This book project is the result of ongoing efforts to sustain global discourse in a variety of formats after two international Catholic Theological Ethics in the World Church (CTEWC) conferences were held in Padua and Trent. Jesuit moral theologian James F. Keenan is the editor for the Orbis series of which this volume is a part. The book, edited by Linda Hogan and Agbonkhianmeghe E. Orobator, is a timely and welcome contribution to feminist ethics, and is consistent with the overarching CTEWC mission to appreciate the challenge of pluralism, to dialogue from and beyond local culture, and to provide resources for furthering discourse in the world church that is not dominated solely by a northern paradigm.

The volume is a collection of twenty-three essays authored by Catholic scholars from around the globe, each of whom identifies with the feminist scholarly agenda, albeit in different ways. As A. E. Orobator explains in his thoughtful introduction, “Feminism is globally variegated, contextually multilayered, and methodologically polyglot” (1). In this book, the European and US scholars are outnumbered by scholars from South America, Africa, and Asia. The result is a vibrant and challenging conversation that points to the malleability of culture, the dynamism of tradition, and the ongoing work of fostering inclusion and justice in diverse contexts. While all of the authors have a shared method of careful attention to women's voices and an urgent ethical mandate to promote equality and mutuality as constitutive of justice, their particular contributions offer creative, nuanced, and diverse ways of meeting these goals. Attentive to context, each author locates her/his analysis regionally, culturally, and linguistically; yet an attentive reader will recognize that a pattern emerges over the course of the book in which many different essays refer to the overarching method of criticism, recovery, and reconstruction so central to feminist theological ethics. Sacred Scripture, the living tradition of the church, and attention to lived experiences remain the key sources for doing theology. Throughout, the contributors challenge the inherited paradigm of domination/submission and suggest various ways of constructing a more liberating paradigm of gender justice.

The book's weakness is its greatest strength. Since each essay is authored by a different person, the book might seem choppy or uneven as one sits down to read and perhaps in a single sitting encounters an ethical analysis of dowry-related deaths in India (108–22), a postcolonial analysis of white Marian images that appear empowering to Catholic women in Zimbabwe (26–41), a critical analysis of the many challenges facing HIV prevention efforts in South Africa (54–63), the recovery of the image of the dragon as a symbol of Christian feminism in the Caribbean (167–75), and a defense of Margaret Farley as a “valued collaborator in the church's magisterium” (177–192, at 190). While many essays affirm Anne Arabome's claim that women bear disproportionate suffering, contributor Shawnee M. Daniels Sykes cautions that women are not only victims of patriarchal structures but agents within them, even oppressors, “inflicting pain and suffering on other women and girls that can result in their being internally oppressed” (277). This and other points of comparison across the essays would make for a rich discussion in a university classroom or parish setting.

The book is not meant to be a stand-alone text introducing feminist theology or feminist theological method, but it would be an excellent complement to such a text, since it demonstrates both the shared vision of Catholic feminist thinkers and the breadth and diversity of their ongoing projects across the globe. Faculty who try to be attentive to global voices in constructing syllabi in Christian ethics would find in this text a rich resource for undergraduate or graduate teaching. Ethicists who were unable to attend the Padua and Trent conferences but want to become more aware of the range of Catholic voices in the CTEWC network will find these essays thought provoking. Every Catholic seminary library across the world should have this book on its shelves.