Overview

A view of urban Catholicism, The Immigrant Church focuses on the people in the pews and furnishes a comparison of Irish and German Catholic life in mid-nineteenth-century New York City. Nearly one-half of the city's population in 1865 consisted of Irish and German Catholics. Singling out three parishes (one Irish, one German, and one a mixed group of Germans and Irish), Dolan examines the role of religion in strengthening group life in these ethnic communities, traces the development of the Catholic Church in the city, and reveals the relationship between urban and church growth.

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9780268011512

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Reviews

Fascinating reading for those interested in ethnicity, immigration, Catholicism, and religion. Indeed, it will make fascinating reading for anyone interested in understanding the heterogeneous but durable American republic as it lumbers into its third century. --Journal of American History

A dry survey of ethnic Catholicism before the Civil War. The introduction by Martin P. Mart,/ promises that the book will get beyond the official tone or institutional awe of most worlds on the American Church of the period, and Dolan does remind us how poor both the parishes and their members often were - though the faithful among both Irish and German Catholics tended to be skilled or at least semi-skilled workers. He describes basement services, landlords who controlled not only housing but food, and also indicates the social-control role of the Church in stressing resignation to God's will and one's station. The conflicts between Irish and Germans are not very interesting or colorful here; Dolan does acknowledge, however, how difficult it was for non-Bing Crosby priests to rally spiritual devotion among immigrants who had been, at best, indifferent worshippers in the old country. The book also touches on various devotional emphases - especially, of course, the extraordinary cult of the Virgin Mary - and the hardships of parochial schools. Dolan's style is geared to neither historians nor general readers: along with such near-tautologies as Little Ireland was unlike Little Italy, and to a similar degree St. Patrick's was different from the Church of St. Anthony of Padua, we learn that Although German Catholics did not support the temperance movement in New York, they did not come out in favor of intemperance. Most memorable among the gray historical odds-and-ends is the Church's unsuccessful campaign against the less than sacramental institution of the Irish wake. A disappointment, on the whole. (Kirkus Reviews)

Author Information

Jay P. Dolan is professor emeritus of history at the University of Notre Dame, where he founded the Cushwa Center for the Study of American Catholicism in 1975 and was the director of the Center until 1993. He is the author of, among other books, In Search of American Catholicism (2002) and The American Catholic Experience: A History from Colonial Times to the Present (Notre Dame Press edition, 1992).

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