Catholic Peacemakers: A Documentary History. Volume Two: From the Renaissance to the Twentieth Century, Parts I and II, ed. by Ronald G. Musto (review)

BOOK REVIEWS737 Catholic Peacemakers: A Documentary History. Volume Two: From the Renaissance to the Twentieth Century, Parts I and II. Edited by Ronald G. Musto. [Garland Reference Library of the Humanities,Volume 1372.] (New York: Garland Publishing, Inc. 1996. Pp. xlv, 522; xlv, 523-979- $ 150.00.) Publication of Ronald G. Musto's narrative survey The Catholic Peace Tradition (Orbis, 1986) was welcomed by many as a more inclusive and ecumenical interpretation of this tradition than that conventionaUy and more narrowly focused onThomism and the "just war" theory. In one breathtaking volume, Musto traced the continuous stream from the Church's earliest martyrs and pacifists to contemporary peacemakers.The book was intended to be the first of three related works.The second was The Peace Tradition in the Catholic Church. An Annotated Bibliography (New York: Garland, 1986). The third is this twovolume compendium of primary and secondary documentary sources that is comprehensive in scope and wiU, no doubt, remain the standard in this field for many years to come.This review addresses only the second volume of this last work. Documents are gathered into chapters that paraUel simUarly titled ones in the original narrative history.The editor's introductions to the chapters and to the individual documents provide historical context especially valuable to the nonspecialist audience for whom he writes. Some of the introductions are elegant Uttle historiographical essays in themselves.The volume lends itseU to being a source book to accompany and enrich the study of the narrative history. Its varied contents include, inter alia, official church statements, articles, book excerpts , speeches, sermons, and position statements of peacemaking organizations ; they have been updated to include the developments occurring during the decade since the history's pubUcation. A chapter in the historical narrative that originally explored European peacemaking fromVatican Council II to the rise ofthe Polish Solidarity movement has been expanded to include essays and other statements related to the Czechoslovakian Velvet Revolution of 1989. In addition to the contributions byVaclav Havel,Vaclav Benda, and others, is the appearance of a random selection of particularly poignant slogans used in the Prague street protests: "People! Be good to each other." The chapter onThirdWorld Liberation brings not only the witness ofGustavo Gutierrez, Leonardo Boff, Dom Helder Cámara, and the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo but also some later voices, such as those of Haiti's Jean-Bertrand Aristide and the Jesuit martyrs of El Salvador.Among the latter is Ignacio EUacuria, who acknowledges the pluraUsm of Christian approaches to solving the conflict raised by violence and caUs for a resolute denunciation ofviolence.The chapter on peacemaking in the United States also includes developments of the last decade, notably statements regarding the death penalty and the Persian GuU War. Musto concludes the work with an admittedly subjective sample ofcurrent CathoUc thinking on war, peace, and justice. In this sampling he gives the last 738BOOK REVIEWS word to religious and lay voices—prophetic, controversial, spiritual—determined in their pursuit of the peace of the Gospel. This impressive work should be treasured and housed in, at very least, the Ubraries of every Catholic parish and educational institution. Its value, however, is not confined to these. It wiU remain an important standard resource for courses on peace studies, church history, and adult Christian education. For aU its merit, this work suffers from lack of clarity in presentation and organization . Sometimes a document that is excerpted from a published coUection or secondary source remains undated and carries only the publication date of the subsequent published source. Each part begins with a full table of contents covering both volumes, i.e., aU four parts. More confusing, however, is the full numerical list of texts that also appears at the front ofeach part; it would be greatly improved U, in addition to the number, it provided the reader with the appropriate page. Readers who cannot easUy find what they are looking for but persist after the initial frustration are rewarded richly. Patricia A. Gajda The University ofTexas at Tyler Orders ofKnighthood and ofMerit.The Pontifical, ReUgious and Secularised Catholic-founded Orders, and their relationship to the Apostolic See. By Peter Bander van Duren. (Gerrards Cross, Buckinghamshire: Colin...