Festschrifts are sometimes criticized for being haphazard collections of essays, loosely tied to an honoree’s interests. Engaging Catholic Doctrine, however, escapes this fate. Edited by Bishop Robert Barron, Scott Hahn, and James R. A. Merrick, the volume is not simply a tribute to Matthew Levering’s immense productivity but an extension of his theological method: a ressourcement retrieval of Scripture and the tradition, mediated through Thomas Aquinas, yet attentive to contemporary questions. The contributors aim not only to honor Levering’s vast scholarship but also to continue his project of renewing Catholic theology by showing how doctrine, when rooted in revelation and interpreted through Aquinas, can guide the Church through present challenges. In this sense, the book’s 552 pages offer more than homage; they model the kind of theology Levering has consistently embodied – systematic yet biblical, doctrinal yet ecumenical, and traditional yet pastoral.
The volume is organized into five thematic parts corresponding to Levering’s principal areas of work: Aquinas as biblical theologian, the Trinity, sacrifice and worship, moral and spiritual theology, and contemporary engagements. The editors introduce the book by emphasizing Levering’s ‘generous collegiality’ and ‘tireless work’ as a guide through the complexities of Catholic doctrine. This spirit is reflected throughout the essays: the authors are not merely interlocutors but fellow travelers who share in Levering’s theological vision of faith seeking understanding, rooted in both the Fathers and the Angelic Doctor.
Scott Hahn’s essay exemplifies the biblical-theological strand that has marked Levering’s influence on Anglophone Catholicism. Hahn focuses on the biblical theology of sacrifice, situating Christ’s self-offering within the continuity of Israel’s sacrificial economy. Drawing on Leviticus and the Letter to the Hebrews, Hahn demonstrates that the Cross cannot be understood apart from the cultic categories of priesthood, offering, and covenant. His contribution reminds the reader that Catholic theology cannot reduce sacrifice to mere metaphor or moral example: it remains a real cultic and liturgical reality fulfilled in Christ.
What makes Hahn’s essay especially significant in the context of the volume is how it complements Levering’s long-standing insistence that Christian doctrine is not abstract speculation but the explication of salvation history. Hahn carefully resists the temptation to interpret sacrifice in narrowly penal or transactional terms; instead, he emphasizes its covenantal and participatory nature. For Hahn, to recover the Catholic doctrine of sacrifice is to recover the logic of communion – precisely the logic Levering himself has advanced in his studies of the Eucharist.
Dominican theologian Thomas Joseph White contributes one of the most doctrinally dense and rewarding chapters. He explores the biblical foundations of Trinitarian theology, showing how the Old Testament’s monotheism, while uncompromising, already contains hints of plurality within the divine life that are fulfilled in the New Testament revelation of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. White’s essay demonstrates the precision and clarity of Thomistic metaphysics, applied with exegetical sensitivity.
The essay is not simply a reassertion of orthodoxy; it models a methodological stance close to Levering’s own. For White, biblical exegesis and metaphysical analysis are not competitors but allies. The result is a vision of Trinitarian theology that is at once faithful to Scripture and philosophically rigorous. This balance is particularly valuable in today’s theological landscape, where either historical-critical exegesis or metaphysical systematics often dominates to the exclusion of the other. White’s contribution insists on a both/and approach, thereby vindicating Levering’s ressourcement Thomism as a viable model for contemporary Catholic theology.
C. C. Pecknold offers a meditation on Augustine and the theological virtue of hope, a theme that links eschatology to spiritual practice. Pecknold draws on Augustine’s Confessions to show how memory functions as a repository of divine promise: recollection of God’s past fidelity grounds the Christian’s confidence in the future. This Augustinian retrieval is not antiquarian; Pecknold situates it within the modern context of despair, where both secular utopianism and nihilism erode authentic hope.
The essay also reflects Levering’s influence in emphasizing that doctrine must always serve the Church’s life of prayer. Pecknold’s treatment of hope does not end in abstract eschatology but gestures toward liturgy and devotion as the spaces where hope is cultivated. In this way, his contribution exemplifies one of the best features of the volume: its ability to show that Catholic doctrine is not a museum piece but a living, life-giving reality.
Emery de Gaál engages with the early theology of Joseph Ratzinger, tracing how his Christological focus developed as a response to the intellectual challenges of modernity. De Gaál shows how Ratzinger, long before becoming Benedict XVI, was wrestling with questions of faith and reason, revelation, and modern culture – questions that resonate strongly with Levering’s own oeuvre.
De Gaál’s essay underscores Ratzinger’s insistence that Christianity is not primarily a moral code or a set of abstract propositions but an encounter with the living Christ. This Christocentrism is presented as the key to navigating modernity’s fragmentation and relativism. By bringing Ratzinger into conversation with Levering, de Gaál demonstrates the ongoing vitality of a theology that resists both secular reductionism and fideistic retreat. His essay situates Levering within a larger Catholic project of theological retrieval, one that insists that the riches of tradition are not obstacles but resources for meeting the intellectual crises of today.
A critical reader, however, may sense a limitation. The essays consistently highlight harmony, coherence, and continuity. They emphasize doctrine’s rational beauty and its integration across disciplines. Yet in their celebratory tone, they risk underplaying theology’s more disruptive or even apophatic dimensions. The Fathers and mystics remind us that revelation is not only luminous but also dark; not only systematic but also symbolic and paradoxical. In some cases, the volume flattens theology into synthesis, leaving less space for mystery’s resistance to conceptual closure.
This is not a flaw of the contributors’ scholarship – each essay is learned, precise, and edifying. Rather, it reflects the influence of Levering himself, whose theology, though vast and generous, is more inclined to rational harmony than to paradox. A future volume might supplement this with essays that foreground theology’s unsystematic elements: the poetic, the mystical, the dramatic, and even the tragic. Doing so would enrich rather than diminish Levering’s legacy, showing the fullness of Catholic theology in both its clarity and its shadows.
Engaging Catholic Doctrine is a fitting tribute to one of the most important Catholic theologians of our time. Its contributors represent a wide spectrum of theological expertise, yet all converge on the conviction that doctrine matters, that Scripture and Tradition are living sources, and that Aquinas remains an indispensable guide. For readers familiar with Levering, it illuminates the scope of his influence. For those new to his work, it offers an introduction to Catholic theology at its most faithful and most creative. And for the Church, it stands as a witness to the possibility of theology as a service to truth, charity, and communion.
