Article
The attitudes of Americans toward church-state relations depend in considerable measure on their attitude toward Roman Catholicism. The chief concern that lies back of the convictions of non-Catholics is the concern for religious liberty, and the chief threat to religious liberty is seen in the tremendous growth of Roman Catholicism as a cultural and political …
Continue reading “A Protestant Look At American Catholicism”
Article
An editor of a Protestant journal of opinion recently stated that one of the current tasks facing a Protestant religious journalist is to tell American Protestants that America is no longer a Protestant country. Whether Protestants have to be informed of this fact may possibly be debated but the fact itself cannot be. Yet no …
Continue reading “American Catholicism Assessed From Within”
Article
Book Review: A People Adrift The Crisis of the Roman Catholic Church In America. By Peter Steinfels. Simon & Schuster 392 pp. “Today the Roman Catholic Church in the United States is on the verge of either an irreversible decline or a thoroughgoing transformation” is the topic sentence of Peter Steinfels’ extraordinarily valuable survey …
Article
In a letter dated July 13, 1988, Sisters Barbara Ferraro and Patricia Hussey resigned from their religious congregation, the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur (SND) , after a protracted struggle with the Roman Catholic Church involving their public pro-choice stand on abortion. Since 1984, the two had been frequent speakers at pro-choice demonstrations. In …
Continue reading “Catholic Nuns and the Need for Responsible Dissent”
Article
The tension has been exacerbated by the recent Vatican decision to reinstate fidelity oaths and to tighten bishops’ regulation of theological teaching at Catholic colleges and universities. This past February the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, led by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, raised the stakes for Catholic theological faculties and, indirectly, for all theological …
Article
On January 3, 1984, Dorothy Dohen, noted Catholic journalist and sociologist of religion, died of cancer. Dohen was one of a small cadre of exceptional laywomen who helped to transform the consciousness of American Catholics during the decade prior to Vatican II. Textbooks in Catholic history have not yet acknowledged her contributions, but then, neither …
Article
In Latin America the Roman Catholic Church, though officially a single institution, actually takes four forms. As I learned about Latin American Christianity during two stays at the Cuernavaca Center for International Dialogue on Development (CC1DD) and during a trip to Nicaragua, I felt that I was also gaining insight into North American Christianity — …
Continue reading “Four Churches in One: Latin American Catholicism”
Article
For too long now, many thoughtful American Christians have dismissed the phenomenon at Medjugorje as a curious but ultimately trivial interruption of the church’s confident march into modernity. The fact is that in the past few years, between 7 and 8 million Christians have climbed to the top of this rugged mountain in Yugoslavia where …
Article
Hitler’s Pope: The Secret history of Pius XII By John Cornwall, Viking Penguin, 430 pp. Pius XII and the Second World War: According to the Archives of the Vatican By Pierre Blet, S.J. Paulist, 304 pp. These two volumes stand in stark contrast. John Cornwall indicts Pope Pius XII for aiding and abetting the Nazis …
Book Chapter
Book Chapter
Article
Even liberal or radical Catholics generally shy away from taking on the pope. In 1979, about 30 theologians gathered on the margins of the Latin American Bishops’ Conference (CELAM) meeting in Puebla, Mexico; they had been expressly excluded by the CELAM administration but were informally invited by some bishops. One of their first decisions was …
Article
For American Catholics, 1989 is a year crowded with anniversaries, including the centennial of the founding of the Catholic University of America and the bicentennial of both the establishment of Georgetown University (and, by extension, of Jesuit education) and the erection of the American hierarchy. While these various milestones will be celebrated with assemblies both …
Continue reading “The Catholic Experience at Taming Pluralism”
Book Chapter
Book
Book Chapter
Book Chapter
Article
Book Review: Toward a New Catholic Church: The Promise of Reform. By James Carroll. Mariner Books, 130 pp. The Courage to Be Catholic: Crisis, Reform, and the Future of the Church. By George Weigel. Basic Books, 246 pp. Why I Am a Catholic. By Garry Wills. Houghton Mifflin, 390 pp. The past is never dead. …
