book reviews

Woman power
in the middle ages

women in the days of the cathedrals. By Regine Pernoud; translated by Anne Cote-Harriss (Ignatius Press, P.O. Box 1339, Ft. Collins, Colo 80522, 1998), 266 pp. PB $15.95.

    Regine Pernoud presents the case that women living in early medieval times and in fact during the medieval era in Europe swayed more influence than those living in the age of the Roman Empire or the period following medieval times, what she loosely classifies as the sixteenth century onwards. Writing in a very readable style, Pernoud gives testimony to her thesis by bringing forth numerous examples of influential women in various walks in life.

    Most students of history will recognize the name of Clovis (466-511), king of the Franks, as significant in Christian history, but the role of his wife Clotilda (474-545) in his conversion is brought out in this volume through careful research into Gregory of Tours’ (540-594), History of the Franks. Within that same time frame, the historian meets Genevieve (422-500) virgin and patroness of the city of Paris. She predicted that the Huns would not enter and devastate the city as they had others. Her prophecy prevented the populace from fleeing which became a potent force in preventing the Huns from entering the city.

    Early medieval times finds the famous Hilda (614-680), abbess of a double monastic structure in Whitby, exerting significant influence at the Synod of Whitby (664). The churchmen and women gathered determined that the Celtic Church would follow Roman custom in regard to liturgy. Hilda also was influential in moving Caedmon (d.c. 680) toward Christianity who, in turn, became known as the earliest English Christian poet.

    A medieval monastic way of life for women produced its own literary figures. They are known for writing mystical works in which the movement of God within the soul is portrayed through human imagery. Included in their numbers are Gertrude the Great (1256-1302) who is remembered for her Herald of Divine Love, Mechthild von Magdeburg (1210-1280) who is noted for her Flowing Light of the Divinity, and Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179) known for her Book of Divine Works, Scivias, and Book of the Rewards of Life. Monasteries of women were likewise renowned for producing their own copyists and illuminators of manuscripts. The rule of double monasteries of women built next to that of men called for strict enclosure for obvious reasons. However, other monasteries of women experienced mobility outside the monastic setting until 1298 when Pope Boniface VIII published his Periculoso prescribing enclosure for all nuns. Therefore, early medieval nuns experienced greater flexibility of movement than their later medieval counterpart.

    The oldest treatise on education, composed in the ninth century, was written by a woman. Women were also involved in the practice of medicine in the thirteenth century. In addition, they are found among the barbers who were quite often the surgeons of the day, setting fractured bones and sewing up or bandaging wounds.

    In writing of women as homemakers, the author points out that the introduction of the hearth and chimney integrated the woman into communal life rather than confining them to a place apart which was their previous status. Pernoud produces curious facts in regard to the origin of assumed terminology today such as “setting the table” in addition to information pertaining to the diet of the medieval family.

    Marriage practices differed quite readily from what the reader would think of in modern times. Parental consent was necessary for the validity of a Christian marriage until the eighth century. Likewise, in these early medieval times, a person was not allowed to marry someone within seven degrees of relationship. This regulation was reduced at Lateran Council IV in 1215 to four degrees of relationship. Therefore, the genealogy of families had to be examined carefully before a priest could give his blessing to a marriage. In later times, marriage laws issued by secular authorities, namely Henry II, king of France, in 1556 would again call for parental consent for marriage. Within medieval times, a woman who had separated from her husband could administer and dispose of her own property. She lost this privilege in the seventeenth century law courts of Europe. Napoleonic law of the nineteenth century generally worsened the position of woman in relation to her previous status.

    Within the political realm, the author delves into the importance of Olga, a tenth century Russian saint, influential in receiving and spreading the faith among her people. Most students of medieval history will recall the scene of Emperor Henry IV submitting to Pope Gregory VII in 1077 at Canossa that he might be released from the ban of excommunication. Henry’s excommunication was due to his meddling in Church affairs but the removal of the excommunication was prompted by the intercession of Countess Matilda, who had provided hospitality for the Pope at her castle in Canossa.

    The author carefully builds on the axiom that women in medieval times enjoyed a greater freedom in some aspects of life than their later seventeenth through nineteenth century counterparts. Written in a style appealing to a wide audience, it is a valuable addition to the status of women during this time frame.

Sr. Madeleine Grace, CVI
University of St. Thomas
Houston, Tex.

