This article reconsiders the lay Dominican community of artisans which gathered in Ditchling, Sussex, in the 1920s. It does so by situating Ditchling in its distinctively Dominican context and by relating it to a form of sacramental politics powerfully evoked in the work of Herbert McCabe OP. In this way, it aims to reaffirm the continuing political-theological relevance of aspects of Ditchling, and to assert a measure of continuity with the Catholic New Left of the 1960s, with which Herbert McCabe is associated. The article identifies Ditchling's distinctively Dominican charism in a concern for contemplation, liturgy, and the regular life, alongside an aesthetic that brings together art, sacrament, and preaching, and relates such priorities to wider debate within the Dominican Order. These concerns are related to themes in McCabe's work on the relationship between Church, world, and community within the broader context of a theological politics that is both radical and sacramental. The article concludes that Ditchling's perceived ‘otherworldliness’ deserves re-evaluation, and that in the light of McCabe's sacramental politics Ditchling was not, in fact, quite ‘otherworldly’ enough.

This essay is a personal reflection, rather than a history, of the role of Spode House in the twentieth-century Catholic Peace Movement. In particular, it draws attention to the lasting influence of Conrad Pepler on Spode and on the movement.

The Blackfriars Summa Theologiae, 60 volumes between 1964 and 1976, the greatest collective scholarly achievement of the English Dominican Province, was conceived and orchestrated by Fr Thomas Gilby. To what school of 20th century Thomism did he and his collaborators owe allegiance, if any? This paper considers that question while documenting some of the significant influences on Gilby and his collaborators on his translation of Aquinas's Summa.