Roman Catholicism in the United States: A Thematic History takes the reader beyond the traditional ways scholars have viewed and recounted the story of the Catholic Church in America. The collection covers unfamiliar topics such as anti-Catholicism, rural Catholicism, Latino Catholics, and issues related to the establishment of diplomatic relations between the Vatican and the U.S. government. The book continues with fascinating discussions on popular culture (film and literature), women religious, and the work of U.S. missionaries in other countries. The final section of the books is devoted to Catholic social teaching, tackling challenging and sometimes controversial subjects such as the relationship between African American Catholics and the Communist Party, Catholics in the civil rights movement, the abortion debate, issues of war and peace, and Vatican II and the American Catholic Church.

Roman Catholicism in the United States examines the history of U.S. Catholicism from a variety of perspectives that transcend the familiar account of the immigrant, urban parish, which served as the focus for so many American Catholics during the nineteenth and first half of the twentieth centuries.

Introduction: Writing American Catholic History, 1
Margaret M. McGuinness and James T. Fisher

Part I. Beyond the Parish

1. Ambiguous Welcome: The Protestant Response to American Catholics, 21
Patrick Allitt

2. Latino Catholics in the Southwest, 43
Timothy Matovina

3. Left Coast Catholicism: The Tradition of Dissent in the California Church, 63
Jeffrey M. Burns

4. Strangers in Our Midst: Catholics in Rural America, 86
Jeffrey Marlett

5. “An Embassy to a Golf Course?” Conundrums on the Road to the United States’ Diplomatic Representation
to the Holy See, 1784–1984, 108
Roy Domenico

Part II. Engaging the World

6. American and Catholic and Literature: What Cultural History Helps Reveal, 133
Una M. Cadegan

7. Gospel Zeal: Missionary Citizens Overseas and Armchair Missionaries at Home; American Catholic Missions in China, 1900–1989, 150
Robert E. Carbonneau, C.P.

8. Northern Settlement Houses and Southern Welfare Centers: The Sisters of Our Lady of Christian Doctrine, 1910–1971, 173
Margaret M. McGuinness

9. Pulp Catholicism: Catholics in American Popular Film, 193
Anthony Burke Smith

Part III. Prophetic Catholicism

10. American Catholic Social Thought in the Twentieth Century, 219
Christopher Shannon

11. Catholics, Communism, and African Americans, 240
Cecilia A. Moore

12. Praying in the Public Square: Catholic Piety Meets Civil Rights, War, and Abortion, 264
James P. McCartin

13. The Resurrection Project of Mexican Catholic Chicago: Spiritual Activism and Liberating Praxis, 284
Karen Mary Davalos

14. The Church and American Catholics, 304
Chester Gillis

Epilogue, 325
Jeffrey M. Burns

List of Contributors, 333