A fresh attempt at tackling all of today’s Catholic issues

By Dr. Jeff Mirus ( bio - articles - email ) | Oct 24, 2025 | In Reviews

There has been a trend among Catholic scholars over the past few years of coming together to publish massive collective studies on difficult contemporary moral and spiritual issues. I have already called attention to three such studies on the gender crisis, and now we have a new one focusing on the widespread tendency among different kinds of “Catholics” to explain away the Magisterium of the Church. Edited by Andrew Likoudis, this new collective study is entitled Faith in Crisis: Critical Dialogues in Catholic Traditionalism, Church Authority, and Reform.

As the title suggests, the book devotes considerable space to the problems occasioned by any traditionalism which fails to allow itself to be restricted and shaped by the authority of the Church’s ongoing Magisterium, but its authors are also very conscious of the crisis of Faith in the more liberal wing of the Church, and in modern culture as a whole. To indicate the range of both the topics covered and the authors included, I have reproduced the table of contents at the end of this brief review.

It may be of interest to older readers that the editor for this project, Andrew Likoudis, is the grandson of James Likoudis, a convert from Eastern Orthodoxy (in 1952) who spent most of his adult life defending and advancing the Catholic Faith, including serving as President of Catholics United for the Faith, one of the earliest organizations to take up the battle for Catholic fidelity in the confusing years following the Second Vatican Council. In the course of my own maturation as a militant Catholic, I met and worked occasionally with Jim in the 1970s. Although he died last year at the age of 95, one of his essays also made it into this new book (“The Liturgical Reform in Retrospect”).

Overview

I should explain that I have not read all the selections in this book before recommending it, just as I would not read every article in an encyclopedia for the same purpose. But based on the reputations of the contributors and a sampling of the individual studies, I think it is fair to say that each has something positive to offer for a thorough understanding of his or her chosen topic.

Of course, each reader may have different reservations. For my part, I continue to find very little merit in any attempt to explain synodality on the assumption that it is the structural key to the Church’s future. I prefer Pope Leo’s recent statement that “Synodality is a style, an attitude that helps us to be Church, promoting authentic experiences of participation and communion.” There is, it seems to me, no need to belabor this point endlessly, to set up new structures to facilitate so obvious a point, or to keep pushing it toward some sort of democratic rule. Had I written on this subject, I would have emphasized the common reality that endless participatory discussions tend to serve as substitutes for effective apostolic action.

Nonetheless, I read and pondered the included study on this subject. In the same way, I suspect that every reader will find some entries both more persuasive and more helpful than others, but even when the reader concludes that a particular entry has missed the precise mark to be aimed at, he will learn a great deal about the subject in question and come away with both a deeper understanding and a renewed perspective. This sort of recognition, taken as a worst case, helps us to grasp the contemporary gap between our current situation and the mystical perfection which we must nonetheless strive to perceive through our continuing fidelity to the Church Christ instituted for our salvation.

What I claim for each of these forty individual studies, then, is that at the very least the reader will gain a clearer perception of the issue at hand, and will learn more about the situation of the Church today and its genuine possibilities for effective renewal. Each of the chapters goes into considerable and fully annotated depth on the topic it covers, and the spirit of the contributions is to increase understanding rather than to denounce opponents. Editor Andrew Likoudis captures that spirit in his introduction:

Rather than retreating into nostalgic idealism or embracing unchecked innovation, the contributors chart a course that holds fast to the unchanging Deposit of Faith while calling for a renewed theological and pastoral attentiveness to the signs of the times. Across the essays, the volume emphasizes the need for ecclesial unity rooted in fidelity to the Magisterium, a living reception of Vatican II, and pastoral approaches that respond meaningfully to the existential, moral, and cultural questions facing the Church today.

Yes, this is a very tall order. There is probably not a single chapter in the book that will please everybody but, again, there is no chapter that will fail to increase the reader’s understanding of its topic. I should emphasize that the book is best suited for those of a scholarly bent, or those who have a very particular interest in one or more of the topics covered. To help the reader decide whether or not he should purchase the book, add it to his reference library, and read the selections most relevant to his interests, I reproduce the Table of Contents below.

