Charles E. CURRAN.  The Catholic Theological Society of America: A Story of Seventy-Five Years.  Foreword by Christine Firer Hinze.  Paulist Press, New York/Mahwah, NJ. 2021. pp. 217.  $19.95 Paperback. ISBN 978-0-8091-5574-3.  Reviewed by Paul KASUN, Universidad del Rosario, Bogotá, KM 1 Vereda Cruz Verde, El Rosal CO-250217, Colombia.

 Charles Curran has written a “story” about the Catholic Theological Society of America (CTSA) for its 75th Anniversary.  The book has four chapters.  The first chapter describes the social context of the Catholic Church that preceded the founding of the CTSA.  The next three chapters are divided into 25-year periods: 1947-1970, 1971-1995, and 1996-2020.  His source material for the book comes from the “Proceedings” of the Society, which are the archival material for all the annual meetings, which include business meetings, presentations, and other speeches.  The three period chapters are divided into two parts: the Internal Life of the Society and the Theological Content of the Society.

The first chapter assesses the intellectual life of the Church in the United States from 1900 to 1950, providing the social context before the founding of the CTSA in 1946 (not sure why the chapter title says 1947).  Curran writes, “The intellectual life was not the primary concern of the Church (1)”, but rather organizing parishes and schools.  The theological life of the Church centered in seminaries and theologates and few professors had doctorates.  Consequently, the priests and religious that founded the Society were “intimately connected with the institutional Church represented by the hierarchy (18).”

Chapter 2 discusses the period 1947-1970.  In the first part, internal life of the Society, Curran writes about Church-related aspects, membership, and leadership.  He explains how the culture of the CTSA changed from an exclusive membership of priests to an inclusive membership that added religious and lay people.  He describes how minorities became members and by 1969 the social situation of the Society changed significantly so that a liberal theologian like himself, who was not aligned with the theology of the magisterium, could become president.   In the second section, theological content, he takes excerpts from presentations that juxtapose old members, who supported the magisterium, with new members, who had other theological interests beyond the magisterium.  Interestingly, he does not explicitly identify the magisterium with the word “Church.”  Rather, the magisterium is presented separately from theologians.  This methodology creates a kind-of dialectic between the magisterium and theologians, which extends through the rest of the book.  From Curran’s point of view, the dissenting theologians within the Church have equal weight with the magisterium in terms of being Church.  The following topics are included in this section: dissent from Church non-infallible doctrine, sexuality, race, church-state relations, religious freedom, and women priests.  These issues dominant the rest of the book.

Chapter 3 covers the period 1971 to 1995 and describes its transformation from reliance on the magisterium to an organization with significant independence. The section on the internal life of the Society focuses on change in “the members and the meetings, the research projects, and the tensions experienced between theologians and the hierarchical magisterium (53).”  This last point ended up with CTSA members leaving the organization and forming a new organization called the Fellowship of Catholic Scholars.  The second part of the chapter, theological content, describes this “new” direction for the Society as found in presidential addresses, plenary papers, and speeches by Murray award winners.  The topics include feminist theology, black theology, latino theology, liberation theology, and issues like second marriages, ecumenism, and the interventions of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF).

Chapter 4 covers the period 1996 to 2020 and recounts these same issues, but in greater depth.  The first section writes about members dedicated to issues like human sexuality, minority and women’s groups within the CTSA, Ex Corde Ecclesiae, and the ordination of women.  In the second half of the chapter, theological content, the following issues are discussed in detail: “the tensions between the magisterium and theologians, and related but broader ecclesiological issues, theologies from the margins, ecology, and Church-world relationships (143).”

Curran acknowledges that his story of the CTSA has bias.  This offers a strength in the book, which is the personal account of his experiences and how they intertwine with the CTSA and the wider issues of dissent in the Catholic Church.  A weakness in the book is Curran’s use of terms and concepts that are not explained very well.  Nevertheless, for laypeople, religious, and priests with some theology background, the book is understandable.  Overall, Curran paints a stark picture between the members of CTSA and the Church hierarchy.  For example, he never writes that one or more parts of his positions may be wrong, which sets him up to battle with the magisterium of the Church, if the magisterium should disagree with him.