A decade ago in a capsule review of an early foray by Andrew Greeley into sexology, it was suggested that the prolific priest-sociologist had advanced from having no unpublished thoughts to having no unpublished fantasies. Had we only known!… [Those] fantasies, now fictionalized [in Ascent into Hell], have multiplied the biblical hundredfold with no end in sight.

Interestingly, not all the fantasies are sexual, despite those matching, tastelessly titillating jackets with their crimson draperies and statuesque women suggestive of bishops and bordellos. The fantasies have just as much to do with that broader range of human obsessions dear to commercial fiction: power, money, status. To that already heady mix Greeley adds large dollops of religion in its Roman Catholic form, still the most mystifying and intriguing for many Americans. Like the standard protagonists of such fiction, Greeley's heroes and heroines are handsome, successful, and perceptive, as well as...