of the progressive ideas he espoused as a younger scholar; and he did penance for his involvement with the Consilium by telling the world in his Memoirs about the mendacity of its leader and the incompetence of many of its members.

This book, Christian Initiation, is an eloquent and penetrating little book, an interesting combination of apologetics and mystagogy. Here is a summary , courtesy of the publisher.

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Louis Bouyer (1913–2004) was a member of the French Oratory and one of the most respected and visionary Catholic scholars and theologians of his time. Formerly a Lutheran minister, Bouyer entered the Catholic Church in 1939. A visionary Catholic scholar and theologian, Bouyer was peer and friend of Hans Urs von Balthasar and Joseph Ratzinger as well as T. S.Eliot and J. R. R. Tolkien.

Ecce ascendimus Ierosolymam, et consummabuntur omnia quæ scripta sunt per prophetas de Filio hominis. (From the Gospel for the Sunday in Quinquagesima, Luke xviii, 31: Behold, we go up to Jerusalem, and all things shall be accomplished which were written by the prophets concerning the Son of Man.)

Christianity is as old as the world; for it consists, essentially, in the idea of a God -- Creator, Legislator, and Savior -- and in a life conformable to that idea. Now, God manifested himself to the human race from the beginning under the threefold relation of Creator, Legislator, and Savior, and from the beginning, from Adam to Noah, from Noah to Abraham, from Abraham to Moses, from Moses to Jesus Christ, there have been men