Recently published articles on Catholics and US politics that deals with same-sex marriage, illegal immigration and other social issues.

For more than thirty years, the U.S. Catholic Historian has mapped the diverse terrain of American Catholicism. This collection of recent essays tells the story of Catholics previously underappreciated by historians: women, African Americans, Latinos, Asian Americans, and those on the frontier and borderlands.

For years, historians have argued that Catholicism in the United States stood decisively apart from papal politics in European society. The Church in America, historians insist, forged an "American Catholicism," a national faith responsive to domestic concerns, disengaged from the disruptive ideological conflicts of the Old World. Drawing on previously unexamined documents from Italian state collections and newly opened Vatican archives, Peter D'Agostino paints a starkly different portrait. In his narrative, Catholicism in the United States emerges as a powerful outpost within an international church that struggled for three generations to vindicate the temporal claims of the papacy within European society. Even as they assimilated into American society, Catholics of all ethnicities participated in a vital, international culture of myths, rituals, and symbols that glorified papal Rome and demonized its liberal, Protestant, and Jewish opponents. From the 1848 attack on the Papal States that culminated in the creation of the Kingdom of Italy to the Lateran Treaties in 1929 between Fascist Italy and the Vatican that established Vatican City, American Catholics consistently rose up to support their Holy Father. At every turn American liberals, Protestants, and Jews resisted Catholics, whose support for the papacy revealed social boundaries that separated them from their American neighbors.

Islands & Bridges is a collection of essays and an interview on the state of Independent Catholicism in the United States today. The first essay, "Meditations for a Gathering of Independent Catholic Clergy in Austin, Texas" was written for an interjurisdictional encounter of 40 Independent Catholic clergy on October 24-26, 2019. In this work, Father Libardo calls for greater unity within Independent Catholicism and for the building of "bridges" to unite the many "islands" within Independent Catholicism. He also challenges Independent Catholic clergy to consider coming together as a synod, to discuss the opportunities and challenges facing U.S. Independent Catholicism and to pen the movement's own Lumen Gentium.The second essay, "Did God Conceive of the Church?", is an analysis of the roots of churches and of "the Church" from the perspectives of sociology, psychology, archaeology and theology. In this work, Father Libardo concludes that yes, salvation is possible outside the Roman Catholic Church, which, for many years, claimed a monopoly on salvation.The final essay, "Catholic Terrorists," explores the psychology of those who wish to harm others-especially those who do so in the name of God and/or of religion. In this work, Father Libardo shares various example of religious terrorism, expounds on those who see themselves as acting in the name of God, and offers a commentary on the evangelical counsels of poverty, obedience and chastity. Of special note is his exposition on the misinterpretation of the Bible and the lack of a scriptural basis for condemning homosexuality. The second half of this book is comprised of an interview with Father Libardo, in which he speaks of his childhood, his formation for ministry in the Roman Catholic Church, his experiences as a priest, and his views on a number of issues in the Church. He concludes, "Let us therefore love one another and come together as one, so as to bridge together the many islands on which we currently find ourselves. Let us aspire to be the Body of Christ!"

On the eve of the most important presidential election in decades, A NATION FOR ALL sounds the trumpet to the tens of millions of U.S. Catholics who have refused to buy the notion that people of faith must subscribe to the narrow agenda of the far right. By shining the light of authentic Catholic teaching on pressing contemporary concerns like war, human dignity, poverty, and the looming global climate crisis, this book shows Catholics how their own faith tradition calls them to tackle a sweeping array of issues commonly left out of the faith and politics dialog. Most important, A NATION FOR ALL demonstrates how the core Catholic and Christian belief in promoting the common good can provide Americans of all faith traditions with a much-needed solution to the downward spiral of greed, materialism, and excessive individualism.