At a time when disability advocates are realizing the limitations of attempts to include the marginalized without changing the systems that marginalize them, Mary Jo Iozzio calls for a preferential justice that surpasses accommodations and grounds inclusion in a greater challenge (37). She uses the preferential option for the poor and marginalized in Catholic social teaching to highlight the economic and social marginalization of those with disabilities and to call for justice that prioritizes the needs and voices of the marginalized. The book advocates nothing less than a “paradigm shift” toward acknowledging diversity and interdependence as integral to human beings and combines this with a liberationist vision of change, which is initiated by those on the peripheries rather than those at the center (54–55).

The flow of the book supports this call for justice as Iozzio first grounds her argument in the social exclusion and economic neglect of disability, then looks at theoretical frameworks for justice in the Catholic tradition of the common good and theological anthropology, and finally offers some practical suggestions for moving toward a preferential justice. She opens with a brief review of the basic issues in current disability studies, recent advocacy and its reshaping of the discussion from a medical focus on treating “defective” individuals, to a critique of social structures that accord access to some while maintaining physical or attitudinal barriers to access for others (chapter 1). This section functions in two ways, meeting her stated aim of providing an introduction for those unfamiliar with the field and, through its social critique, setting the stage for her argument that the social disadvantages imposed on people with disabilities require a response of justice. In her analysis of government documents and statements of the United Nations and the World Health Organization on disability (chapter 2), Iozzio emphasizes statistics that identify disability as the largest minority group throughout the world and show the common co-occurrence of poverty and disability (29). In this way she establishes that people with disabilities are more likely than the nondisabled to be found among the materially poor.

Turning to explorations of justice in the Catholic social tradition, Iozzio’s investigation of natural law and the common good (chapter 3) emphasizes that the ideal of the common good does not merely aim at an equal distribution of goods but rather at a distribution according to individual needs and particular social contexts (46). It follows, given that people with disabilities often coincide with the most poor, their particular circumstances often warrant a preferential bias favoring them in the distribution of these goods (49, 79). The chapter on the imago Dei also places those who have been marginalized at the center (chapter 4). Beginning with a Trinitarian theology in which relational diversity is inherent in God’s being, Iozzio argues that this same diversity, including the diversity of disability, is part of being human in God’s image (54).

In her discussion of potential applications of preferential justice, Iozzio uses Catholic social statements asserting the universal destination of goods, that is, the right of each person to the share of the common goods that they need to thrive (chapter 5). Noting the gap between this church policy and lived experience, she offers a practical plan for change that incorporates the voices and needs of the marginalized, noting where they are absent and dismantling barriers to their participation (88).

One of the book’s most striking and helpful qualities is Iozzio’s ability to make connections. Throughout the book, strong connections are maintained between the situations of people with disability and those of many other marginalized groups, strengthening her message of interdependent diversity. She adeptly connects social policy and health science with her theological anthropology. Her connection of philosophical and theological concepts with concrete, lived reality ensures a discussion that is relevant and accessible to a wide audience beyond the Catholic perspective from which it is written. This accessibility and relevance also make it a good introduction to disability issues for students at all levels.

Both students and seasoned scholars in disability, ethics, and ecclesiology, as well as church leaders and communities, will benefit from this book’s call to move beyond accommodations to justice.