Abstract
How have people been Catholic over time and in particular areas? How has Catholicism responded to changing circumstances? These are the two questions that this fine companion seeks to answer. It does so with an initial reminder, which serves as a red thread that ties together all of the contributions to this volume: that being Catholic involves more than just institutional belonging or believing, and that Catholicism as a phenomenon is simultaneously marked by diversity and unity—a “seamless coat of many colors” (xix), as the French Jesuit Henri de Lubac once famously wrote. This massive book consists of 4 parts subdivided into 42 chapters, each between 9 and 17 pages long. It is impossible in a brief review to do full justice to all the authors’ arguments and, as one would expect from a collection of so many essays, some are better crafted and more interesting than others. Nevertheless, the overall result is an engaging magnum opus—first and foremost a work of reference, a survey of Roman Catholic life and thought—that should appeal to readers with an interest in Catholicism, whatever their personal convictions.
Part I, “Catholic Histories,” emphasizes the dynamic nature of being Catholic, with brief summaries of the Old Testament and the New Testament followed by a series of historical tableaux: (1) the Early Church, from the early 2nd through the 5th century, examining the Church Fathers’ writings, the persecutions of Christians, the disagreements in doctrine, and its vast legacy; (2) the Middle Ages, a time characterized by enduring tensions, first adumbrated by Augustine in his seminal work The City of God, between worldly involvement and monastic withdrawal, secular authority and sacred power, and natural reason and grace-given faith; and (3) the Reformation, a useful narrative of the Catholic response to Protestant dissent and reform that, not unexpectedly, prioritizes the many decrees introduced at the Council of Trent, described as “a reaffirmation of most of the principles rejected by the Protestants” (70): reforms of the ritual, the secular, and the regular clergy; the tightening of vigilance and censorship; the promotion of mystics, shrines, miracles, saints, religious art, and music; and the renewal of scholastic theology, with Thomas Aquinas as the guiding light. Carlos M. N. Eire rightly concludes that, in spite of some similarities (their ethics, for example), Protestantism and Catholicism “remained worlds apart and created very different cultures” (71). The rather incongruous essays on the theology of the Baroque age and the many challenges of modernity and postmodernity suffer from too narrow an approach in comparison with the previous three, which offer a concise overview of the history of the Catholic Church from its beginnings.
Part II, “Catholic Cultures,” explores their diversity. It begins with a chapter on the Holy Land that singles out Jerusalem’s divided geography, checkered history, and unicity as the abode of three great monotheistic religions, and ends with a plea that Christian communities “bring this sacred place . . . to the point where it displays the power of each tradition to animate peace rather than justify conflict” (114)—a noble objective, indeed, but will it ever be achieved? Part II continues with brief descriptions of the current status of the Catholic Church around the world: in India, with its 20 million Catholics, where it plays a major role in education at all levels, dispensaries, and hospitals; in Africa, where Catholicism is “a story of great success” (128) in spite of the colonial heritage but where the development of local theologies and pastoral programs “that reflect the yearnings and aspirations of Africa’s increasingly youthful Catholics is an urgent priority” (141); in Europe, where the Catholic Church is confronted by the following challenges: “the pressure of rampant secularism” (144), the prevalence of materialism, and “the indifference with regard to spiritual realities” (145)—a Christendom in a state of decay no less; in Latin America, where Catholicism faces an “uphill battle in light of the growing popularity” (184) of non-Christian religions, other Christian churches such as Evangelical churches, and growing secularism; in North America, where Catholicism faces “formidable challenges” (200): the repercussions of the cover-up of clerical sexual abuse of vulnerable adults and minors, the pastoral care for LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer) individuals, women’s exclusion from positions of leadership, and the discovery of mass graves at Church-run Canadian residential schools for Indigenous children; in Asia, where the Church, tainted by its association with colonialism and imperialism, has witnessed magnificent achievements and abject failures; and finally in Oceania, where the incompetent handling of the child sexual abuse crisis and internal theological divisions have seriously eroded both the intellectual and moral authority of the Church.
Part III, “Catholic Doctrines,” will challenge readers with no previous extensive knowledge of Catholic theology with its highly specialized essays on the practice of Catholic theology; Scripture in the making of Catholic theology; the development of doctrine; God; creation and human beings; Christology; the Holy Spirit; Mary; the Church and its foundations and development, nature, properties, structures, functions, and finality; the liturgy and sacraments; Catholic moral theology; and the end or ends.
Finally, Part IV, “Catholic Institutions and Practices,” describes the Holy See: its many component parts (the Vatican, the Roman Pontiff, the Roman Curia, and the cardinals) and contemporary ecclesiological issues, like synodality and the environment; the Eastern Catholic Churches; Catholicism and consecrated life; spirituality, in a chapter that explores the general characteristics of Roman Catholic spirituality and some of its cultural and historical diversity, and offers several examples of both interior and exterior spiritual practices such as asceticism, common life and liturgical prayer, and works of mercy; liturgy and ritual; ecumenism and interreligious dialogue, with a clear focus on the 20th century, Vatican II, and a new historical and pastoral appreciation of Judaism, Hinduism, Islam, and Buddhism, which all contain elements of truth, goodness, and beauty (a cooperation and engagement that has mercifully replaced the adversarial extra ecclesiam nulla salus); art and literature, with examples of representative Catholic writers and artists, from early Christianity to the modern period; theology and politics, which shows how the Catholic Church came to accept the separation of church and state (one, though, that “does not necessarily imply the separation of theology and politics (497)); Catholic witness to justice and peace, from Rerum novarum (1891) to Pacem in terris (1963); race, ethnicity, and Catholicism; schools, charities, and hospitals, rightly identified as apostolates that are “integral to the Church’s ministry of leading humanity along the path of salvation” (536); and care for creation, environmentalism, and ecology, according to the Catholic social of teaching of popes, from Leo XIII to Francis. Christopher Altieri concludes with a summary of the current challenges facing the Catholic Church: the relationship with the People’s Republic of China, in particular the delicate question of the appointment of bishops; the clerical sexual abuse in Europe and North America; the place and role of women in the Catholic Church; and the need “to find new ways of organizing ecclesiastical power” (577).
With the exception of the chapter on North America, where a few errors have crept in—St. Francis Xavier University is located in Antigonish, not “in Halifax” (196); the Quiet Revolution in Quebec happened in the 1960s, not in “the 1950s” (198); Bishop Joseph Charbonneau did not take part in Vatican II (198–199) since he had passed away in 1959; and Saint Anne’s shrine is located in Ste-Anne-de-Beaupré, not “in Montreal” (200)—the editors of this useful companion, which updates a previous edition (2005), have assembled a team of scholars who consistently offer accurate information and balanced judgments.