The first Jesuits, two priests and a brother, arrived in the American colonies on the Ark and the Dove in 1634. As the new country grew, Jesuits were eventually to play an important role in the development of its philosophy and theology. This book by Daniel Kendall and Gerald O'Collins is a virtual “Who's Who” of US Jesuit scholars. They open with former Jesuit John Carroll, first archbishop of Baltimore and founder of Georgetown College, later Georgetown University. Subsequent chapters, organized by theological disciplines, introduce significant Jesuit scholars according to their specialties. A final chapter is on American Jesuits and the Second Vatican Council. More than a catalog of personalities, the authors focus briefly on their academic work, pastoral contributions, and occasional conflicts with authorities.
With heavy commitments to immigrant communities and the Indian missions and cautious after the condemnation of modernism, Jesuit theological creativity was slow to develop, though social ethics was an exception. Daniel Lord was an early advocate for social justice. John LaFarge campaigned for civil rights and interracial justice long before Vatican II. He prepared an encyclical condemning racism and antisemitism for Pius XI, though it was not published when the pope died in 1939. During World War II, Gerald Kelly and John Ford published an article condemning the obliteration bombing of cities. Ford later argued for the infallibility of Humanae vitae.
Vatican II marked a turning point. Even though prior to the Second Vatican Council, John Courtney Murray, along with Gustave Weigel and Hans Küng, had been banned from lecturing at the Catholic University of America and not invited to the council, he was the only American Jesuit named as a peritus. He played a major role in drafting the important “Declaration on Religious Liberty.” One Jesuit remarked that Murray “entered a room like an ocean liner.” Francis A. Sullivan contributed Lumen gentium's inclusion of the charismata, so important to St. Paul. Walter Abbott's 1966 publication of the documents of Vatican II, selling more than one million copies, played an important role in the council's reception. Avery Dulles reinterpreted our understanding of revelation and dogma, and his Models of the Church introduced a new method of theological exploration. Dulles and Jared Wicks both were noted for their ecumenical engagement, and Wicks, along with Sullivan and Francis Clooney, did much to further dialogue with other religions.
Much of Jesuit influence came through their publications and journals. Theological Studies, founded in 1940 and long edited by Murray and Walter Burghardt, became the premiere journal of Catholic theology. Gerald Ellard helped found Orate Fratres, later Worship, which played a major role in the liturgical renewal in the United States. Daniel Harrington edited New Testament Abstracts for more than forty years. David Fleming served as editor for the Review for Religious for more than twenty years. Fleming with George Aschenbrenner and William Barry did much to promote a renewed understanding of The Spiritual Exercises.
More than simply laudatory, the book does not fail to mention Jesuit deficiencies. From its founding in 1869, Jesuit professors at Woodstock College resisted the introduction of the historical-critical method in biblical studies, as did professors at the Biblicum and the Gregorian up to the end of the 1930s. Jesuit scholastics in the United States learned their moral theology out of abstract Latin manuals up to Vatican II. At a conference on hope and the future of humanity sponsored in 1971 by Woodstock, among others, Jürgen Moltmann pointed out that it included “no women, no poor people, no one from the third world, and only one black theologian” (35). Several conservative American Jesuits contributed to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith's rejection of a 1991 inclusive-language psalter prepared by a group of scholars that included Richard Clifford.
These are only a few of the stories Kendall and O'Collins tell. Including subjects in the index would have been helpful. But their book will stand as a fitting companion to Charles Curran's fine The Catholic Theological Society of America: A Story of Seventy-Five Years for the story of Catholic theology in the United States.
