Out of due time. Wilfrid Ward and the Dublin Review. By Dom Paschal Scotti. Pp. xi+329. Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2006. $69.95. 13 978 0 8132 1427 6; 10 0 8132 1427 0

Abstract

Wilfrid Ward would have good reason to be pleased with this magnificently-written and informative examination of his tenure (1906-16) as editor of the Dublin Review, the leading Catholic journal in the British Isles. Though much can be learned about Wilfrid Ward in these pages, the primary object of study is the Dublin Review as Ward carried out the programme that Dom Paschal succinctly sums up in the preface : ' [Ward] wished to bring the best of the Catholic mind to the nation at large, revealing the intrinsic power and beauty of the faith which alone, he believed, could counter the dissolving forces of modernity, and to expose the Catholic faithful to the best of the changing world around them ' (p. ix). This double programme faced challenges, especially in the midst of the so-called Modernist crisis, but Ward persevered and made the Dublin Review known and respected, inside and outside the Catholic Church. Dom Paschal allows the reader to appreciate the achievement. After two superb chapters on the earlier life of Ward and the previous history of the journal, he carefully studies its contents in seven chapters, extensive excerpts being provided from many of the articles. For the taste of this reviewer, some of these could have been abbreviated. But they do demonstrate the range of the Dublin Review's interests and the seriousness with which its contributors addressed the problems of the day. In particular, the third chapter, 'Transcendence, revelation, and immanence ', will repay careful study with a clearer understanding of Ward's approach to the issues surrounding Modernism. The editing of the book is flawless, and the work offers both an extensive bibliography of the period and a fascinating complete listing of the Dublin Review's contents while Ward was editor. The book is highly to be recommended, not only to students of British Catholicism, but to any who wish to deepen their knowledge of the intellectual life of the British Isles during the period under consideration.