Unconformed to the Age: Essays in Catholic Ecclesiology

Since her founding by Christ, the Church on earth has recognized and sought to preserve her identity as “one complex reality” (Lumen Gentium 8) formed of both the invisible and the visible, the charismatic and the institutional. Yet within modern Catholic life and theology the ordered unity of these dimensions is increasingly obscured and undermined by distortive tendencies toward democratization, bureaucratization, and secularization. Such contemporary errors threaten not only the Church’s self-understanding but also her mission to restore all things in Christ. In Unconformed to the Age, renowned Australian theologian Tracey Rowland addresses the theological and ecclesiological deviations underlying the present ecclesial disorder, including the prioritization of praxis over truth, the occlusion of the Cross from its central position in the Church’s life, and the substitution of a secular, corporate vision of the Church for its true construal as Christ’s Body and Bride—“Catholic Inc.” versus communio. Engaging especially with the thought and writings of Joseph Ratzinger as well as other twentieth-century theological luminaries, Rowland provides both insightful diagnosis of these current pathologies and a multifaceted illumination of the mystery of the Church, underscoring the Church’s divinely given vocation to bring all people into communion with the Trinity, imbuing human actions, lives, and cultures with the grace of the Incarnation.

Tracey Rowland (PhD, Cambridge University; STD, Pontifical Lateran University) is the St. John Paul II Chair of Theology at the University of Notre Dame (Australia) and a member of the editorial board of Communio: International Catholic Review. From 2014 to 2019, she was a member of the International Theological Commission and is currently a member of the Pontifical Academy of the Social Sciences. In 2012, Rowland was awarded the Officer’s Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland, and in 2020, she was awarded the Ratzinger Prize for Theology. She is the author of Ratzinger’s Faith: The Theology of Benedict XVI, The Culture of the Incarnation: Essays in Catholic Theology, and Beyond Kant and Nietzsche: The Munich Defense of Christian Humanism, among other books.

Hardcover