Kevin Seasoltz died a year after this book was published, and it stands as a fitting end-of-life and end-of-career work. His explicit concern throughout is to achieve a synthesis among aspects of religious inquiry that are often treated separately. In successive chapters he deals with cultures in the contemporary world (by nationality and as “classicist” and “historicist” cultures), current trends in the church (globalization, migration, ecology, the Catholic Church's shift from Northern to Southern Hemisphere), the Bible and Christian morality, a historical overview of moral theology and ethics, a “virtuous” church (meaning an ecclesiology centered on the practice of the virtues), and a virtuous liturgical and sacramental practice. Given his expertise and his editorship of the journal Worship for twenty-six years, it is not surprising that the last chapter is the longest and the most nuanced. The book ends with a “Conclusion,” which I would recommend reading first. Its treatment of the state of the church and the need for biblical lament (as argued by Walter Brueggemann) reveals the author's disappointment with the then-present state of the church (before the papacy of Francis), his frequent allusions to authoritarianism (and very pointedly to clericalism), the defects of many church structures (including the Roman Curia), the way Catholic bishops lead (or do not), and numerous explicit suggestions for reforms in the church. All of these ideas are clearly stated, if not always argued well, in this book. As such, they are provocative and worth debating. Seasoltz's expertise in canon law is clear when he asserts what is in the Code and laments what is not (e.g., the way nonclerics or female religious are dealt with, etc.). While appeals to live as a virtuous church resonate and challenge (e.g., humility for priests), these are unfortunately not balanced by the harsh rhetoric the author unleashes about recently ordained clergy and the tired characterizations of those of a Vatican II mind-set and the more recently ordained who apparently do not have the same zeal for Vatican II (or the way it had been interpreted for them). Sadly, some of Seasoltz's comments about ecclesiastical vesture and protocol are vitriolic at worst and are immature at best. The book would have been far richer without them. A virtuous church has both kinds of clergy in its ranks.

The intrinsic relationship between liturgy and the moral life is argued carefully and well. We stand in debt to the author for familiarizing his readers with the largely underreported document from the Roman Catholic Pontifical Biblical Commission The Bible and Morality: Biblical Roots of Christian Conduct (2008), on which he wisely relies (chapter 3). Seasoltz's descriptions of specific virtues that should be exemplified in relation to the seven sacraments are poignant and instructive (chapter 6).

The book's chief merit is that it seeks an integration of varied fields. Its main deficiency is that there are innumerable generalizations (even caricatures) for which theologians (not to say clerics and the hierarchy) would want further explanation and nuance. The copious footnoting is to English languages sources exclusively (save for one note in French). There is a single foreign language source in the bibliography, an Italian text on moral theology. There is something very predictable about this book. Each time a theme is introduced it is footnoted with five or six sources (save in the liturgy area where the number doubles) that are then used in the succeeding paragraphs (occasionally two or so pages) and on which judgments are made.

There is something of a theological “bubble” here. It is as though Pope John Paul II or Hans Urs von Balthasar never existed. The virtue of humility is not apparent when the author engages even slightly with approaches to theology that he does not share. This is a highly ecclesiastical book, far more church centered than mission centered. There is much good information here, but nothing cutting edge or current.

Edward Schillebeeckx spent three years in midcareer learning the latest forms of biblical interpretation, a herculean task that helped make his Christology so important. Current theology scholars have become increasingly specialized—e.g. bible, morality, liturgy, systematics, and so on. Few are proficient in more than one area. In this book Seasoltz tried to synthesize important fields. Who is today's Renaissance person?