On the mystery of the Church

faces of the church: meditations on a mystery and its images. By Geoffrey Preston, O.P., edited by Aidan Nichols, O.P. (Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 255 Jefferson Avenue, S.E., Grand Rapids, Mich. 49503, 1997), x + 310 pgs. PB $35.00.

    As is well known, the second year of immediate preparation for the Great Jubilee of the Year 2000, 1998, was dedicated by the Holy Father in a particular way to the Holy Spirit, “who acts in the Church both in the Sacraments . . . and in the variety of charisms, roles and ministries, which he inspires for the good of the Church” (Tertio Millennio Adveniente, n. 45) and that the “reflection of the faithful in the second year of preparation ought to focus particularly on the value of unity within the Church . . . founded on the activity of the Spirit, guaranteed by the Apostolic ministry and sustained by mutual love” (n. 47). Unfortunately, the Pontiff’s challenge is perhaps easier made than met as modern Catholic theologians have developed out of the one of the holy, catholic, and apostolic Church a multitude of approaches to the theology of the Church—as many approaches, as one cynical observer put it, as there are theologians. While it was certainly never its author’s intent, this fragmentation in large part, especially in the English-speaking world, was attributable to the publication and dissemination of one book which universally became the university and seminary texte de base.

    It has now been exactly a quarter of a century since Avery Dulles published his much-heralded Models of the Church with which he intended to identify some of the main trends in twentieth-century ecclesiology, grouping the positions by type (or model) and considering the criticisms directed from each against the others, weighing the relative strengths and weaknesses of each. There were five main divisions in Dulles’s taxonomy. By its very constitution, the Church is a communion of grace (“the Church as Mystical Communion”) structured as a human society (“the Church as Institution”). While sanctifying her members, she offers praise and worship to God (“the Church as Sacrament”). She is permanently charged with spreading the Gospel message (“the Church as Herald”) and reconciling the family of mankind (“the Church as Servant”).

    Regrettably, two unfortunate consequences arose from Dulles’s otherwise significant work. First, legions of lesser theological minds, rather than ponder the complementarity of his models, by and large took to them cafeteria-style: electing one over the others as the pre-eminent model. Thus, if one were to survey contemporary ecclesiology on the basis of the Dulles taxonomy, one would find an overwhelming option by fashion-conscious theological writers for the servant model—albeit with some lip-service to the herald model—to the wholesale neglect of the institutional, communion, or sacramental models. All, of course, to the impoverishment of ecclesiological science. Second, by the very fact that it attempts a taxonomy, Dulles’s approach, even in its best light, detracts from the mystery which is the Church at her essence.

    A far different approach is that taken by Geoffrey Preston, late Dominican Prior of Holy Cross Priory, Leicester, in Faces of the Church: Meditations on a Mystery and Its Images, edited posthumously by his confrére Aidan Nichols. Preston sets out to initiate his reader into the Church’s being, not as a sociologist or historian might describe her, but rather as a sacrament, as envisioned by the Fathers of the Second Vatican Council in the Dogmatic Constitution of the Church, Lumen Gentium.

    The mystery of the Church is set in relief against the entire mystery of salvation as its existential center. The Church as ecclesia is the Hebrew qahal (the meeting of the people, assembled from below) and the edhah (the convocation from above of those God has fashioned into a people even when they are not actually together in one place). Only with this theological presupposition in place is it then possible to explore, in the first part of the book, some of the principal biblical images of the Church, including the people of God (which, for Preston, is one possible description but never the central one for the Church), the brotherhood, the temple, the flock, the kingdom, the poor of the Lord, the bride of Christ, the Body of Christ, and the new creation.

    Of course, these are only images, whereas the Second Vatican Council declared that the Church is “the sacrament or instrumental sign of intimate union with God and of unity for the whole human race” (Lumen Gentium, n. 1), that is, both a manifestation and a means. Since the “Church exists in and through its sacraments”—for example, the Church, through her hierarchical office, “makes the Eucharist,” and “the Eucharist makes the Church” by being an incorporation into Christ’s Body—Preston, in the second part of his book, explores each of the seven sacraments in turn as a manifestation of the Church, “discrete and itinerative events in the life of the Church, articulations of the various facets of the Christian experience of Jesus within the community which he founded and whose living centre he is.”

    In addition to the images and symbols of the Church, Preston argues, in the third part of Faces of the Church, that there are also to be found, “embedded in the life of the Church, certain privileged moments from which we can gain a grasp of its inner mystery.” These moments include, and Preston considers each in turn, certain typical occasions when the reality of the Church becomes manifested such as the Eucharistic assembly as well as other more occasional moments such as a general council or a pilgrimage. These “moments” may also be iconic: a church building or a person such as the Blessed Virgin Mary, St. Joseph, or St. John the Baptist.

