Bernard P. PRUSAK. Freedom and Possibility. New York: Paulist, 2023. pp.186. $24.95 pb. ISBN 978-0-8091-5635-1. Reviewed by Michael G. LAWLER, Creighton University, Omaha, NE 68178.

The goal of P’s book is easily articulated. There is a view of God that sustains paternalism and patriarchy in the church and “self-assuredly explains God’s plans and intentions for creation and redemption intricate detail” (p. xi). That view of God’s will needs to be reconsidered and, in seven connected chapters, P. undertakes that reconsideration and concludes that human freedom, created by the creator God, is the supreme factor in the world. Human beings must decide, and Christian human beings must decide following the example of Jesus, God’s love incarnate.

Chapter One examines and reexamines the Genesis account of creation. The personal God, it explains, wills God’s creative thoughts into existence in a process that takes billions of years and not a mere six days. In creation God becomes involved with his human creatures. Chapter Two explains that involvement is such that human freedom includes the freedom to resist God without retaliation. That uninhibited freedom requires an original self-limitation on the Creator’s part, and requires now from women and men a corresponding self-limitation to enhance their lives, with respect, for instance, to the ecosystem on which they depend for their continued existence.

Chapter Three deals with God’s self-communication in Jesus. That self-communication of God to humans requires freedom on both the part of God and the part of accepting humans, showing that love is the greatest exercise of freedom. That love and that freedom, and indeed all human existence, are always threatened by the human virus that theologians call original sin, which is dealt with in Chapter Four. Original sin, what P. calls foundational sin, is the refusal to choose love, of God, of self, and of others named neighbors. P. declares original sin, correctly, to be the root of all evils, racism, sexism, patriarchy, and the two great evils dealt with in Chapter Five, slavery and the repression of women.

God created freedom; human beings created slavery and the repression of women. For centuries, the Catholic Church resisted condemning slavery, declaring it opposed to neither the gospel nor natural law. Popes and bishops owned slaves and even gave them as gifts. It was not until 1839 that Pope Gregory XVI prohibited the slave trade, after which American bishops argued that the Pope had prohibited the slave trade and not the institution of slavery itself, and continued to own slaves. The perception that women are inferior to men is long standing.  Patriarchal theologians, ancient and modern, explain the existence of evil through Eve’s duping of Adam in Genesis 3, and use this myth, for it a myth, as an excuse for male domination and the subservience of women. Man alone, they argued, was created in the image of God. Woman was created from man’s rib and made for man (I Cor 11:7-9) and is, therefore, inferior subordinate to man in her very creation. That argument misses the teaching of Genesis 1:27, “male and female God created them” in God’s own image. Women and men are both created in the image if God and are thus humanly equal. Girls can be altar girls and women can be altar priests.

Chapter Six continues reflection on the impact of the equality of women and men by asking the question: “Can ordination only for men really be declared divinely revealed?” In 1976, the CDF’s Inter insigniores answered that question in the negative, and in 1994 Pope John Paul II repeated that judgment. Leaning heavily on Karl Rahner assessment of Inter insigniores and on a variety of contemporary theologians,  P. writes that the answer to the question remains open in the history of a church, “still being formed by the Spirit, which allows both for continuity and the discontinuity of newness” (p.101). The final Chapter Seven considers the question of orders in the church-ekklesia orgathering. In the early centuries, all Christians were held to be anointed in baptism and confirmation into an order (ordo) to celebrate the eucharistic feast. From the third century onward, however, the orders of clerics and laity became ever more separated, and clerics were accorded authority to lead the eucharistic feast  and laity were reduced to passive attendance. The Second Vatican Council mandated active participation by the whole eucharistic assembly (ekklesia), clerics and laity alike. That full participation has not yet been achieved, indeed is in serious decline, and awaits its fullness through the gifts of the Spirit in the always surprising future.

This is a book well worth reading by anyone interested in personal and ecclesial faith and freedom. It is sound, well-supported Catholic theology and, expressed in a language readable by all, an achievement that is rare in contemporary theological literature. I recommend it with no reservation.