An Embattled Mind, In Defense of St. Thomas: The Post-Conciliar Years (The Collected Wanderer Articles: 1971–1987) (Book 7/Collected Works)

by Carol Jackson Robinson | Introduction by Gregorio Montejo, Ph.D.

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Product Code: aem
Publication date: Late 2025/Early 2026
Size: 6 x 9

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Table of Contents
Endorsements

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Carol Jackson Robinson Collected Works · Book 7

An Embattled Mind

In Defense of St. Thomas · The Post-Conciliar Years · The Wanderer Articles, 1971–1987

by Carol Jackson Robinson
Introduction by Gregorio Montejo, Ph.D.

Forthcoming Final volume in the collected works The Wanderer articles, 1971–1987 Late 2026/Early 2027

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The culminating volume of Carol Robinson’s collected works: a penetrating chronicle of the post-conciliar crisis, a defense of the Angelic Doctor, and a powerful summons to recover the perennial intellectual and spiritual patrimony of the Church.

Thomism · catechesis · Scripture · crisis in the Church · Catholic tradition

Forthcoming title

This book is not yet available. It is a forthcoming release and the final volume in Arouca Press’s collected edition of Carol Jackson Robinson’s works.

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In Defense of the Common Doctor

St. Thomas at the Heart of the Battle

Carol Robinson understood the post-conciliar crisis not merely as a pastoral or institutional problem, but as an intellectual crisis rooted in the abandonment of metaphysical realism. Her defense of St. Thomas is therefore central to this volume: the recovery of Catholic tradition must pass through the recovery of sound reason, true doctrine, and the perennial philosophy of being.

Unde dubitatio quae accidit in aliquibus circa articulos fidei, non est propter incertitudinem rei, sed propter debilitatem intellectus humani.

“Hence the fact that some happen to doubt about articles of faith is not due to the uncertain nature of the truths, but to the weakness of human intelligence.”

—St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, I, Q. 1, Art. 5

Metaphysical realism Thomistic clarity Faith and reason

✦ OVERVIEW ✦

Carol Robinson was a savvy first-hand witness of the collapse of large swaths of Catholic culture in America in the immediate post-Vatican II years. In these detailed and perceptive essays from the pages of The Wanderer, she passionately yet soundly dissects the destructive forces at work in the years spanning 1971–1987.

Robinsons’ keen analytical mind surveys many of the most pressing issues of the time, but three themes are uppermost in her mind, beginning with a concerning reluctance from Bishops to exercise their apostolic duty to teach the faithful. Robinson chronicles the epidemic of increasingly poor catechizing that resulted in a generation of young Catholics who were ever more ignorant of the Magisterium.

Robinson is exceptionally good at chronicling the dereliction of the teaching office in regard to Scripture, examining how the misuse of historical-critical methodologies at the hands of Catholic biblical scholars progressively undermined belief in the word of God among post-Conciliar Catholics.

Above all, Robinson devotes her energies to exposing distressing trends within Thomism in the wake of the Council, a time when the Angelic Doctor’s work lost its preeminence in the schools, especially when it came to seminary formation.

Robinson is particularly insightful in her critique of a growing historicization of Aquinas’ thought amidst the Thomist movement itself, which in her mind parallels the analogous process of demythologizing of Scripture.

After surveying a host of innovating academics who would reduce Thomas’ thought to the historically conditioned product of a bygone era, Robinson persuasively argues for the enduring universality of the Common Doctor, and the undiminished relevance of his teaching as anchored in a firm, clear-sited philosophy of being. The pieces reprinted here provide a fascinating window into the tumultuous situation in the Church in these years, but this collection is much more than a mere review of the troubled past.

In her diagnosis of the problems besetting the Catholicism of her time she also provides a prophetic strategy for the embattled Church in our own day, centered around a profound retrieval of authentic Thomism and the perennial spiritual and intellectual patrimony of Catholic Tradition.

❦ FROM CAROL ROBINSON’S ESSAYS ❦

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Robinson’s late essays are sharp, metaphysical, and unsparing: a lay Thomist reading the post-conciliar crisis through the abandonment of truth, authority, and the philosophy of being.

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Truth is reduced to a Gallup poll, a sociological survey, an in-depth study of attitudes, an artificially induced group consensus.

Adult Brainwashing · 1971

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He was a perfecter, a synthesizer, a towering genius, a saint, but he was no innovator.

Dishonoring St. Thomas · 1974

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He did not add— but attested by his life— that the more supernatural the generosity, the more Divine power it has to leaven an increasingly large part of mankind.

Death of a Priest · 1971

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The problem is not a change in doctrinal content.

The Greening of the Catholic Church in America · 1975

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It was, as I see now, a reversal of hierarchical order. It was only a technique, but it was a technique of demolition.

