Traces the development of Catholic cultures in the South, the Midwest, the West, and the Northeast, and their contribution to larger patterns of Catholicism in the United States Most histories of American Catholicism take a national focus, leading to a homogenization of American Catholicism that misses much of the local complexity that has marked how Catholicism developed differently in different parts of the country. Such histories often treat northeastern Catholicism, such as the Irish Catholicism of Boston, as if it reflects the full history and experience of Catholicism across the United States. The Making of American Catholicism argues that regional and transnational relationships have been central to the development of American Catholicism. The American Catholic experience has diverged significantly among regions; if we do not examine how it has taken shape in local cultures, we miss a lot. Exploring the history of Catholic cultures in New Orleans, Iowa, Wisconsin, Los Angeles, and New York City, the volume assesses the role of region in American Catholic history, carefully exploring the development of American Catholic cultures across the continental United States. Drawing on extensive archival research, The Making of American Catholicism argues that American Catholicism developed as transnational Catholics creatively adapted their devotional and ideological practices in particular American regional contexts. They emphasized notions of republicanism, individualistic capitalism, race, ethnicity, and gender, resulting in a unique form of Catholicism that dominates the United States today. The book offers close attention to race and racism in American Catholicism, including the historical experiences of African American and Latinx Catholics as well as Catholics of European descent.

This volume considers how and why colonial Catholics embraced the individualistic, rights-oriented ideology of the American Revolution, in spite of the fact that the Revolution's rhetoric was riddled with anti-Catholicism, and even though Catholicism has had an uneasy relationship with Enlightenment liberalism until very recently.

Identifying nuns as the first feminists and sweeping in its scope and insight, "Sisters" reveals the treasure of spiritual capital that religious women have invested in America. 25 photos.

For more than two hundred years American Catholics have struggled to reconcile their national and religious values. In this incisive and accessible account, distinguished Catholic historian Jay P. Dolan explores the way American Catholicism has taken its distinctive shape and follows how Catholics have met the challenges they have faced as New World followers of an Old World religion. Dolan argues that the ideals of democracy, and American culture in general, have deeply shaped Catholicism in the United States as far back as 1789, when the nation's first bishop was elected by the clergy (and the pope accepted their choice). Dolan looks at the tension between democratic values and Catholic doctrine from the conservative reaction after the fall of Napoleon to the impact of the Second Vatican Council. Furthermore, he explores grassroots devotional life, the struggle against nativism, the impact and collision of different immigrant groups, and the disputed issue of gender. Today Dolan writes, the tensions remain, as we see signs of a resurgent traditionalism in the church in response to the liberalizing trend launched by John XXIII, and also a resistance to the conservatism of John Paul II. In this lucid account, the unfinished story of Catholicism in America emerges clearly and compellingly, illuminating the inner life of the church and of the nation. In this lucid account, the unfinished story of Catholicism in America emerges clearly and compellingly, illuminating the inner life of the church and of the nation.

Written by one of the foremost historians of American Catholicism, this book presents a comprehensive history of the Roman Catholic Church in America from colonial times to the present. Hennesey examines, in particular, minority Catholics and developments in the western part of the United States, a region often overlooked in religious histories.

A sweeping history of American Catholicism from the arrival of the first Spanish missionaries to the present This comprehensive survey of Catholic history in what became the United States spans nearly five hundred years, from the arrival of the first Spanish missionaries to the present. Distinguished historian Leslie Tentler explores lay religious practice and the impact of clergy on Catholic life and culture as she seeks to answer the question, What did it mean to be a “good Catholic” at particular times and in particular places? In its focus on Catholics' participation in American politics and Catholic intellectual life, this book includes in-depth discussions of Catholics, race, and the Civil War; Catholics and public life in the twentieth century; and Catholic education and intellectual life. Shedding light on topics of recent interest such as the role of Catholic women in parish and community life, Catholic reproductive ethics regarding birth control, and the Catholic church sex abuse crisis, this engaging history provides an up-to-date account of the history of American Catholicism.

What drove U.S. Catholics in their arduous quest, full of twists and turns over more than a century, to win an American saint? The absence of American names in the canon of the saints had left many of the faithful feeling spiritually unmoored. But while canonization may be fundamentally about holiness, it is never only about holiness, reveals Kathleen Sprows Cummings in this panoramic, passionate chronicle of American sanctity. Catholics had another reason for petitioning the Vatican to acknowledge an American holy hero. A home-grown saint would serve as a mediator between heaven and earth, yes, but also between Catholicism and American culture. Throughout much of U.S. history, the making of a saint was also about the ways in which the members of a minority religious group defined, defended, and celebrated their identities as Americans. Their fascinatingly diverse causes for canonization—from Kateri Tekakwitha and Elizabeth Ann Seton to many others that are failed, forgotten, or still under way—represented evolving national values as Catholics made themselves at home. Cummings's vision of American sanctity shows just how much Catholics had at stake in cultivating devotion to men and women perched at the nexus of holiness and American history—until they finally felt little need to prove that they belonged.