Sacramental vs Non-Sacramental Europe

[Fionnchu]

Augustinian
formerbuddhist
Call me crazy but the BEST book on this all encompassing worldview from a Catholic perspective is Dr. John Rao's Black Legends.   He was very clear in that book and in many of his talks (from the old Keep The Faith site were instrumental in helping me finally see that there cannot be a disconnect between inner and outer, sacred and secular.

I was just looking up this book to purchase the other day. Unfortunately it's at a minimum approximately $50 used and a mind-boggling (those algorithms wreck havoc with book prices) and at least $232 new online. His work looks promising, even if seems a bit stern on the style and tone. While Remnant Press published it in 2011, there are no listings for it at their store website.

A shame so many such traditionally oriented titles are small press and go out of print soon, with the few copies out on the market astronomically marked up, and these are not the types of holdings found at the local library. But then I found that the kind author links to a pdf of it from his own extensive list of writings. Huzzah! He warns it's 350k words.

These three books are all in print: his intro to the updated ed. of Ferrara + Woods' feisty "The Great Facade" which kept me up many a night reading on and on. I then sampled the start via Amazon the start of the collection Rao has since edited by scholars on "Luther's Progeny" as well as his own recent "Removing the Blindfold: 19th c Catholics and the Myth of Modern Freedom

[formerbuddhist]

Augustinian
formerbuddhist
Call me crazy but the BEST book on this all encompassing worldview from a Catholic perspective is Dr. John Rao's Black Legends.   He was very clear in that book and in many of his talks (from the old Keep The Faith site were instrumental in helping me finally see that there cannot be a disconnect between inner and outer, sacred and secular.

I was just looking up this book to purchase the other day. Unfortunately it's at a minimum approximately $50 used and a mind-boggling (those algorithms wreck havoc with book prices) and at least $232 new online. His work looks promising, even if seems a bit stern on the style and tone. While Remnant Press published it in 2011, there are no listings for it at their store website.

A shame so many such traditionally oriented titles are small press and go out of print soon, with the few copies out on the market astronomically marked up, and these are not the types of holdings found at the local library. But then I found that the kind author links to a pdf of it from his own extensive list of writings. Huzzah! He warns it's 350k words.

These three books are all in print: his intro to the updated ed. of Ferrara + Woods' feisty "The Great Facade" which kept me up many a night reading on and on. I then sampled the start via Amazon the start of the collection Rao has since edited by scholars on "Luther's Progeny" as well as his own recent "Removing the Blindfold: 19th c Catholics and the Myth of Modern Freedom

Oh wow, that sucks that Remnant Press no longer carries Dr. Rao's book.  I pre ordered it when it came out because I liked his history talks on Keep the Faith. I think I paid 20 bucks for it.  

Rao can be somewhat rambling in style but when he's on, he's brilliant.  He's not as stern as Chris Ferrara is and has none of the fierce polemic the Remnant was known for.  He just kind of rambles at times.  "Removing the Blindfold" was good as well. He has a unique insight into stuff like the dangers of pluralism and the necessity of poetry, good literature and the imagination in bringing Christianity to a culture that has deconstructed reason itself.   If you have to read it online it's worth it.  Dr. Rao is a pretty deep thinker. He was the protege of another one of my favorites from the Keep the Faith archives- - the late Dr. William Marra. 

Well, I'll probably have to deep dive into it again and perhaps I'll consider sending it your way once I finish it again if you haven't read the .pdf version or found a decently priced copy.

[Fionnchu]

Call me crazy but the BEST book on this all encompassing worldview from a Catholic perspective is Dr. John Rao's Black Legends.   He was very clear in that book and in many of his talks (from the old Keep The Faith site were instrumental in helping me finally see that there cannot be a disconnect between inner and outer, sacred and secular.

I was just looking up this book to purchase the other day. But then I found that the kind author links to a pdf of it from his own extensive list of writings. Huzzah! He warns it's 350k words.

Rao can be somewhat rambling in style but when he's on, he's brilliant.  He's not as stern as Chris Ferrara is and has none of the fierce polemic the Remnant was known for. He just kind of rambles at times. 

Thanks for the recommendation, FB; I started that pdf last night; boy, does Prof. Rao ramble. Oxford-trained (he makes sure we know that!) but I wonder how his diss. got passed if he was so prolix. His introduction repeats incessantly his basic argument, but he does craft a nice comparison of the Faith as danced, clumsily or not, in a ballroom, an elegant image. I hope he lightens up a bit (see the "PIGs" below) given his didactic defense. I will then get "Blindfold" via Kindle. That is more focused on using the source material, at least from the sample. I welcome any other such suggestions; I forwarded yours on Michael Hoffman to my like-minded mentor.

BTW, I found Ferrara + Woods "Facade" rambling. It kept flailing at their (online) opponent. Sire's "Phoenix from the Ashes" covered similar terrain but focused on primary sources and scholarly elucidation. "Fierce polemic" may date, but then again, look at "Apologia pro Vita Sua"! One that may not last as long was John Zmirak's "Politically Incorrect Guide to Catholicism." it began well but ended by score-settling with his combatants on blogs. Makes him look petty and peevish. (I gave up on Woods' "PIG to Capitalism": so far-fetched it read like "The Onion." A telling distinction between economist Woods, who comes from a libertarian free market approach, and lawyer Ferrara, whose 2012 "Liberty, the God That Failed" confronts both unfettered capitalist and libertine secularist.) But I applaud the "PIG on Christianity" by Michael P. Foley, Elizabeth Kantor's on literature, and H.W. Crocker's on the British Empire. I've been hearing some "PIGs" on audiobook from the library, and find them an entertaining way to pass a commute.