People of God:

...In fact, much of the book compeUingly shows mat conservative interventions can effectively squelch previous change...

...has opposed any significant movements of women into leadership positions in a male-dominated institution...

...We have interesting accounts of the Knights of Malta...

...Many critics will take Lernoux to task for judging the current pope and his coterie too harshly, but the book's outstanding merit is that the author is usually correct, if often mordacious, in her assessment of John Paul II's reign...

...The chapter on the Nicaraguan church would have been better placed in Part II, on Latin America, rather than Part IV...

...He has supported conservative movements such as Opus Dei and the Italian-based Communion and Liberation...

...church...

...After the Dutch church was squelched by a host of Vatican measures, the United States church became the major innovator in the advanced industrial democracies...

...She also overgeneralizes somewhat about the Latin American church...

...49SOJ Catholic conservatives, but elsewhere she falls into caricatures ("Ratzinger thought poor Latin Americans stupid and easily misled...

...Nevertheless, Lernoux argues convincingly that the occasional progressive measures are greatly overshadowed by the pontiff's conservative proclivities on most issues...

...Tradition, Family, and Property...

...The book's most pleasant surprise is a sense of balance not always found in Cry of the People...

...The proper nature of religion and its linkages to politics have been hotly contested in Latin America since the historic 1968 General Assembly of the Latin American Bishops' Conference, held in Medellin, Colombia...

...She also discusses the conflicts in the Peruvian and Chilean churches, which have also been prominent in defending human rights and promoting ecclesiastical innovation...

...elsewhere, continuities were more pronounced than reform, and in a few countries (Argentina) most of the hierarchy is reactionary...

...economy have provoked considerable controversy...

...Finally, Lernoux may be too optimistic in her appraisal that "there is an inevitability in the forward march...

...And, of course, there are some debatable interpretations...

...The breadth, extensive research, and insights make this book a major journalistic tichievement...

...Those who criticize the papal line are subjected to Vatican investigations, interrogations, censorship, and dismissal...

...People of God is a detailed journalistic account of the new conservatives, moderates, and progressives...

...Lernoux argues compellingly that the sanctions against Seattle's Archbishop Raymond Hunt-hausen and theologian Charles Curran must be understood in the light of a broader Vatican design to control this somewhat rebellious flock...

...As Lernoux concludes, "Johh Paul's church has built a wall around its ;lf and only one commander is allowed 13 speak for the rest...

...The book could have been shortened somewhat without losing anything...

...He has adamantly battled national bishops' conferences that struggle for greater autonomy, theologians who do not toe the Vatican line, and lay initiatives that seem excessively autonomous...

...Her basic argument is that this papacy represents a major effort to roll back many of the reforms initiated by Vatican II and impose a more hierarchical, closed, authoritarian, and conservative model of the church...

...Since the mid-1970s, the Brazilian hierarchy has been the most progressive in the, wdHd...

...One chapter looks at conservative religious movements that have spread throughout Europe, the United States, and Latin America during the past decade...

...John Paul II himself defies easy description...

...Episcopal positions and documents on Central America, nuclear weapons, and the U.S...

...Scott Mcdnwaring enny Lernoux's previous book, Cry of the People (Doubleday, 1980), focused on the significant changes the Latin American Catholic church underwent in the aftermath of Vatican II and was optimistic about the prospects for continuing change...

...Some radical Catholics are all of these things, but others are authoritarian in their personal styles, clerical, and wedded to a strange yet common mixture of populism and Leninism...

...The chapter on Protestant sects is not particularly compelling and does not fit with the over-all focus of the book...

...That John Paul II has generally supported these extremely conservative movements says a great deal about his predilections...

...GRAND RAPIDS, MICH...

...In many ways he is a throwback to the conservative Piuses of this century, except that he is far more charismatic than any of them...

...Lernoux usually correctly insists on the good motives of B. EERDMANS PUBLISHING CO...

...The final part of the book is something of a hodgepodge...

...For he speaks against human rights abuses in conservative regimes as well as in socialist ones, criticizes liberal capitalism, and defends the poor...

...Lernoux's book is the first major work from a radical or liberal perspective that has attempted to put all of the pieces together and analyze the Wojtyla reign for what it really is...

...The support most U.S...

...But John Paul cannot simply be dismissed as an atavistic reactionary-though he may be on some issues-and it is to Lernoux's credit that she does not do so...

...It courageously criticized human rights abuses and economic policies dur-uig the latter part (roughly 1970 until 1985) of the country's military rule, and it spawned grassroots innovations that go beyond what one finds elsewhere in the Roman Catholic church...

...Part I of her book briefly summarizes the period of recent innovation in the church (1958-1978) and provides an overview of John Paul IPs tenure...

...A brief section (pp...

...Communion and Liberation...

...Since the early 1980s, the pope has taken countless measures to inhibit further progressive "excesses" in Brazil...

...She is too quick to accept the sometimes misleading self-characterizations of radical Catholics in Latin America-as democratic, as opposed to Marxism, as anticlerical...

...In the 1960s and 1970s, the Dutch church was the progressive innovator among first-world churches...

...Lernoux has properly looked at the problem on a world level, has dealt convincingly with many of the major aspects of "the struggle for world Catholicism," and has brought fresh information to a major issue of our times...

...While the Nicaraguan case has drawn the most attention, the conflict between progressives and conservatives in Brazil may have more enduring significance...

...Lernoux never seriously considers whether the conservatives' arguments have any merit...

...and has overwhelmingly preferred conservative priests in selecting new bishops, archbishops, and cardinals...

...Given the book's reach, these are relatively minor points...

...The decade since it was published, however, has witnessed the bolstering of conservative groups within the church, not only in Latin America, but in world Catholicism as a whole...

...Intent upon silencing forces they perceived as hostile, the Sandinistas have done their part to ensure that conflicts with the church escalated...

...Some editing problems slightly detract from the book s central message...

...77-80) on the United States appears in a chapter on Latin America, rather than where it belongs (with a similar discussion in chapter 7...

...John Paul is marching backwards, and those who will not follow his direction have been told to leave the church...

...Opus Dei...

...Generally speaking, Lernoux is better in analyzing the Catholic right than in her discussions of the Catholic left...

...to leave the church...

...Catholics express for reforming church doctrine on sexual mores also has contributed to minor skirmishes between the Vatican and the U.S...

...Lernoux pays particular attention to the controversy surrounding renowned liberation theologian Leonardo Boff...

...Only in a handful of countries did ecclesiastical reform go as far as she indicates...

...His sharp criticisms of the Nicaraguan revolution and of the "popular church" that supports it have been predicated upon this belief...

...Influenced by his experiences working under an oppressive regime in Poland, John Paul II feared that once again a socialist government would repress the Catholic church...

...Since the Sandinistas took power in 1979, the church's role in Nicaragua has been particularly controversial...

...has defended the most traditional of sexual moralities...

...In the struggle over world Catholicism, Latin America and the United States have become the foremost battle camps, and to these camps Lernoux devotes Parts II and III of her book...

...This balance is particularly evident in the discussion of Nicaragua, which judges the Sandinistas quite critically on several scores while also taking religious conservatives to task...

...Initially supportive of the overthrow of Somoza, the Nicaraguan hierarchy began by April 1980 to criticize the revolutionary government, initiating a crescendo of hostilities between church and state...

...US JEFFERSON AVE...