Dawn Eden Goldstein's biography of the Jesuit priest Edward Dowling (1898–1960) highlights his role from 1940 as a spiritual counsellor to Bill Wilson, the co-founder of Alcoholic Anonymous. The relationship between Dowling and Wilson is well known. In Not-God (1979), the great AA historian Ernest Kurtz wrote about it, and in 1995 Robert Fitzgerald, S. J., published The Soul of Sponsorship: The Friendship of Fr. Ed Dowling, S. J. and Bill Wilson in Letters. In 2015, Glenn F. Chestnut published Father Ed Dowling: Bill Wilson's Sponsor.
Goldstein's research goes much further than her predecessors. Hers is a definitive book. For instance, she interviewed elderly co-workers before their death, such as the Jesuits Francis Canavan and William Barnaby Faherty, who both died in their nineties. She did research in St. Louis at the Jesuit archives there and the Dowling archive at Maryville University. Her book includes a call for people to support the cause of Father Ed's sainthood.
This is much more than an AA book. Goldstein focuses on the life of Father Ed and not just his relationship with Wilson. Known as a young man as “Puggy,” he then was an enthusiast for athletics rather than for academic studies. He was happy as a baseball catcher. Ordained as a Jesuit priest in 1931, he spent much of his working life in St. Louis at the Queen's Work, both an organization and a periodical. Other than an occasional column, he was not much of a writer.
Not a bookish intellectual, Father Ed was happiest working with people. One of the last chapters in this book, “Racing against Time,” emphasizes the priority he gave to such work despite his chronic ill health including arthritis. He was committed to helping recovering alcoholics, couples in troubled marriages (Cana Conference), gay and lesbian rights, and those with mental health challenges. He helped found organizations for Catholic divorcees and drug addicts. He championed civil rights and trade unions. A photograph shows Father Ed with the great-grandson of Dred Scott at the unmarked grave of the celebrated figure in African American history.
Goldstein's account of the relationship between Father Ed and Bill Wilson is disappointingly brief. What she has written is a biography of a forgotten figure in the history of Alcoholics Anonymous and not a book-length analysis of the relationship between the Jesuit and the AA co-founder. “At the time Father Ed discovered the fellowship, Alcoholic Anonymous had about one thousand members nationwide” (136). He helped organize the first AA chapter in St. Louis.
Drawing on many sources, Goldstein provides a detailed description of the time that Father Ed and Bill W. first met at the AA clubhouse in New York City. “Bill was left feeling a great calm—and great hope” (150).
Although interested in Roman Catholicism, Bill Wilson never became a convert. He was content to be a Catholic “fellow traveler” as his friend Father Ed was a “fellow traveler” in AA, despite not being an alcoholic. Dowling compared AA's Twelve Steps with the Jesuit Spiritual Exercises. For many years, he helped Wilson cope with his chronic depression. Despite their differences, they became friends who could discuss serious questions seriously. The dust jacket of Goldstein's book quotes Bill W. on Father Ed, “He was the greatest and most gentle soul to walk this planet.”
