Aidan Nichols presents a detailed study of the extraordinary achievements of historic Anglo-Catholicism, crafted for a broad readership and with the particular intention that it may also find a (Roman) Catholic readership - where this tradition in the nation's Christian life has often been neglected or misunderstood.
Here, within one cover, is a wealth of detail about the Oxford Fathers, the Ritualists and liturgists, founders of Sisterhoods and monasteries, social thinkers, creators of Church societies, guilds, schools and newspapers, organizers of Congresses, theologians, architects and artists, poets and novelists, hymnographers and musicians, ecumenists and missionaries. Everything that, in Geoffrey Rowell's words, made Anglo-Catholicism a 'Vision Glorious' in the religious and cultural history of England.
Much of the material explored will be well known to students of the period, but to many more it will prove a fascinating discovery, while its presentation here by a Roman Catholic author may give it a certain piquancy, as well as fresh insight and a different perspective.
This book is unapologetically a eulogy-and also something of an elegy, since much of the corporate life recalled within these pages is no more.
