Who Should We Read?

Fr. Robert Barron writes a conciliar Catholic blog called Word on Fire. In an essay published Friday, he described his experience dealing with militant aggressive atheists who engage in seek-and-destroy missions against people like himself.

By way of suggesting a suitable apologetic response, Father wrote, "Have we read the great Christian apologists -- G.K. Chesterton, C.S. Lewis, Francis Schaeffer, Ronald Knox, Fulton Sheen -- and can we wield their arguments against those who are coming at us? In my own Catholic Church, we sadly jettisoned much of our rich apologetic tradition in the years after Vatican II, convinced that it would be better to reach out positively to the culture. Well, at least part of that culture has turned pretty hostile, and it is high time to recover the intellectual weapons that we set aside."

Betrayed again by Vatican II. Not that the atheists were surprised; in fact, they were instrumental in getting the Church to let down its guard at the Council so that the anti-religionists could take a more free hand in assaulting the works of God. To their eternal shame, most of the Churchmen of the time allowed the Church's enemies to largely have their way.

For the record, even better apologists to read are men like Fr. Henri Le Floch, Bp. Antonio Castro de Mayer, Abp. Marcel Lefebvre, and Cdl. Alfredo Ottaviani.