BIANCHI, Eugene C(arl) 1930-

PERSONAL: Born May 5, 1930, in Oakland, CA; son of Natale and Catherine (Mangini) Bianchi; divorced. Education: Gonzaga University, B.A., 1954, M.A. (cum laude), 1955; Catholic University of Louvain, S.T.L. (cum laude), 1962; Columbia University and Union Theological Seminary, Ph.D., 1966.

ADDRESSES: Office—Department of Religion, Emory University, 1364 Clifton Rd. NE, Atlanta, GA 30322-0001. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER: Jesuit priest of California Province, 1961-68; resigned from order, 1968. St. Ignatius High School, San Francisco, CA, teacher, 1955-58; America, New York, NY, assistant editor, 1963-66; University of Santa Clara, Santa Clara, CA, assistant professor of theology and director of Center for the Study of Contemporary Values, 1966-68; Emory University, Atlanta, GA, associate professor of religion, 1968—. Visiting summer professor at University of San Francisco, 1966, and Stanford University, 1969; Distinguished Visiting Professor, California State University, Sacramento, 1975.

MEMBER: American Society of Church History, American Academy of Religion, Religious Education Association, Society for the Scientific Study of Religion.

WRITINGS:

John XXIII and American Protestants, Corpus Books, 1968.

(Contributor) American Catholic Exodus, Corpus Books, 1968.

Reconciliation: The Function of the Church, Sheed (Franklin, WI), 1969.

(Contributor) Why Priests Leave, Hawthorne, 1969.

The Religious Experience of Revolutionaries, Doubleday (New York, NY), 1972.

(With Rosemary R. Ruether) From Machismo to Mutuality, Paulist Press, 1976.

Aging As a Spiritual Journey, Crossroad (New York, NY), 1982.

On Growing Older: A Personal Guide to Life afterThirty-Five, illustrations by Lee Lawson, Crossroad (New York, NY), 1985.

(Editor, with Rosemary Radford Ruether) A Democratic Catholic Church: The Reconstruction of Roman Catholicism, Crossroad (New York, NY), 1992.

Elder Wisdom: Crafting Your Own Elderhood, Crossroad (New York, NY), 1994.

(With Peter McDonough) Passionate Uncertainty:Inside the American Jesuits, University of California Press (Berkeley, CA), 2002.

Contributor of about forty articles and many reviews to periodicals, including America, Catholic World, Church History, Commonweal, Ecumenist, National Catholic Reporter, and Incunable (Madrid).

WORK IN PROGRESS: Writing a novel, The Bishop of San Francisco.

SIDELIGHTS: Eugene Bianchi's books reflect his career as a former Jesuit priest and as a professor of religion. In 1983 he published Aging As a Spiritual Journey, described by Eugene Dooley of Best Sellers as "difficult," because the theme "tends to be more than slightly depressing." This work discusses the aging of America—as people live longer, the elderly population rises, leaving in its wake a spate of sociological and economic issues. Bianchi, the review continued, urges a more religious and contemplative attitude regarding the final years of one's life. "But he may be over-optimistic in thinking that most people approach their last hour with religious thoughts and sentiments," Dooley said. The work contains the thoughts of more than twenty religious scholars, leading Commonweal's John Deedy to state that while the sampling may be limited in scope, the interviews "are the most interesting part of the book." "Persuasive" is the word another Commonweal writer, John Shea, used to characterize Aging As a Spiritual Journey. On a related topic, Bianchi published On Growing Older: A Personal Guide to Life after Thirty-Five. As the title implies, the work guides readers through exercises and meditations (such as "picture yourself as an elderly individual") designed to engender understanding of and empathy for aged people and their concerns.

