The Social Mission of the U.S. Catholic Church: A Theological Perspective by Charles E. Curran (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 147 one sole and single source, namely, God, the sovereign Ruler of all. “There is no power but from God.” (Immortale Dei, 3) Thus, a compelling argument, grounded in the Magisterium, Scripture, and Tradition, can be made that the real “power of religion in the public sphere” must be a sacred power. THADDEUS J. KOZINSKI Wyoming Catholic College Lander, Wyoming The Social Mission of the U.S. Catholic Church: A Theological Perspective. By CHARLES E. CURRAN. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 2010. Pp. xii+196. $26.95 (paper). ISBN 978-1-589-01743-6. Curran’s latest book is written from the perspective of a theologian convinced that theologians and indeed all Catholics have a right to dissent from noninfallible teachings of the “hierarchical” magisterium. It is informative but marred by grave misinterpretations of the documents of Vatican Council II, the teaching of St. Thomas on moral absolutes, and other matters. The first two chapters (1-40) concern the historical context of the Church’s social mission fromcolonial days through the mid-twentieth century. During that period the primary concern of bishops was to care for Catholics and, after independence, to show that Catholics, particularly the immigrants who poured into this country during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, were patriotic Americans. Tensions between Catholics and the majority Protestant Churches eased after the election of John F. Kennedy as the first Catholic president in 1960, the papacy of John XXIII, Vatican Council II’s Declaration on Religious Liberty, and the writings of John Courtney Murray, S.J. Chapter 2 also describes the development and growth of a Catholic school system, Catholic charities, and Catholic hospitals. In chapter 3, Curran’s concern is to show the difference between pre- and post-Vatican II ecclesiology. Much said here is true, for example, the insistence that all men, and not just an elite few, are called to sanctity (42). In considering “aspects of morality with differing levels of certitude” Curran distinguishes between primary precepts of natural law (e.g., good is to be done and evil avoided) and specific moral norms. He claims that one passage in St. Thomas (STh I-II, q. 94, a. 4) demonstrates that Aquinas denied that any specific moral norms (e.g., that deposits should be returned) are absolutely binding (50). He also claims that since Vatican Council II “a new dimension of the catholicity of the Church . . . emerged in the form of dissent from noninfallible hierarchical BOOK REVIEWS 148 teachings . . . [and] the majority of Catholic theologians have recognized the legitimacy of dissent on this issue” (53). In chapter 4 Curran takes up “Vatican II and a New Understanding of the Social Mission.” Here again much of what is said is true. The social mission before Vatican II was twofold: divinization and humanization, a distinction that separated the spiritual and the temporal and was the basis for distinguishing the role of the clergy and religious (divinization) and that of the laity (humanization). In the post-Vatican II period the social mission sees these two dimensions as integrally related (57-59). Vatican II abandoned the rigid distinction between natural law (dealing with the temporal and material) and the new law of love or grace (dealing with the eternal and spiritual) and instead insisted on the unity of the moral life as fulfilling one’s vocation to bring Christ to the world (58-60). Chapter 5 centers on the development of the Catholic Health Association (CHA), Catholic Charities, and the Catholic Worker Movement after Vatican II. The CHA is intimately involved in the work of the many U.S. Catholic hospitals. They are to act in accord with the U.S. bishops’ Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services (ERD). The latest edition(s) of the ERD contain directives requiring that these services not provide contraception (sterilization) and abortion. Curran notes that there has been heated debate regarding these directives between theologians who claim the right to dissent from noninfallible “hierarchical” teaching and those who deny this right. But “in practice arrangements have often been made for some way to provide these services [abortion and sterilization]” (88). Catholic Charities is more closely related to the...