It’s 20 years ago this year that Herbert McCabe died. He was one of the great Dominicans of the 20th century, perhaps the most lucid and witty exponent of Aquinas in our time. He was also a Marxist, a supporter of Irish republicanism and an impassioned opponent of nuclear weapons, all of which successfully distracted attention from his profound doctrinal orthodoxy.
In a way he resembled GK Chesterton, whom he much admired, as a communicator. The mystery was that broadcasters and editors never put him on the national stage where he could have dealt very effectively with the new atheists such as Richard Dawkins, but he was also a very shy man – perhaps it was better he kept to the congenial company of philosophers and radicals in places like The Eagle and Child pub in Oxford.
