNY, author of Goodbye to Catholic Ireland and Crown and Shamrock

“Roger Buck in The Gentle Traditionalist employs the age-old genre of the Socratic Dialogue to examine that which would prefer not to be examined—the Western secular ‘religion’ that has come to define the society under which we in the so-called ‘developed’ world all live. As brilliant a guide for the perplexed as this age is capable of producing.”

— CHARLES COULOMBE, author of Puritan’s Empire and Everyman Today Call Rome

“The Gentle Traditionalist is a book with a ‘strange magic,’ like unto the Ireland it loves and mourns. With unforgettable images and a wry sense of humor, Buck unfolds a tale of whimsical fantasy, melancholy realism, and supernatural joy, ever so gently exposing the intolerance and incoherence of the New Secular Religion…. Buck’s deftly-reasoned post-modern apologetic for full-blooded Catholicism will be salutary for those who are still wandering and for those already arrived in port.”

— PETER KWASNIEWSKI, Wyoming Catholic College; author of Resurgent in the Midst of Crisis

“Writing with great wisdom, insight, and a most warm sense of humor, Roger Buck offers us a contemplation of the religious predicaments of our time in the spirit of Chesterton and Belloc. He takes on everything—from the reforms of Vatican II to the New Age, from the postmodern religion of science to the fallout from agnostic ennui—in a charming (and disarming) manner sure to delight readers already participant in Christian tradition, and to prove at least intriguing to those who are not. It is a wonderful book.”

— MICHAEL MARTIN, author of The Submerged Reality: Sophiology and the Turn to a Poetic Metaphysics

“This is a beautiful, moving book drawn from Roger Buck’s own experience of both the sacramental and secular perspectives. He has managed to explain these perspectives, but perhaps more importantly, he has enabled us to feel the consequences. To read this work was a joy, and I thank the author for helping me realize that, despite the passing of three generations and 150 years in the Irish-Australian diaspora, my heart is still Irish.”

— GERARD O’SHEA, University of Notre Dame, Australia; author of As I Have Loved You

“This striking novel by Roger Buck, set in Ireland, is composed with extraordinary sensitivity and insight. The Catholic Church is travelling through a time of seemingly paralysing crisis. It has lost touch not only with its roots but also with its unique sacramental nature. However, periods of crisis can, with the help of the Holy Spirit, create openings—and one prays that the Church will again become an instrument of salvation, prayer and God-centred worship. We are indebted to Roger Buck for his spiritual clarity and striking mental lucidity.”

— COLIN MAWBY, KSG, Choral Director of Radio Telefis Eireann (RTÉ), Artistic Director Emeritus of Ireland’s National Chamber Choir

“An unusual book: part love story, part theological dialog. But more importantly, its author, Roger Buck, is that altogether too rare Catholic who understands the importance of what I have called the geo-cultural forces that have shaped the modern world—thinking here especially of how Anglo-American Protestant capitalist culture has waged a relentless war against Catholic culture everywhere in the world—and pointedly in Ireland, a country which the author loves and where he sets his story.”

— THOMAS STORCK, author of From Christendom to Americanism and Beyond

“The Gentle Traditionalist is a tremendous book: moving and humorous, opening up the most profound issues, engaging the most strident of polemics with the lightest touch. Ireland’s place in the English-speaking world, the revolutions and counter-revolutions of the Enlightenment and the modern era, and the human weakness and divine resilience of the Catholic Church, are the book’s themes. Today it is hard to know what to say to the sincere enquirer, when the Church appears to send out such mixed signals and internal disputes take up so much of her time and energy. Roger Buck is to be congratulated for making the case for the Church at this moment of confusion.”

— JOSEPH SHAW, Chairman of the Latin Mass Society of England and Wales