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330 letters in canada 2002 university of toronto quarterly, volume 73, number 1, winter 2003/4 emphasis on historical perspective in the analysis of social-structural inequality ; an identity with the marginalized and oppressed Aother@; and a radical, social interpretation of texts.= Four of Moore=s final novels (from 1987 to 1997) are set in neither Ireland nor North America. Gearon sees his enlargement of the >landscapes of encounter= to include Eastern and Western Europe, the Caribbean, and North Africa, and relations between Catholicism and both Judaism and Islam, as evidence not only of postcolonial perspectives but also postBVatican II radical doctrines of egalitarian ecclesiology, universalist soteriology, and liberation theology. In this book Gearon makes a very convincing argument for the evolving portrayal of Catholic theology in the novels of Brian Moore, >a committed non-believer.= He subjects Moore to a serious literary (as opposed to biocritical) analysis, balancing lucid, jargon-free theoretical contexts with careful close readings of the texts. His thesis is clearly organized and articulated, if somewhat repetitive (at least three times for each point). His bibliography and endnotes indicate a comprehensive background for his study. In the difficult congruence of Catholic doctrine and postcolonial diversity, Gearon makes a good case for Moore=s liberation theology (although, in his reading of The Magician=s Wife, stressing the coincidence of 1962 as the year marking both Algerian independence and Vatican II seems a bit far fetched). Somewhat surprisingly, Gearon does not use the expected terms >metanarrative/counternarrative= or >sites of resistance,= and his >landscapes of encounter= do not mention the context (or criticisms) of Mircea Eliade=s similar >sacred spaces.= But these are minor quibbles with an otherwise exemplary analysis of religion and literature in the works of a relatively neglected but important novelist. (BARBARA PELL) Bob Chodos and Jamie Swift. Faith and Freedom: The Life and Times of Bill Ryan, SJ Novalis. 253. $34.95 William F. Ryan is a well-known Canadian Jesuit priest. Canadian historians remember him as the author of the ground-breaking The Clergy and Economic Growth in Quebec (1966), which definitively changed the traditional scholarly and popular view of clerical influence in French Canada. Catholic social activists in Canada and the United States recall him as the founder of a string of innovating social justice works: the Centre of Concern (1971), the influential Washington DC think-tank on questions of justice and peace; the Toronto-based Centre for Social Faith and Justice (1979), which focused on health issues, foreign policy in Latin America, refugees, and social problems in the inner city; the Ignatius Farm Community at Guelph (1979), an >intentional= community of Jesuits, former prisoners, and people released from mental hospitals; the Anishinabe humanities 331 university of toronto quarterly, volume 73, number 1, winter 2003/4 Spiritual Centre in Espanola (1980), which began formal training for Native deacons; the monthly periodical COMPASS (1983), a Jesuit journal of opinion, edited for a decade by Bob Chodos, the coauthor of this biography. Canadian churchmen and women think of his responsibilities at the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops both as co-director of the Social Action Department (1964B70) and as general secretary (1984B90), where he became the >key player= in formulating the bishops= policies and/or statements on such critical questions as medicare (1964), birth control (1968), the >omnibus bill= (1969), the Roman Synod on Justice (1971), the Papal Visit to Canada (1984), the work of the Bishops= Social Affairs Commission (1986), the Roman Synod on the laity (1987), and free trade (1988B89). Finally B I think B international and Canadian public servants look back on Bill Ryan=s remarkable participation in the work of the Canadian Institute for Peace and Security, the Society for Development and Peace, the Canadian International Development Agency, the International Centre for Human Rights and Democratic Development, the Toronto Human Rights Tribunal, and especially the Jesuit Project in Ethics and Politics, designed to promote dialogue on social ethics with members of Parliament and senior civil servants. Researched and written by two elegant and experienced authors B >a practising Jew and a lapsed Anglican,= as they tell us themselves B Faith and Freedom is a good read about a consummate insider...

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