Gentle Traditionalist Launch and Favours to Ask . . .

Well, here we have the front cover! (The back cover is further down the page.)

The book should be launched very soon, possibly at the weekend, even before the November 30th date announced. (It is also not impossible a small snag could delay it a couple of days beyond the 30th – but the weekend looks quite likely.)

In connection with all this, I’d like to venture some unusually personal things.

This is an intense time for Kim and me. There is a certain difficult intensity for both of us, connected to two dear souls I will call P and Q, both dearly beloved family members suffering intensely. Best I not say more. Yet we would be grateful for any prayers you might say for Roger and Kim’s beloved souls: P and Q. Thank you.

On the other side, the book launch brings its own positive intensity!

Truly, I feel quite overwhelmed and deeply grateful.

First, the good people at Angelico Press have been outstanding. I thank them from the bottom of my heart for all they have done for me – and, I truly believe, are doing for the world with their whole range of books.

This is an inspired company with a mission that deserves support. (I’ve now placed an ad for just a few of their remarkable titles in our lefthand sidebar.)

Second, there is the matter of all the very encouraging feedback I am getting. These include the full text of some initial reviews, partially featured for the back cover below:

Because there was not enough room for the full texts of these write-ups, they are going inside.

I have also featured them in a recent blog called Praise for the Gentle Traditionalist (here).

Posting that blog with that title was somewhat embarrassing for me. Promoting one’s self or one’s work is tricky indeed!

Clearly, I want the book to sell, as sales will definitely help in our present situation. (Because of that, there is also a favour to ask down below as to where and how you buy the book, if you do.)

But beyond addressing my own personal needs, I dare to believe that, by the Grace of God, I have managed to write something that, in a small way, can help address the situation in both Ireland and the world.

And, by that, I mean the growing ‘dictatorship of relativism’ as Benedict XVI once spoke of it. (Speaking for myself, I often call it the dictatorship of secularism).

Thus, I was deeply grateful for these words from Joseph Shaw, Chairman of the Latin Mass Society of England and Wales who writes:

The Gentle Traditionalist is a tremendous book: moving and humourous, opening up the most profound issues, engaging the most strident of polemics with the lightest touch. Ireland’s place in the English-speaking world, the revolutions and counter-revolutions of the Enlightenment and the modern era, and the human weakness and divine resilience of the Catholic Church, are the book’s themes.

But it remains for all that an easy read, above all a gentle appeal to those outside the Church to reconsider the hostility which, for so many, is now an unthinking, bred-in-the-bone prejudice.

Today it is hard to know what to say to the sincere enquirer, when the Church appears to send out such mixed signals and internal disputes are take up so much of her time and energy. Roger Buck is to be congratulated for making the case for the Church at this moment of confusion.

At the real risk of ‘blowing my own horn’, Shaw has caught what I was trying to achieve in this book.

Namely: to create an ‘easy read’ with a light touch, as Shaw notes, and, as he also says, which makes the case for the Church amidst the unspeakably tragic confusion of our age.

For that reason, I really want the book out there. I pray its popular, accessible approach might honestly help combat the media brainwashing.

And, honestly, I believe I would feel just the same about this book, even if I were a millionaire with no need for funds –  or indeed the book were written by somebody else.

As one of the people working for Angelico Press told me, he wishes the book could be air-dropped on every home in Ireland …

What I am building up to is that I will be very, very grateful to any of you who can help us in getting this book known. Thank you if you can ‘facebook’, tweet or pin my blogs about it.

For that reason, please note I have now created an archive of posts for The Gentle Traditionalist (here) – most of them with extracts from the book. (And there will be more extracts soon, including the opening chapter.)

If perhaps some of you felt that one or two of these extracts were particularly ‘pinnable’ ‘tweetable’ or otherwise ‘shareable’ via Social Media, I would be very grateful if you could do so for us. Personally, my favourite candidate for this is this one.

And I really thank those of you who have already done us this favour. You know who you are!

As I say, my chief concern is getting the book out there (since, alas, I can’t air-drop it on Irish cities!)

However, I also have a more personal favour to ask. And that is this. If you are buying the book, could you please buy it through this site? In other words, come here first, before you go to Amazon.

We will shortly have our own buttons to purchase it through Amazon and Amazon UK – and we get a commission for each book bought that way.

We also get a commission for virtually anything else you buy at Amazon through our links.

This can be during the same purchase as the book. Say you buy something else at the same time, we also get a commission for that whatever it is: Christmas shopping, a computer, your own private yacht, etc. (Cheeky smile with a wink.)

However, it can also be for any purchase made at Amazon provided you go to Amazon through those yellow or blue boxes on the left sidebar.

Virtually anything at all purchased through those yellow and blue boxes will help us.

Thank you so much if you can consider using our Amazon links on the left.

And to our long time readers especially, I thank you for all the many forms of kindness and support over all these years.

Foreword for Monarchy by Roger Buck

Buying Books at Amazon Through These Links Gives Us a Commission. This Supports Our Apostolate. Thank You if You Can Help Us Like This!