Steeples topped by crosses still dominate neighborhood skylines in many American cities, silent markers of local worlds rarely examined by historians. In Parish Boundaries, John McGreevy chronicles the history of these Catholic parishes and connects their unique place in the urban landscape to the course of American race relations in the twentieth century.

A “remarkable” study of white Catholics and African Americans—and the dynamics between them in New York, Chicago, Boston, and other cities (The New York Times Book Review). Parish Boundaries chronicles the history of Catholic parishes in major cities such as Boston, Chicago, Detroit, New York, and Philadelphia, melding their unique place in the urban landscape to the course of twentieth century American race relations. In vivid portraits of parish life, John McGreevy examines the contacts and conflicts between European-American Catholics and their African American neighbors. By tracing the transformation of a church, its people, and the nation, McGreevy illuminates the enormous impact of religious culture on modern American society. “Thorough, sensitive, and balanced.”—Kirkus Reviews “Parish Boundaries can take its place in the front ranks of the literature of urban race relations.”—The Washington Post "A prodigiously researched, gracefully written book distinguished especially by its seamless treatment of social and intellectual history."—American Historical Review “Parish Boundaries will fascinate historians and anyone interested in the historic connection between parish and race.”—Chicago Tribune

Controversy erupted in spring 2001 when Chicago’s mostly white Southside Catholic Conference youth sports league rejected the application of the predominantly black St. Sabina grade school. Fifty years after Brown v. Board of Education, interracialism seemed stubbornly unattainable, and the national spotlight once again turned to the history of racial conflict in Catholic parishes. It’s widely understood that midcentury, working class, white ethnic Catholics were among the most virulent racists, but, as Crossing Parish Boundaries shows, that’s not the whole story. In this book, Timothy B. Neary reveals the history of Bishop Bernard Sheil’s Catholic Youth Organization (CYO), which brought together thousands of young people of all races and religions from Chicago’s racially segregated neighborhoods to take part in sports and educational programming. Tens of thousands of boys and girls participated in basketball, track and field, and the most popular sport of all, boxing, which regularly filled Chicago Stadium with roaring crowds. The history of Bishop Sheil and the CYO shows a cosmopolitan version of American Catholicism, one that is usually overshadowed by accounts of white ethnic Catholics aggressively resisting the racial integration of their working-class neighborhoods. By telling the story of Catholic-sponsored interracial cooperation within Chicago, Crossing Parish Boundaries complicates our understanding of northern urban race relations in the mid-twentieth century.

Intro -- Contents -- Introduction. "Building Men, Not Just Fighters"--1. Minority within a Minority: African Americans Encounter Catholicism in the Urban North -- 2. "We Had Standing": Black and Catholic in Bronzeville -- 3. For God and Country: Bishop Sheil and the CYO -- 4. African American Participation in the CYO -- 5. The Fight Outside the Ring: Antiracism in the CYO -- 6. "Ahead of His Time": The Legacy of Bishop Sheil and the Unfulfilled Promise of Catholic Interracialism -- Acknowledgments -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index

The Catholic Church stands at the forefront of an emergent majority-minority America. Parish and Place tells the story of how America's largest religion is responding at the local level to unprecedented cultural, racial, linguistic, ideological, and political diversification. Specifically, it explores bishops' use of personal parishes - parishes formally established not on the basis of territory, but purpose. Today's personal parishes serve an array of Catholics drawn together by shared identities and preferences, rather than shared neighborhoods. They allow Catholic leaders to act upon the perceived need for named, specialist organizations alongside the more common territorial parish that serves all in its midst. Parish and Place documents the American Catholic Church's movement away from "national" parishes and towards personal parishes as a renewed organizational form. Tricia Bruce uses in-depth interviews and national survey data to examine the rise and rationale behind new parishes for the Traditional Latin Mass, for Vietnamese Catholics, for tourists, and more. Featuring insights from bishops, priests, and diocesan leaders throughout the United States, this book offers a rare view of institutional decision making from the top. Parish and Place demonstrates structural responses to diversity, exploring just how far fragmentation can go before it challenges unity.