Educators in the Catholic Intellectual Tradition (review)

This book will be of greater interest to religious educators than to historians interested in the Catholic intellectual tradition. None of the seven authors represented in it is a historian; all, rather, are authorities on one aspect or another of religious education. It comprises essays providing detailed coverage of the educational views and activities of ten persons whose work falls into rough chronological order. Aside from references to the importance of neo-Scholasticism in the senior editor's introduction, there is no effort to identify recurring themes or to trace out an overall developmental pattern. For this reason, and because of the highly focused attention to the educational and methodological ideas of the individuals covered, the volume is best viewed as a reference book rather than as a work of synthesis or interpretation.

The first three essays deal with figures from the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries: John Lancaster Spalding, Edward Pace, and Thomas E. Shields. The educational interests of the first are well known; the essays on Pace and Shields, who have been little studied, are of greater value.

The next four essays deal with persons most active between 1920 and 1950. The most interesting of these brings to light the achievement of Sister M. Rosalia Walsh, M.H.S.H., hitherto unknown to historians, who devoted herself to the educational needs of Catholics attending non-Catholic schools, especially through the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine. The other essays—which deal with Monsignor George Johnson, Virgil Michel, O.S.B., and Jacques Maritain—are quite a mixed bag. Johnson merits attention as editor of the Catholic Educational Review and for his long association with the National Catholic Educational Association and the Education Department of the National Catholic Welfare Conference; Michel's educational ideas were, not surprisingly, closely related to his commitment to liturgical reform; and those interested in Maritain's views will find here context for, and analysis of, his Education at the Crossroads (New Haven, 1943).

The persons whose work is covered in the last three essays are closer to us in time. The career of Neil McCluskey, S.J., spanned scholarship in the history of education; educational journalism, academic administration; and, late in life (he died in 2008), an interest in gerontology and adult education. Mary Perkins Ryan's enthusiasm for liturgical and catechetical reform underlay her widely read critique, Are Parochial Schools the Answer? (New York, 1964), a landmark in the "great debate" about Catholic education that took place against the background of the Second Vatican Council. The final essay assesses Gerard S. Sloyan's contribution to catechetics and religious education, both in his writings and through his long association with the Department of Religious Education at The Catholic University of America, which he chaired (1957-67) during a period of rapid change and intense controversy. Unfortunately, there is no discussion of John Montgomery Cooper, the pioneering founder of systematic academic attention to religious education at The Catholic University. Sloyan himself, however, contributed an appreciation of Cooper's work to the fall 2009 issue of American Catholic Studies.

Slipshod proofreading failed to detect a number of minor, but nevertheless troubling, errors—e.g., misdating the Third Plenary Council of Baltimore and the issuance of Divino Afflante Spiritu (pp. 103, 285), and making Michael Mathis a Benedictine rather than a member of the Congregation of Holy Cross (p. 247).