Overview

An overview in primary documents of almost four hundred years of the American Catholic experience Catholics were among the early Spanish explorers to the “New World,” and they have a long and rich history in the United States. By taking account of significant letters, diaries, theological reflections, and other primary documents, we can listen to the voices of what real Catholics in this country have thought, believed, feared, and dreamed. American Catholic History makes available original documents produced in North America from the earliest missionary voyages in the sixteenth century up to the present day. The texts have been selected to illuminate the complex history, beliefs, and practices of what has become North American Roman Catholicism. They are prefaced by brief editorial introductions which provide historical and biographical context for the texts. They illuminate broad themes in the development of the tradition, from its grappling with new frontiers to its long-time status as outside mainstream culture, and from its intellectual life and political engagement to patterns of worship and spirituality. American Catholic History offers an overview of the American Catholic experience from both the “top down” of institutional and intellectual history as well as from the “bottom up” of social, devotional, women's and ethnic histories.

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9780814757468

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Reviews

This rich documentary collection thematically engages U.S. Catholicism both in the life of the nation and in the lives of everyday believers. It is a welcome single-volume reference of primary documents on American Catholicism suitable for course adoption. -Timothy Matovina,University of Notre Dame Mark Massa and Catherine Osborne have performed a great service in assembling this reader. They not only bring together seventy documents that capture the breadth and depth of the American Catholic expericen, but they also provide a useful conceptual framework for understanding them. -American Catholic Studies A unique collection of primary sources that everyone interested in the presence and contributions of Catholics in America should read. With its multidisciplinary breadth, this volume truly represents Catholic Studies. -Chester Gillis,author of Roman Catholicism in America

This rich documentary collection thematically engages U.S. Catholicism both in the life of the nation and in the lives of everyday believers. It is a welcome single-volume reference of primary documents on American Catholicism suitable for course adoption. - Timothy Matovina, University of Notre Dame

(<p> A unique collection of primary sources that everyone interested in the presence and contributions of Catholics in America should read. With its multidisciplinary breadth, this volume truly represents Catholic Studies. )-(Chester Gillis), (author of Roman Catholicism in America )

Author Information

Mark Massa is Professor of Church History and Director of the Boisi Center for Religion and American Public Life at Boston College. He is the author of The American Catholic Revolution: How the Sixties Changed the Church Forever and Catholics and American Culture: Fulton Sheen, Dorothy Day, and the Notre Dame Football Team. Catherine Osborne is Visiting Assistant Professor of Theology at Loyola Marymount University, and author of American Catholics and the Church of Tomorrow, 1925-1975

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