2012 Annual Meeting: Program Committee Report
THE NINETY-SECOND ANNUAL MEETING OF THE AMERICAN CATHOLIC HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION
REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON PROGRAM
The ninety-second annual meeting of the American Catholic Historical Association was held in conjunction with the annual meetings of the American Historical Association and affiliated societies at the Marriott Miracle Mile Downtown Chicago, Illinois, from Thursday January 5, until Sunday, January 8, 2012.
On Thursday afternoon, the annual meeting kicked off with one session comprised of five panels.
The first panel “Communities and Networks in Early Modern European Catholicism” featured papers by Dale Van Kley (Ohio State University) on “Communities in Dialogue: Utrecht Jansenists and Catholics, 1769-74,” which described the contrasting views of authority in those ecclesiastical parties; Pierpaolo Polzonetti (University of Notre Dame) on “Community of Listeners: Music as Universal Liturgical Language,” which highlighted the development of new forms of instrumental music as a means of transcending linguistic and cultural differences; and Ulrich Lehner (Marquette University) on “Communities and Crime: Monastic Prisons in the Habsburg Territories, 1770-1780,” which focused on the disciplinary system in selected male and female religious houses. Ralph Keen (University of Illinois at Chicago) chaired the session and provided the response.
In the panel titled “Reconciling Medieval Communities: Priests, People and Prostitutes” the following papers were read: Winston E. Black (University of Tennessee) “Shepherds Astray: Clerical Officers in the Later Medieval Court of Conscience;” Marc B. Cels (Athabasca University, Alberta, Canada) “’First be Reconciled’: Penitential Reconciliation of Enemies by Parochial Priests;” and Lori Woods (St. Francis University, Pennsylvania) “Disciplinary Dilemmas: Reconciling Prostitutes and Wayward Wives in Late Medieval Valencia.” Indre Cuplinskas (St. Joseph’s College at the University of Alberta, Canada) chaired the session. David M. Perry (Dominican University) provided insightful comments pointing to how the papers approached the issue of the effects of sin on community and difficulties of investigating both the theory and practice of reconciliation. This was followed by a lively discussion with the audience.
The third session of Thursday afternoon was entitled: “Latinos and US Catholicism: A Reappraisal.” The session was chaired by Malachy R. McCarthy (Claretian Missionaries Archives USA) and focused on the challenges of ministering to Latino Catholics today and in the past. Timothy Matovina’s (University of Notre Dame) paper, “Latinos and the Transformation of US Catholicism” reflected current issues. “Making Mexican Parishes: Ethnic Succession in Chicago Churches, 1947-1977” by Deborah A. Kanter (Albion College) examined the transformation of Pilsen’s ethnic churches from an Eastern European to a Spanish-speaking congregation. John J. Macias, Jr (Claremont Graduate University) presented a paper entitled “The Resurrection of San Gabriel: the Image of Mexican Catholics in the Context of the Spanish Fantasy Heritage.” presented a different challenge. The local Mexican Catholic community had to contend with California’s Protestant romanticized understanding of the state’s mission heritage with the reality of ministering to an increasing Spanish-speaking audience. A lively discussion followed.
The panel “Marian Devotion in North America” was comprised of Kathleen Sprows Cummings (Notre Dame) “An American Lourdes? The Shrine of Our Lady of the Martyrs and the Search for an American Saint, 1884-1930”; Thomas A. Tweed (University of Texas, Austin) “Contesting Protestants and Claiming America: Marian Devotion at Washington’s National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, 1919-1959”; and Joseph Laycock (Piedmont Virginia Community College) “The Pops is an Imposter! Subversive Marian Devotion in the Wake of Vatican II”, who then presented their current research on Marian devotionalism in the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries. Kristy Nabhan-Warren, chaired the session. There was an open and lively discussion of the papers as members of the audience were quite engaged.
And lastly, “Perspectives in American Catholic History” highlighted the current doctoral work of three students and these accompanied an additional presentation on the seal of confession by Patrick Carey of Marquette University. Kevin Doyle, a student at Brandeis in early American history, supplied a paper entitled “Anti-Popery on Battlefields and Streets: The Fifth of November and the Church of Rome in the Age of Revolution.” Doyle noted that the specter of anti-Catholic feeling enkindled by this day has not subsided. Re-enactment societies are active in parts of New England, particularly Rhode Island, as well as Virginia. Paul Mason, a student in historical theology at Marquette whose director is Dr. Carey, compared two important early Benedictine abbots in America—Boniface Wimmer and future Bishop Martin Marty—in a paper that underscored their contrasting approaches to the role of the monastery in America. Mason pushed the idea of “usefulness” or “utility” in attempting to understand the ecclesiology of these abbots and how their respective foundations shaped monastic life well into the twentieth century. Finally, Jacob Betz of the University of Chicago, provided a work in progress on incarcerated Catholic youth and religious freedom in America, 1865-1890. Audience questions were mediated by session chair Patrick J. Hayes of the Redemptorist Archives of the Baltimore Province.
The Executive Council also met on Thursday afternoon.
A full day of sessions began on Friday. Four panels and a Roundtable were held in the morning and four more in the afternoon, which was followed by two optional tours later in the day.
In the morning Robert E. Carbonneau, C.P. (Passionist Historical Archives) chaired a Roundtable session and the audience responsed on “Building a Catholic Archival Network.” Emilie Gagnet Leumas, (Archdiocese of New Orleans) presented on “Documenting the Catholic Experience in Louisiana,” Patricia A. Lawton (Catholic Research Resources Alliance) presented on “Building Community and Content,” Ellen D. Pierce (Maryknoll Mission Archives) presented on “The Internet Mission Photography Archive at USC: Maryknoll’s Global Collaboration to Share Visual Resources.”