    Finally, in the fourth section of his work, Preston turns to consider the Church as the communio sanctorum where the eternal communio of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, intersect in time. This section, like the rest of the book, is marked by a remarkable synthesis of Sacred Scripture, the Fathers of the Church, and later spiritual tradition with insights drawn from sources as divergent as Eastern Christian iconography, modern linguistic philosophy, and the theater.

    Like so many of the teachings of the Church herself and unlike so many of the misinterpreters of Dulles’s modeling project, the ecclesiological vision of Geoffrey Preston is not meant so much to answer a question, but rather to highlight a mystery, at once ever ancient, ever new.

Fr. John-Peter Pham
Champaign, Illinois

Gospel lite

gospel light. Jesus Stories for Spiritual Consciousness. By John Shea (The Crossroad Publishing Co., 370 Lexington Ave., New York, N.Y. 10017, 1998), 189 pp. PB $14.95.

    This book of pop spirituality could have been more aptly titled “Gospel Lite” since there is almost no substance to its examination of the Gospels. Although the book’s author is a former Catholic priest and is currently a research professor of theology at Loyola University of Chicago, he does not give the reader an authentically Catholic interpretation of the Gospels, which would deepen the reader’s knowledge of and love for Jesus Christ. Instead, he attempts to help the reader attain a deeper level of “spiritual consciousness” by examining nine or ten passages from the Gospels and interpreting them in the light of a subtle, New Age pantheism.

    In this book, the author discusses spiritual consciousness, the nature of God, and the role which the Gospels play in the reader’s spiritual development. He describes spiritual consciousness as the state of having gone deep within oneself, past the consciousness of one’s body and mind, to one’s spiritual center or “soul space.” Once the individual has reached the soul space, he is able to receive the “Spirit” of the “Divine Source,” which automatically fills the soul space, and to then share that Spirit with others. The role of the Gospels or “Jesus stories” in this process is to be “guides to spiritual consciousness” which “show us the way within [ourselves] and the way without” (p. 44). Although one must struggle to reach his soul space and to integrate the Gospels’ spiritual wisdom into his own life, he need not repent of his sins, belong to the Church, or receive the sacraments in order to receive the Spirit.

    Mr. Shea encourages the reader to examine the Gospels from a literary standpoint as he does, and to draw his own conclusions from them. The author then comes up with his own unorthodox interpretations. For example, he does not conclude that John 3:1-13 is about the necessity of baptism, but is about the need to be born “from above” (as opposed to again) by the Spirit, presumably through attaining spiritual consciousness. In his discussion of Matthew 15:21-28, Mr. Shea asserts that Jesus did not realize that his mission extended to the whole world until this Canaanite woman begged for his help.

    Underlying this poor scriptural exegesis is a New Age theology. He refers to God most often as the “Divine Source,” and he calls the Holy Spirit “Spirit” and “it,” leaving the reader with the distinct impression that God is more of a cosmic force than a personal Being. Pantheism underlies his statements that “What is is inter-being” (p. 41) and that “We participate in the Divine Being at every moment” (p. 37). Furthermore, by not mentioning the Holy Trinity, he evades the question of whether the Divine Source and Spirit are different persons in one God or different manifestations of the same person or being.

    His Christology is also problematic. Although Mr. Shea states once that Jesus is God and refers to him often as the Son of God (and also as the Son of the Human Being!), he de-emphasizes his divinity by making statements such as the following: “He is in touch with the Divine Source and is receiving divine energies” (p. 53) and “This power of forgiveness comes from his interior contact with God” (p. 83). Furthermore, Jesus did not die to save man from sin and death, since sin is only a sense of alienation from God, but to give man “life” (which Shea does not define) and an example of self-giving.

    All in all, Mr. Shea has written a book which purports to show the reader the road to spiritual enlightenment, but which can only lead the reader down the path of error to a dead-end. This book is a vain attempt to impart spiritual guidance without religious truth and Catholics should avoid it.

Mary R. Schneider
Cleveland, Ohio

The sweetness of the Lord

love come of age: reflections on christian spirituality. By John H. Miller, C.S.C.; Preface by Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz (Central Bureau, 3835 Westminster Place, St. Louis, MO 63108, 1998), xi + 136 pp. PB $10.00.

