Although concentrated in the period of 1893–1914, the Catholic Modernist crisis had important antecedents in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century religious liberalism as well as lasting effects in the lead-up to the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965) and beyond. Attentiveness to this broader historical horizon sheds valuable light not only on the underlying commitments and concerns of the major figures involved in the crisis, but also on the theological issues under dispute, the significance of which continues unabated to the present day.

In Catholic Modernism: Tyrrell, Loisy, and the Ongoing Challenge to Dogmatic Christianity, editors Matthew Levering and Jeffrey L. Morrow bring together a collection of original studies that investigate the Catholic Modernist crisis within its larger historical and theological context. A key throughline concerns the connection of Modernism and religious liberalism, which is characterized by the insistence that Christian dogmas are merely human claims rooted in the exigencies of the Church rather than binding, divinely revealed truths about reality.

After an initial introduction that examines religious liberalism more generally, the volume first offers an overview of the Modernist crisis and its most important participants. It then proceeds with a series of more focused studies concerning Alfred Loisy's views of dogma, George Tyrrell's understanding of theology and divine revelation, and the presence of Loisy's ideas within contemporary treatments of tradition. Offered as an appendix is an English translation of selections from Loisy's Autour d'un petit livre, in which he addresses his aims in The Gospel and the Church and his views on the truth of Scripture, the divinity of Christ, and the origin and authority of dogma.