Our Unfinished Business

In 1983, U.S. Catholic bishops published The Challenge of Peace , a treatise on nuclear arms; in 1986, they brought out Economic Justice for All . Based on Arthur Schlesinger Jr.'s prediction that the 1990s will be an era of social activism and reform, Berryman ( Liberation Theology ) believes that the time is ripe to ``explicate'' these pastoral letters and ``their import for the United States.'' Writing with clarity and precision, he summarizes the documents and places them in a Catholic and American context. The book illuminates the bishops' forceful ideas on religious morality, the nuclear arms race (`` `May a nation threaten what it may never do?' '') and economic justice but is flawed by Berryman's predictably partisan commentary and by digressive discussions (e.g., a detailed critique of the bishops' relativism on nuclear deterrence in contrast to their absolutism on abortion). (Mar.)