    One of the annoying features of postconciliar dialogue is the amount of rhetorical static distorting any discussion of Catholic truths, values and behavior. This is doubly disturbing inasmuch as Vatican II portrayed the new People of God as forming a community of shared truth and mutual love. Mirroring in a created way the inner life of the Holy Trinity, this religious family has the pursuit of holiness as its God-given vocation.

    This book is the third in a trilogy, the first two being Called by Love: Reflections on God’s Interventions in Human History (1989) and Love Responds: Reflections on Christian Morality (1990). A welcome feature of this book on the spiritual life is that Miller tunes out the static and transmits the message of God’s love in a tranquil and simple way. He can teach with confidence because he has vitally integrated such spiritual truths and values into his own way of living.

    Miller’s manner of life replicates much of the spiritual pattern set by Karol Wojtyla, now Pope John Paul II. Both men operate out of a strong academic background. Both attended the Angelicum in Rome at the same time where they received their basic training in Thomism under the instruction of Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P., and both were shaped spiritually by the mystical theology of St. John of the Cross. In their lifetime each has managed to lead a profoundly devout life in spite of a heavy schedule of Church administration and apostolic service.

    Bishop Fabian W. Bruskewitz of Lincoln, Nebraska, has introduced this work by a well-written Preface. Using the Virgin Mary as an authentic model of “love come of age,” the Bishop points out that a mature love is a love willing to be wounded in the service of others. This is an underlying theme of Miller’s whole reflection on the Christian spiritual life.

    The book is composed of sixty-eight short reflections, each a little over a page in length. Miller’s mastery of his subject matter is displayed by his ability to present the broad scope of the spiritual life in easily manageable portions for the average reader. So practical is this format that its material seems to cry out for use in weekly parish bulletins or newspapers over a year’s time for the religious education of the laity.

    Starting with such generic and elementary issues as “The Call to Sanctity” and “What is Holiness?” Miller lays out the full dimensions of the spiritual life—from the most basic virtues and ascetical practices to the heights of contemplative prayer. Along the way he outlines the teachings of select schools of spirituality and suggests further helpful readings. What is most significant in all this, however, is the author’s ability to ground his reflections in the teachings of the Sacred Scriptures. In this regard he has assimilated the substance of Vatican II’s pastoral teachings.

    This is a book which has something for every Catholic—lay, religious, or priest. Much of its spiritual effectiveness is that it recognizes that today we need not so much to be taught as to be reminded, to taste once again the sweetness of the Lord. For this reason Miller’s book cannot be recommended too highly.

Rev. John F. Kobler, C.P.
Chicago, Ill.

The grandeur of God

enjoying god’s beauty. By John Navone, S.J. (The Liturgical Press, P.O. Box 7500, Collegeville, Minn. 56321, 1999), 134 pp. PB $12.95.

    John Navone has a light, wide-ranging style that is able to cover in a coherent whole a large number of disciplines, images, places, and moods. In recent years, he has been concerned with the incredible beauty that exists everywhere in Italy (Land and the Spirit of Italy: The Texture of Italian Religious Culture). His favorite Italian city (Rome, I presume, excepted) is Siena with its magnificent artistic and civic tradition. Navone’s Italian ancestors came from around Lucca and, more immediately, from Seattle. His many years as a professor at the Gregorian University in Rome have made him knowledgeable of all things Italian, of the history of art and of the things Catholic that center in the heart of Christendom.

    This particular book represents a synthesis of Navone’s large interests. He can describe the beauty he finds in the Italian towns and cities in great detail. He sees the particular and, simultaneously, sees beyond it, something characteristic of all our experience of beauty. He is especially interested in story and memory. He has a facility to reflect on Scripture and draw both old and new insights from his theme of the beauty and glory of God because we encounter beauty in our experience. “Beauty is at the heart of all human motivation. . . . There is no truly human life without beauty” (9). This book is in part his own meditations on themes of the grandeur of God, but in another way, it is a theological presentation of a central theme that we find in revelation, that of God’s beauty.

    This theme leads Navone into a discussion of natural beauty, both that which we find in nature itself and that which we find in art. Beyond that, Navone takes up the theme of Beauty in Liturgy and in Scripture. He writes of both Puritan concepts of beauty and that which is found in the Eastern Orthodox traditions. We find Aquinas and Josef Pieper, Bonaventure, Lonergan, C.S. Lewis, and von Balthasar. There is always a certain freshness to Navone’s work. He can relate things that we might otherwise miss. “All things are thought by their Creator and, therefore, knowable to the human mind. All things are willed/loved by their Creator and, therefore, can be loved by the human heart” (4). He includes a number of charts and theses that make his points easier to grasp.

