John F. O. Fernandez: Enlightened Lay Catholic Reformer, 1815–1820

The American republican form of government and the effects of the Enlightenment upon the European Catholic church provided fertile ground for theological reflection and ecclesiastical adaptation in early nineteenth-century American Catholicism. A number of immigrant Catholic laymen were influenced by their previous European Catholic experiences and by the American enthusiasm for republicanism to reform their understanding of the laity's role in the American Catholic church and to adapt ecclesiastical structures to American political institutions. In light of these experiences, some of these laymen began to reflect upon the Christian Scriptures and tradition, and to formulate a democratic conception of the layman's role within the church.

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“Overcoming the Divisiveness of Babel”: The Languages of Catholicity

Horizons ◽

10.1017/s036096690003783x ◽

1987 ◽

Vol 14 (2) ◽

pp. 328-342

Author(s):

Mary Jo Weaver

Keyword(s):

Catholic Church ◽

Essential Characteristic ◽

Patient Understanding ◽

American Catholic ◽

American Catholic Church ◽

The Church

AbstractContemporary issues in the American Catholic Church can sound like a modern-day confusion of tongues making communication impossible. Furthermore, the traditional marks of the Church have supported the notion that dissent and controversy are to be discouraged. This article examines catholicity and shows that its definitions and uses in history have tied it to uniformity when its essential characteristic may well be the celebration of pluralism. Catholicity is placed in the context of modern mission theory in such a way that current challenges can be interpreted as so many new languages which require patient understanding.

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Dean Lings's Church: The Success of Ethnic Catholicism in Yonkers in the 1890s

Church History ◽

10.2307/3170495 ◽

1996 ◽

Vol 65 (1) ◽

pp. 28-41

Author(s):

Thomas J. Shelley

Keyword(s):

New York ◽

Catholic Church ◽

Revolutionary War ◽

Late Nineteenth Century ◽

American Catholicism ◽

Large Numbers ◽

European Immigrants ◽

Late Nineteenth ◽

American Catholic ◽

American Catholic Church

From the period after the Revolutionary War, when Philadelphia and New York merchants first replaced Maryland planters as the lay elite, American Catholicism has been predominantly urban. This became especially noticeable in the late nineteenth century when large numbers of European immigrants swelled the Catholic ranks in many cities of the Northeast and Midwest. The astonishing ethnic variety of the newcomers made the American Catholic Church more “catholic” than ever before, which was a boon to Catholic apologists, but a nightmare for the American bishops. To their credit, they responded to this pastoral challenge imaginatively and effectively by creating an extensive network of “national parishes” for virtually every sizable ethnic group.

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The Impact of Religion in Central America: A Bibliographical Essay

The Americas A Quarterly Review of Latin American History ◽

10.2307/1007029 ◽

1993 ◽

Vol 49 (3) ◽

pp. 297-341

Author(s):

Edward T. Brett

Keyword(s):

Catholic Church ◽

Central American ◽

Upper Class ◽

The Masses ◽

American Catholic ◽

The Impact ◽

American Catholic Church ◽

State Cooperation ◽

The Church ◽

Paternalistic Approach

Prior to the last two decades most scholars paid little attention to the Central American Catholic Church, viewing it in general as little more than a benevolent arm of the elite power structure or as an anachronistic institution intent on regaining privileges it lost during the nineteenth-century Liberal reforms. Traditionally conservative, its sacerdotal leadership had long accepted without question the medieval notions of church-state cooperation and social inequality. Such a mentality had led to a paternalistic approach to the poor. Rejecting as un-Christian all concepts of class conflict, the church believed the lower classes should be patient and ought not take it upon themselves to attempt to better their own condition. Instead, a well- ordered society was seen as a cooperative, top-down venture in which the upper class worked with the church to ameliorate the condition of the masses.

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Deus Migrator—God the Migrant: Migration of Theology and Theology of Migration

Theological Studies ◽

10.1177/0040563916666825 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 77 (4) ◽

pp. 845-868 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Peter C. Phan

Keyword(s):

Holy Spirit ◽

Catholic Church ◽

World Religion ◽

History Of Christianity ◽

History Of ◽

Theology Of God ◽

American Catholic ◽

American Catholic Church ◽

The Church ◽

Christian Beliefs

Our time, which has been dubbed “The Age of Migration,” demands a new way of doing theology (“Migration Theology”) and a new conceptualization of basic Christian beliefs (“Theology of Migration”). This essay begins with a survey of the American Catholic Church and eight migrations in the history of Christianity to show that without migration there would have been neither a US Catholic Church nor the emergence of Christianity as a world religion. “Migrantness” is therefore a mark of the church and of Christianity itself. The construction of a theology of migration, then, requires a method composed of three mediations: analytic, hermeneutic, and practical. Using this method, the author sketches a theology of God, Christ, Holy Spirit, eschatology, and Christian existence from the perspective of migration.

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“In the name of God … and in the interest of our country”

10.5406/illinois/9780252040955.003.0003 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Maddalena Marinari

Keyword(s):

Cold War ◽

Catholic Church ◽

The United States ◽

Window Of Opportunity ◽

Immigration Reform ◽

Italian Americans ◽

Long Time ◽

American Catholic ◽

American Catholic Church ◽

The Church

This chapter discusses how Cold War geopolitical exigencies provided long-time immigration reform advocates like Italian Americans with a narrow window of opportunity to challenge the draconian immigration system in place in the United States since the Immigration Act of 1924 and mobilize for reform. After two decades of failed attempts, Italian Americans, thanks to the help and support they received from the American Catholic Church, finally created a successful immigration reform advocacy organization, the American Committee on Italian Migration (ACIM), which subsequently emerged as one of the leading actors for the immigration reform overhaul of 1965. The Church provided the group with the ideology, the resources, and the connections to be successful, while simultaneously shielding it from accusations of disloyalty.

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Being Catholic and Being American

Horizons ◽

10.1017/s0360966900037063 ◽

1987 ◽

Vol 14 (1) ◽

pp. 49-63

Author(s):

Charles E. Curran

Keyword(s):

United States ◽

Catholic Church ◽

The United States ◽

Early American ◽

The People ◽

American Catholic ◽

American Catholic Church ◽

The Church ◽

Historical Periods ◽

The Catholic Church

The story of Catholicism in the United States can best be understood in light of the struggle to be both Catholic and American. This question of being both Catholic and American is currently raised with great urgency in these days because of recent tensions between the Vatican and the Catholic Church in the United States.History shows that Rome has always been suspicious and fearful that the American Catholic Church would become too American and in the process lose what is essential to its Roman Catholicism. Jay Dolan points out two historical periods in which attempts were made to incorporate more American approaches and understandings into the life of the church, but these attempts were ultimately unsuccessful.In the late eighteenth century, the young Catholic Church in the United States attempted to appropriate many American ideas into its life. Recall that at this time the Catholic Church was a very small minority church. Dolan refers to this movement as a Republican Catholicism and links this understanding with the leading figure in the early American church, John Carroll. Carroll, before he was elected by the clergy as the first bishop in the United States in 1789, had asked Rome to grant to the church in the United States that ecclesiastical liberty which the temper of the age and of the people requires.

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