Cardinal Jozef DE KESEL. Faith & Religion in a Secular Society. New York: Paulist Press, 2022. pp. 152 + xiv. $22.95 pb. ISBN 9780809156221. Reviewed by Neil FULTON, University of South Dakota Knudson School of Law, Vermillion, SD 57069.

The role of the Church in modern society draws strong opinions. Some militantly advocate the restoration of Christendom. Others encourage a reclusive withdrawal from secular society. Cardinal Josef De Kesel has authored a thoughtful, hopeful, and confident call to walk a middle path of acceptance and engagement with the modern world. Anyone concerned with the Church's place in the world will benefit from reading his work.

Cardinal De Kesel breaks the book into two sections. The first assesses the current state of Western society and the place of the Church within it. The second assesses why the Church exists. Both sections contain important observations.

His observation of the current situation is that the dominant culture of the West has shifted from religious to secular. It is also shifted from Christian to religiously pluralistic. Rather than fighting reality by attempting to roll it back or retreat from it, Cardinal De Kessel calls for acceptance of this reality. He encourages this approach for several reasons. First, attempts to restore Christianity as a cultural religion are profoundly intolerant and place the Christian faith at risk itself if it is not accepted as the dominant faith. Second, he notes that freedom is at the root of Christian faith. Individuals must each make a voluntary acceptance of God's call; social structure can offer nothing less.

Along with this acceptance of the current cultural dynamic, Cardinal De Kessel calls upon faithful Catholics to witness their faith in the world. He notes that secularism cannot answer the deep questions of meaning that faith does. Additionally, faith powerfully responds to the current secular reality through its communal and fraternal nature, thus resisting the dangerous indifference of deep individualism that creeps into purely secular society. Faith can manifest within secular reality without combating or retreating from it. Calls to privatize faith, withdrawing it from the world, are calls he rejects in favor of active witness.

The second half of the book addresses the question of why the church must exist. Fundamentally, it is because God wills it. Cardinal De Kesel notes God's deep desire to connect with mankind in order to provide fullness of life through his love for all. The Church stands as the physically manifested sign of God's love to all people. Openness to all requires rejection of any exclusive or dominant cultural religion. Manifestation requires rejection of a privatized religion that does not act in the world. Existence rooted in God's will demands rejection of mere spirituality. The church must exist to call others to it, rather than to compel participation.

Cardinal De Kesel closes by assessing holistically the two themes of secular culture and the Church's purpose. He notes that the Church must live its identity across different times and circumstances. The Church can and must live within the current secular reality. He calls on readers not to lose hope or to war with other religions or secular modernity. Instead, what is asked of all is to live a sacramental life which signals God's loved reality through modest, active, encounter with all.

This brief volume is worth the time of anyone considering how to live in the modern world or the Church's place within it. It is a challenging but profoundly hopeful work that provides a blueprint for the Church's role in the current world.