This book is a biography of a Jesuit priest who died in 1960.
Thanks to the founder of Alcoholics Anonymous, Bill Wilson, many people have recovered from various addictions (mainly alcohol) — with the help of the Twelve Steps recovery program. But without Father Ed, it’s likely there would be no AA program today. See quote at the end.
Father Ed (Edward Dowling) was Bill's spiritual guide and true friend. Bill W. went on to propose that Father Ed join AA as the official spiritual director. This was not permitted by Father Ed's superiors — gracefully so, because, despite appearing to be a noble and smart initiative, in the long term it would have been detrimental to the effectiveness of the program.
Young Ed (before becoming a priest), a competent baseball player, received an invitation to a tryout for the White Sox, but he declined; he was ready to focus on his vocation above his career. Many years later, Father Ed realized that the road mapped by Twelve Steppers is the same road outlined by St. Ignatius Loyola four centuries earlier; hence, in his own words: "The alcoholic problem and its AA solution can by analogy be applied to any chief vice that is found in human beings."
A saint? Given his medical condition, his intellectual audacity (he was a skillful writer), and his self-giving to people in great need, this book could inspire an organized effort to promote him as a candidate for sainthood within the Archdiocese of St. Louis. The author, Dawn Eden, expresses her personal willingness to collaborate as a researcher to establish a Positio on the life of Father Ed. Maybe with Pope Leo XIV's papacy, this can be worked out.
"He became just about the closest friend I shall ever have — and my spiritual adviser, too. He took me through some of my rough going, which, without his counsel and love, I might never have survived." —Bill Wilson on Father Ed