In the Lógos of Love Promise and Predicament in Catholic Intellectual Life

So much has changed about Catholic intellectual life in the half century since the end of the Second Vatican Council that it has become difficult to locate the core concepts that make up the tradition. In the Logos of Love is a collection of essays that grew out of a 2013 conference on Catholic intellectual life co-sponsored by the University of Dayton and the Institute for Advanced Catholic Studies of the University of Southern California. The essays, written by scholars of theology, history, law, and media studies of religion, trace the history of this intellectual tradition in order to craft new tools for understanding the present day and approaching the future. Each essay explores both the promise of Catholic intellectual life and its various contemporary predicaments. How does a changed media landscape affect the way Catholicism is depicted, and the way its adherents understand and communicate among themselves? What resources can the tradition offer for reflection on new understandings of sexuality and gender? How can and should US Catholic intellectual life embrace and enhance--and introduce students to--the new ways in which Catholicism is becoming a more global tradition? What is the role of scholars in disciplines beyond theology? Of scholars who are not Catholic? Of scholars in universities not sponsored by Catholic religious orders or dioceses? By providing context for and proposing responses to these questions, the scholars invite discussion and reflection from a wide range of readers who have one important thing in common--a stake in sustaining a vibrant, flourishing intellectual tradition.

Fr. James L. Heft, SM (Marianist) is the Alton Brooks Professor of Religion at the University of Southern California. He is the author or editor of twelve books and over 170 scholarly articles, and currently serves as the president of the Institute for Advanced Catholic Studies at USC. His recent research has focused on the mission of Catholic education and inter-religious dialogue. Una M. Cadegan is Associate Professor in the Department of History at the University of Dayton. She is a cultural historian of US Catholicism, and the author of All Good Books Are Catholic Books: Print Culture, Censorship, and Modernity in Twentieth-Century America.