"All of the Protestant outcries against Catholic theology that are worthy of attention begin with a vivid sense of the centrality of the cross. [....] I would like to suggest that no Catholic theologian of the twentieth century took these criticisms more to heart than Hans Urs von Balthasar. And in doing so, he has bequeathed to the Church a fully robust and at the same time a fully Catholic theology of the cross that has within it all that Luther and Barth attempted to offer, without for all that falling into their occaisional — or in the case of Luther, not so occaisional — one-sidedness."

(Howsare, Balthasar: a Guide for the Perplexed, p 143-144).

As one who has read Balthasar since 1988, I highly recommend Rodney Howsare's clearly written, substantive exploration of the heart of Balthasar's thought. This book will be especially helpful to academics because it positions Balthasar relative to other figures like Karl Barth and Karl Rahner. Balthasar's relationship to Thomas Aquinas, Maurice Blondel, and Scholastic Thomism are also addressed as is his current role in Catholic and Protestant theology.

See "Balthasar and the Resurgence of Traditional Catholicism," an excerpt at the T&T Clark blog.

Balthasar: A Guide for the Perplexed by Rodney Howsare, T&T Clark, August 30, 2009.