Customer Reviews

A New Look at the Sacraments

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Bausch's Sacraments is a good historical and theological overview of the seven sacraments of the Roman Catholic Church. It is readable and easy to understand for beginning lay people and has enough content for high level readers. We use this book as a textbook for the area's adult religious education program sponsored by seven area Catholic parishes.

This book is listed as out of print. It is not out of print. It's being used as a textbook in a class I'm currently taking. It is available from Twenty-Third Publications in Mystic, CT. We're also using one of Kenan Osborne's books, and I must say that Bausch is very much easier to read and understand than Osborne.

This excellent book is highly recommended either as a text or for independent study. It is exceptionally readable and presents a cogent, unifying, and cross-linked discussion of all seven sacraments in the light of Vatican II and modern sacramental theology.

A preceding review states that Bausch "denies the idea of the sacraments...as facilitating a personal relationship with Christ." This notion appears nowhere in the book - rather the converse.

The "traditional understanding" of which that reviewer speaks is the pre-Vatican II understanding. True, if you're a Pius IX (1846-1878) Catholic you may not like this book very much. If you are a post-Vatican II Christian, though, you will find it filled with insight.

Bausch's "A New Look at the Sacraments" offers some valuable insights into our ideas of what the Sacraments mean, however, Bausch also claims that the traditional understandings of the Sacraments are incorrect, and offers his theories as an alternative, rather than an addendum. Bausch takes some good ideas, and applies them horribly by offering a limmited view of the meaning of the Sacraments. Bausche's theories when viewed as an alternative to a more traditional understanding of the sacraments denies the idea of the Sacraments having any understanding as facilitating a personal relationship w/ Christ. He sees the Sacraments purely as a community thing. A community understanding of the Sacraments is good, and this book helps a person to deepen their understanding of what the Sacraments are, but to say that this understanding is the only true understanding of the Sacraments is wrong.