Retrieving Apologetics

Given the popes' recent statements of their desires to implement the New Evangelization, it is imperative that Catholic theologians and other intellectually engaged laypersons retrieve the vital discipline of apologetics. For, the New Evangelization places particular emphasis on 'reproposing the Gospel to those who have experienced a crisis of faith . . . due to secularization.' One salient method of Catholic apologetics used to be characterized by three demonstrations, each of which assumes the conclusions established in the previous step(s). Some might think that this classical method of apologetics has been abandoned in the postconciliar Church, but Siniscalchi's book updates it. Unlike the classical apologetics of the preconciliar era, Siniscalchi engages contemporary scholarship in a variety of academic disciplines, such as philosophy, history, biblical studies, sociology, and theology, to develop the steps that are necessary for showing the reasonableness of faith.