New Book: A Catholic Engagement with Latter-Day Saints (Ignatius Press)

A Catholic Engagement with Latter-day Saints
(edited with Richard Sherlock) (Ignatius Press).  

This book is a collection of essays by Catholic scholars that address several theological topics over which Mormons and Catholics hold contrary beliefs: the great apostasy, the papacy, the Eucharist, the Trinity, the incarnation, the nature of God, justification, sainthood, liturgy, and deification. The contributors, some of whom are converts to Catholicism from Mormonism, offer a respectful, though critical, analysis of LDS beliefs.

Catholics have done very little thinking about or interaction with the theological beliefs of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (the Mormons). The Catholic Church has focused virtually all of its ecumenical efforts on the ecclesial communities that arose from the Reformation, the Orthodox Churches, and Judaism. Left out of these discussions has been the Mormon Church, even though it has grown to nearly 16 million members internationally by 2016 from its modest beginnings in 1830.

This work examines the LDS faith as an important and serious challenge to the Catholic narrative of the origin and development of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Absent the ad hominem attacks and lurid historical details that are often found in popular Christian assessments of the LDS Church, this book is intended by its editors to lead to further dialogue and better understanding.

Table of Contents

Introduction: What Does Salt Lake City Have to Do with Rome?
Francis J. Beckwith and Richard Sherlock

Chapter 1: The Trinity
Matthew Levering

Chapter 2: Becoming like God: A Critique
Richard Sherlock

Chapter 3: Classical Theism, Latter-day Saint Theism, and a Long-Awaited, Though Modest, Rejoinder to the Roberts-Van Der Donckt Debate
Francis J. Beckwith

Chapter 4: James Barker’s Case for the Great Apostasy
James Hitchcock

Chapter 5: Deification in Two Traditions
Glenn Olsen

Chapter 6: Liturgy in Mormonism and Catholicism
Rachel Lu

Chapter 7: Catholicism, Mormonism, and Eucharistic Realism
Francis J. Beckwith and Alexander Pruss

Chapter 8: The Papacy: The Most Real Institution in the World
Ronald Thomas

Chapter 9: Latter-day Saint Pelagianism
Joel Barstad

Afterword: On Being a Catholic in Utah
Brad S. Gregory

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