ELECTIONS IN THE CHURCH

The title of this book may lead the reader, at first glance, to expect a revolutionary tract full of sound and fury. It is nothing of the kind. Instead, Father O'Donoghue, a priest of the Archdiocese of Washington, calmly and intelligently assesses the current crises within the Church as essentially a single crisis -- that of the implementation of Vatican II; and he concludes that that crisis may be resolved most effectively by utilization of an elective process that would bring to bear on current problems the ""shared wisdom"" of the entire People of God. In support of his thesis, the author first traces the history of elections in the Church from primitive Christianity to the present time. Then he investigates the possible applications of the elective system at various levels in the Church, from the parish and diocese to the national and international levels. Overall, O'Donoghue's work strikes one as timely, well reasoned, and well articulated. Although a work for the audience which will necessarily be limited to the comparatively small (though numerically large) percentage of priests and laymen who view aggiornamento as something more than the adoption of a vernacular Mass, within that audience Elections in the Church should gain attention as the exposition of a practical solution to more than one major problem.