Part One: Traditionalism

1. Functionality over Faith: A Modern Crisis (Andrew Mioni)
2. Lessons from St. Hilary, the “Athanasius of the West” (Mike Aquilina)
3. Rigorism in the Early Church: The First “Fundamentalists” (James L. Papandrea
4. Fundamentalism & Americanism: Obstacles to Thinking with the Church (William Masur, MS)
5. Reframing Orthodoxy: Beyond Conservative & Liberal (Fr. Matthew Mary Bartow. MFVA)
6. Faithfulness, or Rigidity? (Pedro Gabriel, MD)
7. What is Heresy? (Jimmy Akin)
8. Diagnosing the Malaise of Modernism within Traditionalism (Pedro Gabriel, MD)
9. Private Revelation & Apparition Subculture within Traditionalism (Andrew Likoudis)
10. Clericalism & Spiritual Abuse within Traditionalism (Andrew Likoudis)
11. Trad-adjacent: Radical Catholic Reactionaryism

Part Two: Church Authority

12. Lessons from St. Peter’s Papacy (Suan Sonna, MTS)
13. Collegiality: A Traditional Doctrine (Richard G. DeClue, Jr., SThD
14. How Doctrinal Development Happens (Jimmy Akin)
15. Finding Catholic Orthodoxy (Mike Lewis, MA)
16. Thinking with the Mind of the Church (Henry Matthew Alt, MA)
17. Catholic Clickbait: Digital Media & Outrage Culture in the Church (Andrew Likoudis)
18. The Ordinary Magisterium & the Question of Dissent (Robert Fastiggi, PhD)
19. The Antidote of Trust (Laura Vender Vos)
20. The Spirit of Obedience (Fr. Bernard Mulcahy, OP, PhD)
21. Doctrinal Safety of the Ordinary Magisterium & Religious Obedience (Emmet O’Regan, PhD)
22. Heresy in the Pope’s Non-definitive Acts? A Defense of a Charism of Safety (Michael Lofton, MA)

Part Three: Reform

23. Vatican II & Theological Paradigms (Michel Therrien, STL, SThD)
24. Conversion and Reform: Ecclesial Reconfiguration in Light of Synodality (Rafael Luciani, SThD)
25. Veritatis Splendor Magistra et Amoris Laetitia Matris (Pedro Gabriel, MD)
26. The Death Penalty and Doctrinal Development (Robert Fastiggi, PhD)
27. Between Pessimism and Presumption: Hope of Salvation in Church Teaching (Adam Rasmussen, PhD)
28. The Church is One: The Irrevocable Commitment to Christian Unity (Andrew J. Boyd, STL)
29. Religious Liberty and its Foundation (R. Michael Dunmnigan, JCD, JD)
30. Interreligious Dialogue & the Incarnation (Very Reverend Canon, Francis J. Tiso, PhD)
31. Eastern Philosophy & a Christology of Religions (Tyler McNabb, PhD)
32. Traditionalists’ Questions Regarding Catholic Teaching on the Jewish People (Gavin D’Costa, PhD)
33. Do Catholics & Muslims Worship the Same God? (Robert Fastiggi, PhD)
34. Inculturation & the “Pachamama” Ordeal (Luis Dizon, MTS)
35. Missiology & Material Culture in the Modern Age (Steven Schloeder, PhD, AIA)
36. The Liturgical Reform in Retrospect (James Likoudis, DD)
37. Challenges in Liturgy: Authority, Continuity, & Sectarian Concern (Andrew Likoudis)
38. A Reader’s Guide to Pope Francis’ Vision of Liturgical Formation (Timothy O’Malley, PhD)
39. The Road Ahead: A Call for True Ecclesial Unity (Robert Cardinal Sarah)
40. Taking the Virtuous Path: An Open Letter to Confused Young Catholics (Gregory Downs, MATS)

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Andrew Likoudis, ed., Faith in Crisis: Critical Dialogues in Catholic Traditionalism, Church Authority & Reform. Enroute Books and Media: 2025. 612pp. Paper $29.95; Kindle $9.99.