In Passionate Uncertainty: Inside the American Jesuits, Bianchi examines his former order to assess the "current state of the religious community of men known for missionary and teaching work," as a Publishers Weekly critic described it. In surveying more than 400 current and former Jesuits for the book, Bianchi and coauthor Peter McDonough chose "snowball sampling," in which respondents nominated their peers to be interviewed. America reviewer Katarina Schuth took exception to this nonrandom surveying, saying that the method "may prove information-rich, but . . . is unreliable in that it gives the reader no confidence that the sample is representative." Schuth did, however, find "comprehensive" the authors' eleven subject headings, including spirituality, sexuality, community life, and the meaning of priesthood. In addition, "those who are entertained by clever images and rich vocabulary will find plenty to enjoy in the writing style," though Schuth added that the overall content struck her as "dense, confusing and overstated."

Avery Cardinal Dulles, reviewing Passionate Uncertainty for First Things, however, saw in the book "a wake-up call" for American Jesuits. Though "flawed," as he put it, by the "heavily slanted" research, the book still "contains an abundance of useful information." And while the authors' use of jargon may be "off-putting," noted a Kirkus Reviews contributor, Bianchi and McDonough "[allow] us to listen to an amazing variety of Jesuit voices discussing the calculus of stress and satisfaction that keeps members in the order or prompts them to leave."

"Why shouldn't the Church be democratic," ask Bianchi and coeditor Rosemary Radford Ruether in A Democratic Catholic Church: The Reconstruction of Roman Catholicism. Arguing that the contemporary church is modeled after the nondemocratic structures of the Roman Empire, Bianchi and Ruether "lament that church decisions are made by the limited number of men in hierarchy," commented Christian Century reviewer David Stagaman. "They seek a church where all members, by virtue of their baptism and faith, participate in decision-making. . . . In such a church, leaders would be accountable to God's people and committed to dialogue. Dogmatic closure of discussion and suppression of dissent would cease."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

America, March 26, 1983, Donald Moore, review of Aging As a Spiritual Journey, p. 242; March 25, 2002, Katarina Schuth, "This Least Society," p. 21.

Best Sellers, April, 1983, Eugene Dooley, review of Aging As a Spiritual Journey.

Booklist, October 15, 1992, Mary Deeley, review of ADemocratic Catholic Church: The Reconstruction of Roman Catholicism, p. 381; February 15, 2002, Steven Schroeder, review of Passionate Uncertainty: Inside the American Jesuits, p. 974.

Bookwatch, November, 1992, review of A DemocraticCatholic Church, p. 1.

Christian Century, October 20, 1993, David Stagaman, review of A Democratic Catholic Church, p. 1020.

Commonweal, February 25, 1983, John Shea, review of Aging As a Spiritual Journey, p. 117; October 21, 1983, John Deedy, review of Aging As a Spiritual Journey, p. 573; March 25, 1993, Lawrence Cunningham, review of A Democratic Catholic Church, p. 28.

Conscience, autumn, 1994, review of A DemocraticCatholic Church, p. 46.

First Things, April, 2002, Avery Cardinal Dulles, review of Passionate Uncertainty, p. 37.

Jurist, winter, 1993, John Ford, review of A Democratic Catholic Church, pp. 223-224.

Kirkus Reviews, January 15, 2002, Steven Schroeder, review of Passionate Uncertainty, p. 89.

Library Journal, December, 1985, Elise Chase, review of On Growing Older: A Personal Guide to Life after Thirty-Five, p. 118; February 15, 2002, C. Robert Nixon, review of Passionate Uncertainty, p. 150.

National Catholic Reporter, November 11, 1983, Mitch Finley, review of Aging As a Spiritual Journey, p. 17; August 14, 1987, Jack Dick, review of On Growing Older, p. 15; November 20, 1992, William Peatman, review of A Democratic Catholic Church, p. 34.

New Catholic World, September-October, 1983, Anthony Padovano, review of Aging As a Spiritual Journey, p. 236.

New York Review of Books, March 28, 2002, Garry Wills, "Jesuits in Disarray," p. 12.

Religious Studies Review, April, 1993, review of ADemocratic Catholic Church, p. 149.*