    Navone emphasizes the “continuity” that exists among beautiful things, almost as if to say, as he implies, that beauty begets beauty. He writes:

    The continuing influence of ancient Rome meant that, in a sense, medieval Italy was living on its past. The memory of former greatness never died. In law, in political theory, even in the details of urban living, as much as possible of the classical heritage was salvaged and preserved. Even the Church, led by a pope, whose title was Pontifex Maximus, kept Latin as its language and administered its provinces as a spiritual empire. . . . What other country could embrace, within one hundred and fifty miles, both St. Mark’s in Venice and the Milan Cathedral? A remarkable continuity pervades Italian life and culture. As Virgil could speak to Dante, so Dante can speak to the Italy of today. For the past never disappears; it merely becomes part of the present (22-23).

One of the central purposes of Navone’s fascinating book is to remind us of what we do not have. Often we undervalue Italy and its Christian heritage. We do not realize what we miss in doing so. Navone’s book is designed to remedy that no small prejudice on our part.

    This small book is at the same time a meditation, an analysis of Scripture, a travelogue, an account of the deepest things in our nature. Navone writes with grace and insights suddenly flash at us unexpectedly from the text. The very last words of the book are “The compelling beauty of that Lord saves the world.” It is an astonishing, profound sentence, one that typifies the richness that John Navone packs into his book.

    For me, the uniform elegance of Navone’s normal writing with which I am familiar was marred by the general policy of the Liturgical Press in censoring texts to conform to fem-speak language. This results in awful neologisms like “Godself,” which often make it sound either like there are two Gods or that one has to be introduced to the other—“God knows, loves, and enjoys us in Godself” (40). I found myself beginning to underline the enormous number of times the word “God” has to be repeated. No pronoun (he, him, his) is allowed of God. Thus, for instance, on page 67, there are thirty-nine lines of text in which “God” is repeated twenty-nine times just so we never see the word “he or his” which will apparently corrupt us.

    This policy makes speaking of the Trinity —Father, Son, and Spirit especially tenuous. “Jesus communicates the mysterious beauty/attractiveness of the Father drawing all humankind to Godself”—is this really intelligible or necessary? It even leads to obscuring citations. On page 38, we read this sentence: “C. S. Lewis affirmed that God designed the human machine to run on Godself . . . .” I looked up the reference to this passage in Mere Christianity (54). It reads: “Now God designed the human machine to run on Himself. He Himself is the fuel. . . .” C. S. Lewis would have been appalled. The only time that God is referred to as “his” is in a citation from Johnathan Edwards (105). We can only fondly hope that we need not be forced to say “fishers of people” and other such weak words in order to write of God himself.

    But this pique of mine ought not to deter the reader from turning to Navone’s excellent book. With a little imagination we can avoid the repetition that comes from the ideology and see that Navone talks of the profoundest things in a way familiar to us, yet he opens us in a new way to contemplate the beauty, divine and human, that in fact surrounds us.

James V. Schall, S.J.
Georgetown University
Washington, D.C.

Confusing philosophy
with science

did darwin get it right? By George Sim Johnston (Our Sunday Visitor, 200 Noll Plaza, Huntington, Ind. 46750, 1998), 175 pp. HB $15.95.

    No, Darwin did not get it right. This is a book for those who have been intimidated by the evolution establishment into thinking that evolution is all but nailed down, except for a few missing links here and there. It is a book written by a Catholic for Catholics. In the truest Catholic tradition, most recently honored by the Holy Father’s Fides et Ratio, Johnston separates the workings of science, philosophy, and faith. The Holy Father shows that when the rightful autonomy of science shut out theology, it led to the deterioration of science.

    Johnston supports this judgment. He shows that the great points of evolutionists are mostly assumptions, not evidence and that they took place “off stage,” as the evolutionists themselves admit. This produces an argumentum ex ignorantia, a curious way for science to proceed. He not only notes the various long-held frauds connected with the theory (Piltdown man, Haeckel’s drawings), but more importantly, the shaky claims of the fossil record.

