Communion Ecclesiology.

Communion Ecclesiology
Dennis Doyle
Orbis, $24, 196 pp.

One of the significant shifts in Catholic theology has been away from understanding the church as a "perfect society," as Robert Bellarmine famously put it, possessing a transparent, hierarchical structure. In that vision, the pope stood at the apex of a pyramid with the laity forming the base line. But from the nineteenth century onward, theologians in Germany and England sought to recover a different understanding of the church by emphasizing the sacramental and creedal bonds between all Catholic believers. Vatican II embraced this vision of the church in its use of the metaphor "the community of the People of God" just as, decades earlier, Pope Pius XII brought the phrase "mystical body of Christ" to the fore. This more horizontal view of the church is called communion ecclesiology.

Use of the term is not without peril. Noted ecclesiologist Joseph Komonchak has argued that in order to avoid two conceptual pitfalls--that communion ecclesiology denotes vague feelings of fellowship or, oppositely, a highly mystified church unrooted in history--it is necessary to define what communion ecclesiology is (and is not). Should, for example, communion ecclesiology start from the exigent reality of the local church and circle out to the universal church, or must we give priority to the universal church replicated in the local communion? What is the precise relationship between the church and the larger culture? Is that relationship to be counter-cultural or dialogical? To what degree can communion ecclesiology deal with the historical reality of the church's human failings? Different theologians respond to these and other questions in quite different ways.

It is the precise merit of Dennis Doyle's book to provide a history of the developments in communion ecclesiology from their roots in the nineteenth century to the work of twentieth-century giants Charles Journet, Yves Congar, Henri de Lubac, Karl Rahner, Hans Urs Von Balthasar, and Joseph Ratzinger, as well as those who write from the particular perspective of liberationist, reformist, or social-actionist. Doyle ends his discussion of theologians with an interesting chapter on the thinking of three theologians who reflect, respectively, Roman Catholic, Orthodox, and Free Church positions: the late Jean Marie Tillard, John Zizioulas, and Miroslav Wolf.

Doyle argues that the articulation of a coherent communion ecclesiology can hold in helpful tension various tendencies within the church, whether "liberal" or "conservative," and thereby mitigate the dangers of sectarianism and dysfunctionalism. Such an ecclesiology would have to do justice to five basic principles: first, the church has a transcendent dimension; second, the church affirms the communion of saints, and is therefore larger than a sociological reality; third, the church, both local and universal, is sacramental; fourth, the church has a history, lives in history, and in relationship to historical moments; fifth, the church's social character requires that it not turn in on itself, indifferent to the needs and demands of the larger world.

This book provides an articulate summary of the leading theological trends in the area of ecclesiology. Doyle is fair in his exposition of different theological opinions while being open about what he sees as deficiencies. He clearly delineates the lasting articulations of theological ideas (he has a soft spot for Henri de Lubac) from those which are only for the moment. Any person who wishes to get a panoramic view of modern ecclesiology will be well served by this volume. In addition, its abundant annotation and generous bibliography point the reader to sources for further investigation.

Lawrence S. Cunningham is the John A. O'Brien Professor of Theology at the University of Notre Dame.