William J. Byron, S.J.: A Biographical Essay by Patrick Samway SJ. (review)

Jesuit author, Patrick Samway, himself a well-regarded author of several biographies, calls this an essay, because more than a full study of Father Byron, it is a series of brief chapters about a fellow Jesuit whom he discovered right there in their shared faculty residence. It was something like discovering a treasure hidden in the field right before his eyes, who needed special notice and pride of place.

This handsome volume, including photographs, is a presentation of that treasure discovered near at hand. The twenty-one chapters are very brief and more like a roadmap for a tour guide, capturing high points of Byron's life. He considered his theology years at Woodstock, Maryland, 1958–1963, as a wonderful time to be a Jesuit. There, he studied with an august group of priest-scholars, including Walter Burghardt, the distinguished homilist and scholar of the history of the early church, Gustave Weigel and John Courtney Murray, both heroes of the second session of Vatican II, and Joseph Fitzmeyer (another Philadelphian), a pioneer scholar in the world of biblical studies and the Dead Sea Scrolls. As a seminary student during those years, I can only envy the treasure that Bryon discovered in rural Maryland!

Yet even in the Woodstock world, with scholars there focusing on the renewal of the church, Byron began to make his way into economics. From 1965 to 1966, Byron held a teaching fellowship in the U.S. Department of Labor Research, which funded his dissertation that he completed on December 10, 1968 at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore.

We need to go fast forward to keep up with Byron. The Jesuit impetus of Magis and Finding God in All Things along the way, Byron continued writing books and essays and was inevitably sought out as an administrator as well. The teaching and academic years prepared him for his appointment as executive coordinator to plan the complete transferal of Woodstock College from Maryland to New York City where it would be neighbor to the Union Theological Seminary and Jewish Theological Seminary. It was a mighty move with hopes for success despite some hesitation on the part of some Jesuit Fathers. Byron went on to be Dean at Loyola University in New Orleans (1973–1975) and President of the University of Scranton (1975–1982). At Scranton, Byron was warned that faculty-administration relations were in crisis and he would need to deal with it, as he apparently did.

His skills and success as an administrator brought an invitation from the United States Catholic hierarchy, to assume the presidency of The Catholic University of America, where, at 54 years old, he eventually met his most serious and complicated issue. Catholic University had a theological department which was subject to the oversight of the Vatican and President Byron and Catholic University were brought to court by Father Charles E. Curran, a professor whom the Vatican decided could not serve on a Pontifical Faculty because of dissident teachings in his writings. Byron tried to resolve the problem suggesting that Curran might instead serve in the Religious Studies Department rather than Theology proper. That alternative was not acceptable to Curran. The seeming resolution of this controversy is well documented and was perhaps the most trying and costly confrontations Byron faced in his entire career.

Even though the chapter in this standoff at Catholic University needs further research, many of the 21 chapters of this Biographical Essay could each be a biography as well. I am glad to have read the book and recommend it to scholars as well as interested and casual readers. This handsome volume is an insight into an era of the church that continues.

This dizzying tour extending from Philadelphia to around a world concludes with a return to Philadelphia, where Byron was president at St. Joseph's Prep School, his high school alma mater, from 2006 to 2008. There, Byron was able...