RENEW: On-Site Training for Becoming The American Church · 1984

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An occult heretic is one who, having lost his faith, remains in the Church to bring others to his way of thinking.

The Case of the Occult Heretic · 1982

✠ ST. THOMAS AND THE EMBATTLED MIND ✠

Final volume

The concluding volume in the collected works of one of the most penetrating Thomistic lay writers of the post-conciliar period.

The post-conciliar crisis

A first-hand account of the intellectual, catechetical, and ecclesial upheaval that marked Catholic life in the decades after Vatican II.

Defense of St. Thomas

A vigorous defense of Thomism against historicization, reductionism, and the eclipse of metaphysics in Catholic thought.

Still timely

More than a historical retrospective, this volume offers a prophetic strategy for Catholics confronting many of the same disorders today.

Representative themes

The collapse of Catholic culture in America · failures in catechesis · the crisis of biblical interpretation · the misuse of historical-critical methods · the eclipse of Thomism in seminaries and schools · the enduring universality of St. Thomas · the retrieval of Catholic Tradition

Being

A defense of the realist philosophy of being against reduction and historicization.

Doctrine

A call to recover the teaching office and restore Catholic doctrine to catechesis.

Tradition

A retrieval of the spiritual and intellectual patrimony of Catholic Tradition.

Resistance

A model of Catholic intellectual resistance in an age of confusion.

✦ BOOK DETAILS ✦

Author

Carol Jackson Robinson

Volume

Book 7 / Collected Works

Publication date

Late 2026/Early 2027

Format

Paperback / Hardback

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A major forthcoming release

Arouca Press is proud to present the final volume in the Carol Jackson Robinson collected works: a serious, incisive, and deeply Thomistic witness to the Church’s post-conciliar struggle and to the enduring necessity of St. Thomas.
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Table of Contents

An Embattled Mind

In Defense of St. Thomas · The Post-Conciliar Years · The Wanderer Articles, 1971–1987

by Carol Jackson Robinson
Carol Jackson Robinson Collected Works · Book 7 · Forthcoming

1971–1987 The Wanderer essays St. Thomas and the post-conciliar crisis Late 2026/Early 2027

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A chronological map of Robinson’s embattled witness: essays on adult re-education, the collapse of catechesis, secular Molinism, Rahner, biblical demythologizing, the eclipse of Thomism, and the enduring claims of the Common Doctor.

Thomism · metaphysics · Catholic culture · catechesis · Scripture · ecclesial crisis

✠ FRONT MATTER ✠

Introduction by Gregorio Montejo, Ph.D. ✦

❦ CONTENTS BY YEAR ❦

1971

1971

Adult Brainwashing (May 13)

Death of a Priest (June 23)

1972

1972

Bless Me…/Ma’am? (January 13)

A Little Thomistic Logic: Letter to the Editor (February 3)

The Modern Mind (March 16)

Gremlins at Work (April 13)

The Artificial Sermon (April 20)

1973

1973

The Bare Ruined Choirs of Secular Molinism (January 4)

The Most Private Property (May 31)

The Credulity of Father Brown (June 7)

The Credibility of Father Brown (November 8)

1974

1974

The Church Militant (March 28)

Death of a Killer (April 11)

Dishonoring St. Thomas (May 12)

The Demythologizing of St. Thomas (November 21)

1975

1975

Dissolving the Faith in Action (March 20)

Male Chauvinist Pigs, Marriage, and the New Catholic World (August 7)

The Sins of the First Lady (September 18)

The Greening of the Catholic Church in America (November 13)

1976

1976

On the Revolutionary Front (January 15)

NCR’s “Non Serviam” (February 12)

Jimmy Carter’s Little Sister (June 17)

Secular Christianity and the Eucharist (August 12)

A Denial of Thomistic Principles: Letter to the Editor (September 16)

On the Validity of the Tennessee Sacraments (December 30)

1977

1977

More on the Validity of the Tennessee Sacraments (February 24)

Prodigal Sons…Or Unjust Stewards? (March 10)

On the Demythologizing of Roots (May 26)

Little Pockets of Holiness and Peace (December 22)

1979

1979

A Reason to Rejoice, The Pope is Coming (September 27)

1980

1980

Putting the Pope Down (August 14)

The New Fundamentalism (September 11)

Whatever Happened to Amazing Grace? (November 27)

If the Blind Lead the Blind (December 11)

1981

1981

Bishops as Mouthpieces for Freud (March 19)

Children Need to Know About Purity (June 25)

Monasticism as Therapy (September 10)

Religious Pragmatism (October 8)

The New Apologetics (November 19)

1982

1982

The Case of the Occult Heretic (February 25)

The Hinckley Case (July 22)

Whose Church Is It, Anyhow? (December 16)

1983

1983

Social Insecurity (February 17)

