MORE AMERICAN THAN CATHOLIC?

The Catholic Church in the Twentieth Century
Renewing and Reimaging
the City of God
John Deedy, editor
The Liturgical Press, $24.95, 244 pp.

The title of this book makes a promise that only an encyclopedia could fulfill. Its actual scope is narrower: not the whole church in the whole world, but Roman Catholicism in the United States over the past hundred years. Although we are far too close to the twentieth century for any definitive assessment (as Deedy, a former managing editor of Commonweal, acknowledges), it is never too early for attention to the main questions it asks: "What took place? What went right? What went wrong? What was learned? What might have been learned? Where do we stand now?"

The book's answers to these questions remain cloudy because its sixteen contributors worked independently. They never met nor, it seems, did they ever confer. This lack of coordination is a drawback. Each study stands alone, even though each is part of the same story. So the book is a collection of essays, a sort of reference work on the topics it covers, rather than a developed and detailed response to its originating questions. If one more author had been recruited to write a synthetic presentation of the lessons gleaned from these studies, this book would be even more useful.

Even with a narrower scope and the appropriate disclaimers, the book's enterprise is still quixotic. Trying to cover the major aspects of twentieth-century American Catholic church life in one volume is like trying to cover a cathedral with a kerchief. No wonder important features like the liturgical revolution, the transformation in the role of the laity, the influence of bishops like Gibbons and Spellman, and the struggles of African-American and Hispanic Catholics for recognition as equal partners in their own church get no essays of their own. A different subtitle, something like "Case Studies in Inculturation," would better describe the main issue that cuts across the best essays.

The authors were apparently limited to about fifteen pages, yet some produced small masterpieces that highlight ways in which American culture has shaped our Catholicism. For example, Barbara Kraemer shows how the unique blend of developments in American society and within the church itself have not only transfigured the modes and ideals of vowed religious life but continue to pose fundamental questions about its future. Jeanne Knoerle's survey of Catholic education overlooks none of the questions and complications that make up its history from the mid-nineteenth century to Ex corde ecclesiae (and the problems posed by the mandatum for theologians).

David O'Brien's title, "Catholic Youth: The Presumed Become the Pursued," sums up the story he tells. The moral, as he sees it, is that the church has found a place in America but that place is too cozy. Catholics have lost the sense of social and cultural solidarity that marks their authentic tradition. Only a thorough renewal of "the church's sense of mission and purpose" will win the next generation's loyalty.

Patricia McDonald traces Catholic biblical scholarship from its European and Protestant tutelage to the full maturity of professional credibility. Yet she also notes that the world of the exegetes has become too much a world unto itself. Its continuities with pre-Enlightenment traditions of biblical interpretation, its ability to contribute to broad and basic theological and ecclesiological reflection, and the nourishment it offers to the faith life of the church itself have become thin and weak. Too often the "so what?" question hovers over the exegetes' conclusions.

Jeffrey Gros demonstrates his claim that the revolution in the church's ecumenical posture and the postconciliar progress toward church unity are nothing short of "amazing" and "marvelous." While he celebrates the pioneers (Mercier, Wattson, Willebrands) who laid the groundwork for Vatican II's breakthrough, he also underscores the Catholic church's still unmet special responsibilities in the quest for the full, visible unity of the Body of Christ.

Two Johns, Cort and Haughey, offer the most provocative contributions. (Disclosure statement: the latter John is a colleague and good friend of mine.) Cort maintains that the principles of contemporary socialism are virtually identical with Catholic social teaching. Thus, work for justice must take the socialist option seriously. Although this option has powerful precedents in U.S. Catholic history, the task won't be easy. Many on the Left are unaware of socialism's principles. Americans are viscerally opposed to it. John Paul II's experience under "socialism" in Poland has predisposed him to favor the economic views of neoconservatives like Michael Novak. Still, contemporary socialism remains the closest ideological ally to Catholic social teaching.

When it comes to money, Haughey maintains, American Catholics are far more American than Catholic: "most of our economic attitudes are determined more by our social location than by our faith." He supports this thesis autobiographically, historically, and empirically before pointing to the bedrock importance of money issues. Ultimately, economic fairness constitutes a question of identity: do we want to be creatures of the market or creators of a more faithful and humane order? Haughey's reading of American society on this question is not reassuring. However, some reassurance is available from the quality of many of these essays.

Jon Nilson teaches theology at Loyola University Chicago.