516 Book Reviews through 2018 is valuable. And he correctly points out that we know little about the evolution of the RS in different locales. Second, I find his modernized core curriculum version of the RS to be overly rigid and probably difficult to imple- ment. But that is only the opinion of an emeritus professor whose knowledge of Jesuit education stops in 1773. Current Jesuit teachers, administrators, and students must decide this matter.
Paul F. Grendler University of Toronto, Emeritus and Chapel Hill, NC, USA [email protected] doi:10.1163/22141332-00703008-13
Patrick J. Howell, S.J. Great Risks Had to be Taken: The Jesuit Response to the Second Vatican Council, 1958–2018. Eugene, Oregon: Cascade Books, 2019. Pp. x + 225. Pb, $29.00.
This volume offers a lively account of the renewal of the Society of Jesus in the era of the Second Vatican Council. Part personal memoir, part social history, part theological analysis, it sure-footedly achieves its objective of providing a window onto a turbulent era for the world’s largest religious order of priests and brothers. The author, a longtime professor of theology and administrator at Seattle University who died less than a year after the book’s publication, does not shy away from the task of engaging the many criticisms levelled against the Society of Jesus in recent decades. Haven’t the Jesuits suffered di- minishment in numbers and influence precisely because the changes in Jesuit governance, formation, and global mission in the decades after the council constitute betrayals of their traditions? Howell understands these charges well and, with fairness and much insight, provides a consistently clear evaluation of both the strengths and shortcomings of the responses of the Society of Jesus to a revolutionary new era in church history—one we are still experiencing even in the age of Pope Francis. This book employs first-person narrative to relate and assess key ecclesial developments. This technique displays the advantage of adding vividness and immediacy (Howell has a Zelig-like propensity for finding himself present at key junctures of momentous events, such as General Congregation 34), but may at times tax the patience of certain readers. Expect to learn as much about Howell’s reaction to his personal encounters with leaders as about the ultimate significance of their actions and policies. But without doubt, the vignettes
journal of jesuitDownloaded studies from 7 Brill.com09/29/2021 (2020) 481-519 05:28:24PM via free access
journal of jesuit studies 7 (2020) 481-519 Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 05:28:24PM via free access
acknowledged the possibility of errors in any discernment but nevertheless urges bold action in accord with the promptings of the Holy Spirit as well as we can understand them. This dynamic of assuming a stance of boldness despite risk and uncertainty will be familiar to leaders operating in practically any communal discernment—but is especially relevant within the Catholicism of the momentous post-conciliar era. Like so many others, the Jesuits were able to shape their history, but of course not precisely as they would have preferred, given so many constraints. Observers of American Jesuits over recent decades will be eager for the treatments (briefer than perhaps warranted) of the celebrated cases of Daniel Berrigan and Robert Drinan—the mere mention of whose names will conjure up a good dose of the turbulence associated with the immediate post-Vatican ii era as it impacted US public life. Of course, Pedro Arrupe intersected with both stories, visiting the war protester Berrigan in a federal prison in Danbury, Connecticut in the early 1970s and promulgating the papal summons for Dri- nan to cease serving in the House of Representatives, as he did in 1981. The sensitive nature of those two episodes is exceeded by the notorious and conse- quential papal intervention in the governance of the Society from 1981 to 1983, to which Howell dedicates a highly informative chapter, based in large part upon the testimony of Vincent O’Keefe, the American Jesuit who found him- self in the very center of Vatican politics after Arrupe’s debilitating stroke. Howell performs a particularly great service in describing how the Society of Jesus responded to this disheartening challenge with courage and fidelity, with its integrity very much intact. The portrait of “the studied reserve” of Peter- Hans Kolvenbach (159), especially as it contrasts so sharply with the “rigorous authoritarianism” and “restorationism” of John Paul ii (157) provides much instruction. Despite some occasionally excessive cheerleading and an eventual set of conclusions about the Society’s record of adaptation that will strike some read- ers as overly upbeat in tone, Howell’s account does not shy away from acknowl- edging failures along the path of transformation. It details the displays of substantial resistance on the part of many Jesuits who opposed the course of change chosen by their leadership. Howell neither demonizes the pre-Vatican ii Society (which, after all, he joined voluntarily) nor romanticizes the newer version in which he aged and died. He is willing to admit that the process was “murky, messy and often ambiguous” (6) and that “several misdirections oc- curred during those tumultuous years” (79). Particularly poignant are latter chapters that face head-on the tragedies of alcoholism, mental illness, and the sexual abuse crisis, each of which has presented weighty challenges to Jesuits everywhere.
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Howell’s account will long be remembered for offering an appreciative but realistic assessment of the ongoing discernment that has provided direction to the Jesuits over the course of more than a half-century. There is no telling what future efforts at aggiornamento will be required to resource the continual ad- aptation to the bewildering and rapidly changing world of the twenty-first cen- tury. If further great risks will have to be taken, it is consoling to know that we have close at hand this account of the Vatican ii era.
Thomas Massaro, S.J. Fordham University, Bronx, NY, USA [email protected] doi:10.1163/22141332-00703008-14
journal of jesuit studies 7 (2020) 481-519 Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 05:28:24PM via free access