James M. O'Toole

One of the perks of studying history is looking at the past to imagine who we can be in the future. This book is great proof of that utility of history. O’Toole, a historian at Boston College, chronicles the changes in Catholic America from the days of the first colonials to today’s post-Vatican II era. He marks its history in six stages:

1. The Priestless Church: 1-2% of Americans Catholic, few priests, lay organization and reliance on private and family devotionals with visiting priests 1-3 times a year
2. The Church in the Democratic Republic: growth and stamping-out of ‘trusteeism’, a movement of lay power, more priests led to ‘churchifying’ process of vestries, choirs, weekly mass, diocesan conventions, more passivity of laity, beginnings of montanism and cult of the Pope
3. The Immigrant Church: explosion of European Catholics led to 18% of America being Catholic by 1900, immigrant churches both keeping ethnic traditions alive and dividing parishes on ethnic grounds, populist private devotions alongside passive and bored liturgy, anti-immigrant and anti-Catholic movements led to more patriotism
4. The Church of Catholic Action: Catholic Worker movement, St. Vincent de Paul Society, work for social justice, labor living standards in 1910s and 1920s, but later move to affluence and suburbs in settled 1950s. Beginnings of ecumenism and popular media figures such as Fulton Sheen.
5. The Church of Vatican II: Shocking changes, increased lay participation in many areas, leading to polarized church: conservatives such as “JP II priests,” Humanae Vitae opposers, versus liberals calling for more change, womens’ ordination.
6. The Church of the 21st Century: Loss of white Catholics, growth of Hispanic Catholics, sex abuse scandals, and …?

What can we learn from this?

First, there seems to be a constant tension between Catholics as an ethnic culture and Catholics as more inclusively or theologically defined. The ethnic identity of the immigrant church brought together tightly-knit communities, but led to division, with parishes catering to Italians, to Poles, to Anglos, and to slaves. (As a friend who converted to Greek Orthodoxy complained, sometimes they are more interested in being Greek than Orthodox.) And as those immigrants’ children and grandchildren lost their ties to the Old World and blended into that bland thing we call “white,” they lost their Catholic identity too. One of Vatican II’s aims was to remove the “ghettoizing” of Catholicism and bring it in dialogue with the modern world. But then we have to find new ways to identify ourselves, not just outside narrow ideas of ethnic divisions but also opening ourselves to ecumenism, interfaith, and other broadening movements.

A second contimuum of American Catholic life has been a tension between lay and clerical power. On the one hand, clerical power has been used to ignore the realities of the laity (e.g. birth control) and hide real problems (e.g. transferring sex offenders from parish to parish). But too much lay power diminishes the priest’s ability to be a prophetic role model for his flock. When Catholic priests pushed for racial integration and equality in the 1960s, their parishioners, empowered by ‘Vatican II theology,’ ignored and sometimes yelled at them. This is a tension hardly solveable by a single papal encyclical or bishops’ decree. But having a historical lens for it will help us see it when it pops up next.

Lastly, many of the so-called post-conciliar “changes” are nothing new. They’re just revivals of old trends. Current lay outspokenness has precedent in the nineteenth century. Priest shortages were a problem in the eighteenth century. Concern for social justice dates back a century ago. History rhymes.

O’Toole’s book had to gloss over a lot of fascinating things, particularly regional and ethnic diversity. He barely covered Hispanic or African-American Catholicism. But for what it does cover, I enjoyed this audiobook.… (mer)