Two Fine New Reprints of Works by Msgr. Joseph Clifford Fenton

I am pleased to announce, once again, reprints from Cluny that deserve the attention of thoughtful traditional Catholics everywhere, especially in seminaries and house of formation. Please note that these editions are not mere facsimiles but entirely and handsomely re-typeset. What follows is based on the press release from the publisher.

Monsignor Joseph Clifford Fenton represents the faithful, orthodox, and learned theological voice for which so many Catholics today are searching. Msgr. Fenton completed his theological studies before the Second Vatican Council (completing his doctorate in sacred theology under Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P., in Rome). He would also go on to serve the Council in the capacity of theological peritus. Indeed, in his person and in his work, Msgr. Fenton represents something very close to what Joseph Ratzinger would later express as the “hermeneutic of continuity.”

Reprint of old classic on prayer by Msgr Fenton

Monsignor Joseph Clifford Fenton (1906–1969), a professor of fundamental and dogmatic theology at the Catholic University of America and editor of the American Ecclesiastical Review, was one of the twentieth century’s foremost theologians. His work is particularly notable for its total fidelity to sound Catholic principles: inerrant Sacred Scripture, apostolic and ecclesiastical Tradition, and the consistent Roman Magisterium.

His 1939 text The Theology of Prayer has been re-published in a beautiful newly typeset and designed edition from Cluny Media. (Cluny last year released a collection of Monsignor Fenton’s essays, edited by Christian D. Washburn, which was reviewed here on Rorate Caeli by Christopher Malloy).

The Theology of Prayer distills the teachings of Thomas Aquinas, Thomas a Vallgornera, and Joseph a Spiritu Sancto, among other great scholastic theologians, on the nature of Christian prayer. The writings of those theologians hold such treasures on praying effectively that their loss would be a tragedy for the people of God. In these pages, Monsignor Fenton clearly and concisely presents to the contemporary reader the scholastics’ works and their penetrating insights into Sacred Scripture and Catholic Tradition. With The Theology of Prayer, Fenton revitalizes the work of those theologians, preserving their insights and presenting plainly what God has revealed about prayer and how the Church has preserved and expounded that revelation for the good and the salvation of all who believe.

Book Review: The Church of Christ by Msgr. Joseph Clifford Fenton

The Church of Christ: A Collection of Essays by Monsignor Joseph C. Fenton. Ed. with an introduction by Christian D. Washburn. Tacoma, WA: Cluny Media, 2016. 362 pp. Paperback. $24.95. Publisher's page / at Amazon.

This collection of essays from one of the greatest American theologians, Msgr. Joseph C. Fenton, makes an urgent and marvelous contribution to the renewal of Catholic theology today. The hermeneutic of rupture has been utterly disastrous. The needed renewal urged by the Second Vatican Council must be pursued once again. The thoughtful, balanced, orthodox, and acute analysis of Msgr. Fenton serves as a prime example of the kind of renewal that was and remains desirable, one in organic continuity with the great tradition, committed to the unchanging dogmas of the Church but open to new insights and corrections in matters purely speculative or hypothetical. Fenton is also clearly a man of prayer, a theologian on his knees yet one who truly practices the rigorous scientific discipline of dogmatic theology. This collection of essays is absolutely essential reading for any serious student of ecclesiology. It will serve as a corrective to the misbegotten attempts at renewal which suffer from an unwillingness to embrace all the unchanging dogmas of faith. It will also invite a return to that thoughtfulness and nuance which in fact informed pre-conciliar theology, a thoughtfulness open to legitimate development.