So That’s Why It’s Called “Amazing Grace” (March 3)

On Polarization (July 7)

The Worship of Freedom as an End in Itself (July 14)

The Signs of Predestination (September 29)

The Signs of Reprobation (October 6)

Happy Birthday, Martin Luther (November 10)

1984

1984

Pleasing Martin Luther (January 19)

Renew: On-Site Training for Becoming The American Church (March 15)

My Dream (March 29)

Who is the Common Doctor of the Church: Thomas Aquinas or Martin Luther? (November 8)

No Knee Shall Bend: The Triumphalism of the Religious Proletariat (November 29)

1985

1985

Antinomianism in the Catholic Church (February 7)

Renew: The American Mode (May)

Who am I?: Letter to the Editor (October 3)

Six-Part Series on Karl Rahner (October 24–November 28)

Karl Rahner Series

Part I: Karl Rahner’s Duplicitous Theology

Part II: Rahner in Context

Part III: Kant’s Copernican Revolution

Part IV: The Reversal of the Order of the Sciences

Part V: Existentialism: The Flat-Earth Philosophy

Part VI: The Medium is Not the Message

1986

1986

A Summit Meeting of The Two Cities (September 11)

1987

1987

The Common Good and “Pack of Lies” (March 28)

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A chronological record of Catholic intellectual resistance

From adult brainwashing to the Common Doctor, from post-conciliar progressivism to the perennial philosophy of being: Robinson’s essays trace the Church’s crisis with clarity, wit, and Thomistic resolve.
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Praise for Carol Jackson Robinson

Endorsements for An Embattled Mind

In Defense of St. Thomas · The Post-Conciliar Years · The Wanderer Articles, 1971–1987

by Carol Jackson Robinson
Carol Jackson Robinson Collected Works · Book 7 · Forthcoming

Forthcoming Final collected volume Thomism and the post-conciliar crisis Late 2026/Early 2027

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Four voices commend Robinson’s startling foresight, Thomistic clarity, wit, and uncompromising diagnosis of the post-conciliar crisis.

metaphysics · common sense · Thomism · post-conciliar Catholicism

✠ ENDORSEMENTS ✠

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With startling foresight, laser-sharp insight, refreshingly clear prose, and delightful wit, Robinson explains how intoxication with "progress" in the 1970s and 1980s provided a cover for revolutionaries' underlying war on metaphysics, as they gnawed away at the Church's interior wiring system. Robinson applies her training in philosophy to expose the toxic 'isms informing the revolution, such as Molinism and atheistic humanism. Along the way, she shares zany tales of what passed as "progress" in her era.

—Jennifer Bryson, PhD
Fellow, Catholic Women's Forum at the Ethics and Public Policy Center

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Carol Robinson tackles with a strikingly refreshing combo of earthiness and intellectual depth what matters to Catholic men and women in a post-covid 19 world. Cris-crossing the insights of Catholicism’s greatest philosopher with the postmodern Catholic’s existence in a way that stimulates creativity for daily lifestyle, she is witty, humorous, and uncannily insightful.

—Fr. William J. Slattery, Ph.D, S.T.L.
author of The Logic of Truth: St. Thomas Aquinas's Epistemology and Antonio Livi's Alethic Logic (Leonardo da Vinci, 2016) and Heroism and Genius: How Catholic Priests Helped Build—and can help Rebuild—Western Civilization (Ignatius Press, 2017)

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The question asked by most Catholics under-65 (and plenty over 65) is: What happened after Vatican II? Carol Jackson Robinson lays it all out in this abundant collection of essays. It’s one of the several major themes in an important book by a savvy laywoman who was a Catholic publishing figure of the middle and late 20th century, a premium writer, and a knowledgeable Thomist.

—Roger A. McCaffrey
Publisher

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In the second half of the twentieth century a lot of nonsense was written by people who claimed to read the signs of the times. Unfortunately for them, and as Carol Jackson pointed out, God only speaks two languages: common sense and Thomism. Fortunately for us she was fluent in both.

—Alan Fimister, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Dogmatic Theology and Director of Graduate Theology at Holy Apostles College and Seminary in Connecticut, co-author (with Fr. Thomas Crean, O.P.) of Integralism: A Manual of Political Philosophy (2020), and author of The Iron Sceptre of the Son of Man: Romanitas as a Note of the Church (2023)

Metaphysics

Robinson exposes the war on metaphysics beneath the rhetoric of progress.

Wit

Her prose is praised for earthiness, humor, and startling clarity.

Thomism

The endorsements emphasize Robinson as a knowledgeable Thomist.

Catholic memory

The volume answers the question: What happened after Vatican II?

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Praise for an embattled Thomist

A page of praise for Robinson’s foresight, common sense, wit, and defense of St. Thomas in the ruins of post-conciliar confusion.