The Liturgy, the Family, and the Crisis of Modernity: Essays of a Traditional Catholic
Joseph Shaw
Os Justi Press, £15.95, 294 pages
When Evelyn Waugh converted to Catholicism in 1930, he famously defended his crossing of the Tiber in a letter to the Daily Express, explaining that the choice before him and his contemporaries was “no longer between Catholicism, on one side, and Protestantism, on the other, but between Christianity and Chaos”. He went on to explain that Christianity existed “in its most complete and vital form in the Roman Catholic Church” and that the other religious bodies showed “unmistakable signs that they are not fitted for the conflict in which Christianity is engaged.” Joseph Shaw presents a similar analysis of the current situation within the Catholic Church in his new book, The Liturgy, The Family, and the Crisis of Modernity: Essays of a Traditional Catholic. While we ought to hope and work for the day when “Catholic” alone will suffice, until then, I am heartily grateful for the concise and effective definition that Shaw provides of a “trad” in his opening chapter: “A Catholic who wishes to live in continuity with previous generations.”
