The Life of the Holy Hildegard.

Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179) has been the subject of intense interest over the past generation. A prolific author, letter writer, preacher, natural scientist, mystic, composer, and artist, Hildegard has been the subject of superb scholarly studies (notably, in English, by Sabina Flanagan and Barbara Newman); her works are becoming available in English; and her music is being recorded for an ever widening and appreciative audience.

In 1968 a German Benedectine (Adelgundis Fuhrkotter) translated into German the earliest Vita of the saint written by the monks Gotfried and Theodoric. It is from that German translation that this English version is based. The text includes a longish introduction, the Vita itself, and both topical and scriptual indices. As such the volume is a useful, if minor, addition to the literature in English on this remarkable woman. However, the translator/editors of this edition did only half the job. The "sources and literature" at the end do not include any of the now vast literature available in English; only German titles are cited. Were someone to pick up this volume they would not know, for example, that Scivias is available in English, including the first volume of her letters; that her music is available; that fine scholarly studies have appeared, etc. In short, we have the medieval Vita but no hints for the English-reading public that there is much more that could be learned about the person who was called the "Sybil of the Rhine."

The number of religious communities founded by the leaders of the seventeenth-century "French School" of spirituality is impressive. Among those communities would be the Sulpicians, Eudists, Oratorians, Montforts, Christian Borther, Vincentians, Daughters of Wisdom, as well as those innumerable congregations of religious sisters who drew inspiration from the French School like the Spiritans and the Oblates of Mary Immaculate. In addition, that fecund period of the late sixteenth and seventeenth century was the beneficiary of the now classic work of Henri Bremond.

This volume, conceive as a source book for those who wish to rediscover the roots of their own congregation's spiritual charisma, follows a dual track. It provides a short biographical sketch of the four leading figures of the period (Berulle, Condren, Olier, Eudes), as well as other figures like John Baptist de la Salle, Louis Marie Grignion de Montfort, and a separate chapter on the women of the period (for example, Marie de l'Incarnation). And it provides excerpts of their writings.

This is a fecund period in the history of spirituality not only because of the impetus that its leading figures gave to church renewal but because many of its themes, especially in Christology and the connections between spirituality and liturgy, still bear close examination. There are signs that this period is undergoing a renaissance of study. We have recently had a fine dissertation done on Berulle here at Notre Dame; William Thompson (himself at Duquesne) has produced an excellent volume of Berulle's writings for the Paulist series on spiritual classics; and I recently discovered that the Evangelical scholar at Oxford, Alistair McGrath, is doing a study of Berulle as a locus for a spirituality tailored for Evangelicals.

This compact volume will find a natural home among those whose congregations find their roots in this period, but others, interested in the history of spirituality, will also find it a welcome volume.

Near the conclusion of his book, Father Hennelly says that readers might well feel like they have gone around the world in eighty days. Well, not quite but this useful vade mecum of liberation theologies does survey recent writings produced, inter alia, by Latin Americans, Africans, Asians, Hispanics, and black Americans as well as a rapid summary of ecotheologies and recent discussions about the uniqueness of Christ and the world religions. This is a theological world with which Hennelly is quite familiar, not at all disinterested, and about which he has written abundantly.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church acts as if liberation theologies (the plural is appropriate) never existed while neoconservative commentators now assure us that their day is over. It is, however, an incontestable fact that liberation theologies have not only had a shaping influence on the church but the liberationists have framed issues in such manner that their question become unavoidable. The methodologies that they favor are, in one way or another, a shaping influence on how theology is done. The liberation theologians have brought history and experience to the fore of theological reflection.

Hennelly's work is not a constructive theology, nor is it even a comprehensive history of liberation theology; it is rather a horizon tour of the main writers, their significant works, the issues that they raise, and the perspective(s) from which they raise those issues. The latter, I think, is the most interesting question, for what the liberationists have in common is the desire to reflect theologically from a quite specific and historically circumscribed situation: What does the gospel mean in the Buddhist world of Sri Lanka (A. Pieris)? Is there a way of holding up Christ, the Alpha and Omega, that is true to the culture(s) of Africa (Benezet Buzo)? How does an Hispanic-American Catholic woman define her place in the light of her culture (Maria Pilar Aquino)?

It was the great insight of Gustavo Gutierrez, the veteran liberation theologian (and one of the most intellectually insightful) to see that theology would be radically different if it were written in the slums of Lima and not in the seminar rooms of Tubingen. One of the reasons why Hennelly could subtitle his work "The Global Pursuit of Justice" is that what all these theologians have in common is a sense that there are a lot of people out there who do not share in the common goods of the earth. The best of the liberation theologians (Hennelly would do well to chasten some of the overheated rhetoric and special pleading of some of them) resist the temptation to provide solutions to these great problems, but they see it as a fundamental duty to do, in the words of Richard McCormick quoted by Hennelly, what the Christian tradition does best: to be "more a value raiser than a problem solver."

By my estimation, there are about five linear feet of liberation theology volumes here in my study. What Hennelly has done is give us a roadmap to work our way through the vast outpouring of those writers who think theologically in places as distant (from us) as El Salvador, Korea, the Philippines, Africa, and Sri Lanka. Each chapter of the book has a suggested reading list as well as discussion questions. A good index and bibliography also are provided. It is a user-friendly work which should find a useful place in a classroom setting.