Church and Society: The Laurence J. McGinley Lectures: 1988–2007 by Avery Cardinal Dulles, S.J. (review)

BOOK REVIEWS Church and Society: The Laurence J. McGinley Lectures: 1988-2007. By AVERY CARDINAL DULLES, S.J. New York: Fordham University Press, 2008. Pp. 480. $39.95 (cloth). ISBN 978-0-8232-2862-1. On 12 December 2008 Avery Cardinal Dulles, S. J., died, and thereby his long and fruitful life, one tirelessly dedicated in service of Christ and his Church, was brought to its earthly culmination. After a year of illness, his body finally yielded to a recurrence of his old foe, polio. Providence, it seems, had permitted that his last days be marked by suffering, an opportunity to grow in conformity to the image of Christ crucified. As one of his countless students, I cannot possibly read the thirty-eight lectures collected in this volume without a mixture of gratitude for a theological life lived in full and sorrow that such a mighty force for the cause of the gospel has departed the scene. Yet, it is not sadness that is the most proper response for the passing of a theologian, but rather reading what he has written. We honor Avery Dulles's life by engaging his thought and grappling with his legacy. This collection provides an excellent opportunity to do just that. The essays span Dulles's two decades as the Laurence]. McGinley Professor of Religion and Society at Fordham University, a post he held after his mandatory retirement from the Catholic University of America in 1988 at the age of seventy. The diversity ofthemes-including the death penalty, religious freedom, the population of hell, ecumenical and interreligious dialogue, and evolution-testifies to the wide-ranging erudition and boundless curiosity that characterizes the work of America's greatest Catholic intellectual. Those familiar with Dulles's style will greet like an old friend the way in which he brings to each theological conundrum a mastery of the history of theology, fidelity to the Church's magisterium, clarion judgment in assessing new trends, and a virtually unique way of drawing conclusions without closing the question. New readers will delight to discover a reliable guide for how to think theologically. They will come to know that Dulles earns that trust because, first of all, he trusts the Tradition through which God has elected to communicate himself. Moreover, Dulles always does his homework, and, for that reason, those many distillations of positions held by theologians past and present, as well as of official Church teaching, can be accepted on the authority of a master craftsman. Dulles's gifts as a theologian are on full display in each of these lectures, although some stand out for particular mention. Of particular poignancy is Dulles's decision to respond to the atrocity of 9/11 with reflections on "Christ 661 662 BOOK REVIEWS Among the Religions" and "When to Forgive." In the first, Dulles bluntly informs a New York audience with the dust of the fallen towers still in their lungs that religious safety zones belong to the irretrievable past. "Like it or not, most of us are destined to live in a religiously mixed society that includes people of many faiths and of no faith at all" (361). Accordingly, it is necessary that we think deeply and carefully about how religions ought to relate to one another. In pure Dullesian fashion, we are offered four models for consideration: coercion, convergence, pluralism, and tolerance. Ruling out the first three on Catholic principles, he settles on tolerance as the most adequate, but quickly insists we avoid the common fallacy of equating tolerance with approval. "We tolerate things that we find less than acceptable" (365). While the ambiguities of the term most likely account for its scarcity in magisterial documents, Dulles maintains that toleration best coheres with Vatican H's teaching on non-Christian religions. The council affirms that the religions can contain "seeds of the word" and "rays" of truth as well as grave errors. Yet, even at their best, none of the religions can substitute for the faith revealed in Christ Jesus. Because they may hinder the salvation of their adherents, "the council's attitude toward them is one of qualified approval and toleration" (367). Dulles ends the lecture with suggestions for tolerant...