From Booklist
Ludwig, director of university ministry at Chicago's DePaul University, joins a battle for the heart and soul of Catholicism that is as old as Catholicism itself. From the moment it was institutionalized, Catholicism has been entangled in a struggle between the institution and the embrace of God's presence in the world. Ludwig articulates that struggle in an engaging, readable way that should appeal to his intended audience, the so-called Generation X. Beyond the old struggle, Ludwig also lays out a popular version of the paradigm analysis Hans Ku{}ng has recently elaborated in excruciating detail. For Ludwig, the challenge is to reconstruct Catholicism within a postmodern paradigm, a reconstruction that he sees as a second step, after the devastating deconstruction of the past 200 years. One interesting problem for Ludwig and others involved in reconstruction is the generally premodern character of Catholicism's antimodernism. The "new generation" for whom Ludwig writes may be a step ahead of him in embracing the "green and cosmic" aspects of his reconstruction. The question is whether they will embrace the Catholic and Christian aspects as reconstruction or jettison them as retreat. Steve Schroeder
