American Catholics through the Twentieth Century: Spirituality, Lay Experience, and Public Life.

American Catholics through the Twentieth Century: Spirituality, Lay Experience, and Public Life Claire E. Wolfteich Crossroad, $24.95, 212 pp.

In a scant 180 pages, Claire Wolfteitch tries to trace the emergence of the American Catholic laity in the twentieth century and to set out a statement of lay spirituality. The book is organized around five large themes: a brief survey of the evolution of the term "lay" and of lay spirituality in history; lay movements in the United States before the Second Vatican Council (our own beloved Commonweal takes pride of place); the issue of Catholics in the public sphere; the rise of lay spirituality and its connection to family life, birth control, divorce, and other difficult issues; the tension in the public sphere illustrated by the friction between figures like Mario Cuomo and Geraldine Ferraro and the late Cardinal John O'Connor over the question of abortion policy; and a final chapter on lay spiritualities.

In plain English, Wolfteich takes us rapidly from the post-World War I church to Call to Action. This is a well-trod path and most of the controversies are familiar: the pacifism of Dorothy Day, Cesar Chavez's blend of religious practice and social action, John F. Kennedy's privatization of religious belief, etc. The final section on lay spirituality is a pastiche of elements from a number of sources (the charismatics, monastic renewal, and others).

In the end, this is a rather disappointing study, because in its hurry it leaves out too much. The sections on the development of a contemporary lay spirituality are superficial, and are not grounded in works that have near-canonical status, such as Congar's work on the laity.

More important, Wolfteich tells a very one-sided story. While I am an unapologetic "Commonweal Catholic," there is a vigorous body of conservative Catholics who never get a whisper here. They range from the writers in the decidedly odd Wanderer (lay founded and lay edited) to the occasionally interesting but generally cranky pages of the New Oxford Review and Crisis (both lay founded), to say nothing of the public intellectuals who serve as court theologians for corporate America. One may disagree with them, but who can deny their place in the world of the Catholic laity in this country?

Taking the conservative laity into account would have allowed a contrast between (for example) religious privatization in the thinking of a Geraldine Ferraro and the more aggressive Catholicism of an Antonin Scalia or a William Bennett. Similarly, it could contrast the lay voices of the National Review with those of this journal. William F. Buckley Jr. never gets mentioned, but who would deny that his youthful God and Man at Yale was an "in your face" apologia for traditional Christianity, published precisely at the time that Paul Blanshard was writing anti-Catholic screeds?

Even in telling the "liberal" story this book misses some important things. Commonweal gets due praise, but there is nothing here about the work of Sally and Joseph Cunneen who for years edited CrossCurrents. What about Justus George Lawler's Continuum--one of the best intellectual journals published by a lay Catholic? Are we to forget that Ramparts, the radical 1960s journal, was at its start explicitly Catholic? These journals are on the wane or have disappeared. Where does a Catholic who wants to write long articles without footnotes on broadly Catholic themes submit today? First Things, I suppose, if one is not fastidious about association with the mean-spirited sarcasm of the editor.

Wolfteich's topic was too large for the book she wrote. As a result, this is a walk down one Catholic American path, but it is not the only avenue available. Perhaps in the future she can provide a fuller and more balanced picture of lay experience and public life in the United States.

Lawrence S. Cunningham is the John A. O'Brien Professor of Theology at the University of Notre Dame.