Walking with Faith: New Perspectives on the Sources and Shaping of Catholic Moral Life by Walter J. Woods (review)

152 BOOK REVIEWS Walking with Faith: New Perspectives on the Sources and Shaping of Catholic Moral Life. By WALTER}. Woons. Collegeville, Minn.: The Liturgical Press, 1998. Pp. xvi + 528. $39.95 (paper). ISBN 0-8146-5824-5. This book's primary concern is "moral life in the faith community" (xii). It is an ambitious work, one that seeks "to illuminate the sources of moral life in faith, show how moral life in the Church has developed over the centuries, and encourage a more integral, comprehensive view" (xv). As such, it is a welcome addition to the mounting body of literature that demonstrates the ongoing historical interplay of the Christian faith with the ethical conduct of believers and their official worship from the pews and in the sanctuary. The author shows particular interest in the temporal, contemporary, and transcendent factors that went into the shaping of Catholic moral life. He orders his presentation in a chronological sequence of eleven balanced and well-written chapters. He reflects on the scriptural, historical, intellectual, and liturgical dimensions of this important walk with faith and provides a helpful summary of his findings in the closing Epilogue. The book has many strengths, not the least of which is the author's competent and judicious use of the principle of correlation, the historiographical assumption that a complex web of interrelated sociological and cultural factors must be taken in account when examining the way ideas arise, develop, and function through time. It is exceedingly difficult to study any particular facet of Church life in this manner for any single historical period, let alone the entire span of its existence. Although his selection and presentation of the material is not beyond reproach (as will soon become evident), the author maintains a largely convincing level of scholarly discourse that conveys not only a sense of the great complexity of factors which must be taken into account when examining the relationship between morality and faith in the Church's life, but also a sensitivity to the continuities and discontinuities that such an organic relationship necessarily entails. For this reason alone, the book can be read with interest and to great benefit. While it does not qualify as a "history" of moral theology as such (nor does it purport to be), the perspectives it offers into the shaping of Catholic moral life-both historical and otherwise-will need to be examined and reckoned with by all future historians of Catholic moral theology. This reader was also impressed with the methodological consistency with which the author constructs his chapters (enabling less expert readers to navigate the often turbulent waters of the Church's history with a relative degree of calm), his ability to find common threads in the Church's doctrinal and moral teachings (some of which have not been explicitly adverted to until now), and his balanced integration of the history of Christianity with the general history of Western civilization (especially in chapters 9 through 11, where he maps out the Church's response to the modern Western outlook). If that is not enough, his "Reflections" at the end of each chapter summarize the salient points regarding the impact of the BOOK REVIEWS 153 faith on the Church's moral life and offer many astute insights into why the Church's teaching developed the way it did. The author's penchant for method and his high level of scholarly discourse, however, do not dispel a number of serious concerns resulting from certain lacunae in his historical presentation. Although this is to be half-expected in a large synthetic work of this kind (it would be virtually impossible to investigate every instance in the Church's life where the faith has contributed to a deeper understanding of the believer's moral responsibilities), the number and scope of the author's omissions tend to weaken and, at times, even blemish this otherwise outstanding effort of historical inquiry. It seems strange, for example, that the author would spend so much time in chapters 1 and 2 outlining the relationship between faith, moral conduct, and worship in the Old and New Testaments and say hardly anything at all about the evolution of the canon of Scripture...