A New Catechism: Catholic Faith for Adults (review)

254 BOOK REVIEWS teaching." (75) He also sees nothing new in the Council's statements on the collegiality of the bishops, " except, to some extent, the word." (95) Tavard certainly has historical evidence on his side. Such doctrines as the universal priesthood and the collegiality of the bishops have been propounded in some way down through Christian history. However, we must be less sanguine when we refer to popular preaching, especially in the period between Vatican I and II. The average layman was completely unaware of his share in the priesthood of Christ. Indeed, the Council debates showed that many bishops had a very poor realization of their own collegiality. Now the primary exercise of the Church's teaching office is in and through the liturgy. Therefore we can find small consolation that such doctrines were taught in some past age or on some higher level when they were neglected in ordinary preaching. The only place in the book where Tavard develops his own thought beyond the Council documents in a significant way is in his chapter on religious. He finds the specific characteristic of religious life in community rather than in the three traditional counsels. Berkeley Priory Berkeley, California PETER DEMAN, 0. P. A New Catechism: Catholic Faith for Adults. New York: Herder and Herder, 1967. Pp. 510. $6.00. This generally excellent translation presents to English-speaking peoples the effort of many Dutch Catholics-bishops and theologians, priests and lay folk-to express Catholic doctrine in contemporaneously meaningful terminology and in a style judged suited to present Western culture. The prevailing "mood" of this book is existentialism and Teilhardism ecumenically oriented. Consequently, it will appeal very strongly to a rather welldefined segment of Western society. The sustained, vigorous effort to present the faith to that segment, and to all twentieth-century men, is completely admirable. The work qualifies as a true catechism for it is a highly systematic, even lengthy, presentation of Christian doctrine and morality. Unlike most catechisms, it is written in continuous narrative form; its approach is more historical than dogmatic; its discussion of the meaning of doctrine usually begins from human experience rather than from the implications of the terms in which God's revelation is communicated to us. But the Catechism's most striking single characteristic is its embrace and extensive use of the existentialist-Teilhardian categories and rhetoric. BOOK REVIEWS ~55 By a familiar paradox this outstanding strength is closely related to the book's most remarkable vulnerability. The near-total embrace of the favored outlook and terminology (other factors may be involved) often works to hide full Catholic doctrine rather than to communicate it, to suppress rather than to express. To discuss, even to cite, all instances of this would be undesirable, perhaps impossible, in a brief review. Instead, in two areas, namely, Catholic dogma and morality, this review will suggest a few " samples " illustrative of tendencies characteristic of the work as a whole. 1. In the field of Catholic dogma. a) Catholic faith holds that Christ " was born of the Virgin Mary" and that Mary is " ever-virgin." Discussing what this dogma says or means, the author writes that the evangelists Matthew and Luke " proclaim that this birth does not depend on what men can do of themselves ... This is the deepest meaning of the article of faith ' born of the Virgin Mary ' ... The gospels do not say that she (Mary) had other children after him (Jesus)." (pp. 75-77) Both the statement that the mystery's "deepest meaning " is mystical and the statement about the silence of the gospels are patently true. But do the two statements adequately communicate the Church's understanding of this mystery? Never denying a "deepest" mystical sense to the mystery, the entire Catholic community has always affirmed that the dogma has an obvious, physical sense also, namely, that "the Mother of God, the holy and ever-virgin Mary ... conceived God the Word without seed ... and without corruption brought him forth" (Council of the Lateran, a. 649, can. 3; Denz.-Schon. 503), so that "the unspotted virginity (of Mary) did not know (experience) ... coitus" (Council of Toledo XI, Symbolum fidei, Denz.-Schon. 533). The Catholic tradition...