    Many academics, Catholic and others, dismiss the arguments against evolution with a wave of the hand to the impressive, but largely nonexistent, fossil record. Reading Johnston’s account of the relevant paleontology will give them a jolt. The Cambrian explosion, for instance, shows mollusks, jelly fish, and trilobites but no previous indication thereof in the Precambrian period, as required by evolution theory. These very complex organisms appear suddenly, without a fossil record of ancestors. And they are not alone. Thirty-two orders of animals appear out of nowhere without transitional documentation. As one of the leading proponents admits, the evolution trees shown in textbooks rest on inference, not evidence. The much touted Archaeopteryx, the supposed transition between bird and reptile is rejected even by Darwinists: two prominent evolutionist paleontologists say there is no evidence for the change from reptile into bird, not even this “curious mosaic.”

    Nor does biology offer any forceful indication of the theory. “Many little changes add up to big changes” is the refrain one hears. But this is not substantiated in biology. For instance, bacteria with the amazingly short life cycle of fifteen minutes, after countless genetically manipulated generations, show no evidence of changing into a new organism: bacteria remain bacteria.
    Darwin himself was a materialist, that is, the supernatural world did not exist for him. This belief still governs the theorizing of Darwinian evolutionists. Admitted, the religious beliefs of scientists do not necessarily affect their science. But when materialism provides the starting point of their theorizing, when it is posited a priori, it is a totally different story. Thus, if you believe there is no God, you must construct a narrative that will explain the multitudinous variety of species without having recourse to anything except what is material, tangible, perceptible to the senses. The transcendent is excluded a priori.

    On this crucial point it is necessary to quote Richard Lewontin: “We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment to materialism.”

    Who is Richard Lewontin? None other than the eminent Harvard paleontologist, regarded as the chief American evolutionary theorist and spokesman. His is a philosophical, not a scientific, statement. Yet evolution is presented as a scientific theory. This must be explained to a credulous world infected with scientism. Catholics with a philosophical background are aware of the distinction between science and philosophy and it would be good for them to become acquainted with Lewontin’s position.

    Johnston is also aware of what Galileo teaches: we cannot reject a scientific theory on biblical grounds, but must examine it scientifically and philosophically. His book shows that evolution, or as he would say, Darwinian evolution, does not hold up scientifically and that it uncritically mixes philosophy with its science. Theorists slip in their materialism with their science. Both philosophy and science are of course valid methods of inquiry but they must remain separate. The author does not dwell on the deterioration of science since the Enlightenment, as does the Holy Father in his recent encyclical. What he does, however, is to offer enough promptings for Catholic intellectuals to go to battle for the integrity of science and the quest for Truth. Johnston examines the Holy Father’s October 1997 comment on evolution: evolution is possible but one that is divinely directed, a note pointedly omitted when evolutionists quote the Holy Father. Johnston calls attention to Catholic biochemist Michael Behe’s scientific challenge to Darwinism. Behe argues for design in the biochemical world, thus attacking a main point in evolution theory, for whom the universe is entirely without purpose or design.

    Johnston joins forces with the Holy Father in sounding the call to Catholic writers, not just scientists and philosophers, to dialog with the unbelieving world. The world may find it strange that it is the Church which upholds the independence and nobility of reason, but this stand provides a much needed medicine for the postmodern mistrust of the intellect. The encouragement stands as an invitation to Catholic intellectuals to continue the dialog with an unbelieving world. Johnston has heeded that call. Others are needed, particularly among scientists and philosophers, to rid themselves of their fear of another Galileo and expose not only the scientifically shaky foundation of evolution but the way it becomes a paradigm for liturgy, morality, and doctrinal change.

Robert A. Banet
Calumet City, Ill.

Convincing arguments

the death peddlers. By Paul Marx, O.S.B. (Human Life International, P.O. Box 2020, Front Royal, Va. 22630, 1971/ 1998), 208 pp. PB $9.95.

    The Death Peddlers by Fr. Paul B. Marx is a remarkably durable book. First published in 1971 and printed yet again in 1998 with an insightful updating chapter, it remains informative and full of timely insights. Some of the characters have died, but understanding their lives remains important today. Further, almost all the major institutions in the book are still active today. And finally, the ideas laid out with great force by Fr. Marx remain important today. This bestseller sold 144,000 copies in 1971-72.

    The Death Peddlers began as a detailed report about a conference on abortion on 22-24 January 1971, a document that brought many into the then fledgling pro-life movement. It provides a detailed snapshot of the abortion movement two years prior to Roe v. Wade. But it is far from a dry academic report, and stands the test of time.

    The characters in the book, of course, did not simply disappear after their conference. One chapter of Fr. Marx’s book deals with the discussion about

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