The panel “Reconsidering Episcopal Leadership and Trusteeism in the U.S. Catholic Church” found Paul Lubienecki, a graduate student at Case Western Reserve University, presenting a paper on the efforts of Vincentian bishop John Timon of Buffalo to create a favorable space for Catholic life in upstate New York. He highlighted Timon’s recruitment and support of the Daughters of Charity whose hospital served all citizens of Buffalo. Stern opposition from Protestant adversaries did not daunt Timon. Professor William Galush (retired, Loyola University) presented his research on the Milwaukee-based Federation of Catholic Laymen. Founded by Polish activist Michael Kruszka, this organization mobilized lay people to demand a share in administration and direction of Polish parishes. Although he appealed to certain fundamentals of American freedom, his model was the extensive lay involvement of churches in Europe. And Dr. Patrick McNamara, archivist of the Archdiocese of New York, presented a paper outlining the early career of one of Chicago’s greatest archbishops, George William Mundelein. A priest of the Diocese of Brooklyn, the bright, ambitious and organizationally astute Mundelein rose to power in his native See. Appointed auxiliary of Brooklyn he was ceded large amounts of power by his failing Ordinary and by the time of his appointment to Chicago in 1915 was the de facto leader of this large and growing diocese. Mundelein demonstrated special talent for building big and architecturally elegant buildings. McNamara argues that Mundelein’s better known tenure in Chicago was to some extent prefigured by his earlier experience in his native Brooklyn. A lively discussion followed
The third panel of the morning found Margaret McGuinness (La Salle University) chairing “Constructing Catholic Identity in Modern America.” William Kurtz (University of Virginia) presented a paper entitled “The Making of a Catholic Hero: William S. Rosecrans and the Catholic Memory of the American Civil War,” arguing that Catholic convert and Civil War General William Rosecrans has been ignored by historians examining the place of Catholics in that conflict because they have focused primarily on the Irish experience. In “Promotion of and Devotion to the Little Flower as Window to Chicago’s Catholic Life in the 1920s,” Michael Jacobs (University of Wisconsin–Baraboo) explained how devotion to the Little Flower helped to create a shared identity among a diverse group of ethnic parishes. Again a lively discussion and question period followed the presentations.
The fourth panel on Friday morning “The Papacy between Traditionalism and Modernity: From Pius XI to Benedict XVI” was chaired by J. Casey Hammond (Singapore University of Technology and Design). Frank J. Coppa (St. John’s University) presented “The Pre-Vatican Reformism of Pius XI and Pius XII,” while Peter C. Kent (University of New Brunswick) focused on post-Conciliar popes in “John Paul II and Benedict XVI between Reform and Restoration.” Kevin Madigan (Harvard University Divinity School) served as commentator.
Friday afternoon began with a Graduate Student Roundtable titled “Mining Religious Sources: Profits and Pitfalls” chaired by Kathleen Sprows Cummings. Participating were three archivists, two librarians, and three senior scholars as well as dozen graduate students. After all present introduced themselves and described their current projects, the senior scholars and archivists present were able to make suggestions to graduate students about approaching archivists for the first time. These included: asking a senior colleague in your field to make the initial introduction, to be as clear as possible about your topic, and to recognize the fact that all archives are organized differently and that the archivist will not be approaching the collections with the same perspective or the same questions as the researchers. The problems and challenges of working with digitalized material was discussed. Participants also raised challenges particular to their individual research projects.
Three panels were held Friday afternoon. “The Popular Culture of Transatlantic Catholicism in the Twentieth Century” included the following papers: “Guy Thorne, Popular Catholicism, and Fin-de-siecle Literature” by Bethany Kilcrease (Aquinas College), “Parish Closure versus Cultural Celebration: The Basque and Hispanic Immigrant Catholic Church in Twentieth Century America” by John Bieter (Boise State University), and “No Free Pass: Representations of Catholic Guilt in Popular Culture” by Sarah Nytroe (DeSales University). James O’Toole (Boston College) chaired the session and provided some comment before extended audience discussion.
“Conciliar Catholicism in Comparison: Public Activism in the United States and Germany, 1965–85″ offered comparisons of 2 case studies of Catholicism in the immediate aftermath of the Second Vatican Council, in Germany and the U.S. Kirsten Oboth and Isabelle Nagel offered papers comparing the transformation of women religious in both countries. Jen Oboth and Danny Gibboney offered papers comparing peace movements in the two nations. Isabelle Nagel (Ruhr-University Bochum) presented a paper titled “The Transformation Process of Women Religious in the United States between the 1950s and the 1970s,” that focused on the role of the Sister Formation Conference and American norms of participatory governance in the reform process pursued by the BVM sisters of Dubuque, Iowa. Kirsten Oboth (Ruhr-University Bochum) presented “The Transformation of the Good Shepherd Sisters in Germany Between the 1950s and the 1980s” which explored how Catholic sisters in the Good Shepherd Sisters embraced a radical form of total obedience in the post-war period, even as German society and the Catholic Church were moving toward more collegial models of shared authority. Jens Oboth (Ruhr-University Bochum) presented “Coming to Terms with the Nazi Past as a Catalyst of Religious Emancipation and Transformation? The German Section of “Pax Christi,” 1948–89″ in which he traced the gradual evolution of Pax Christi in Germany from an initially devotional and Marian-centered Catholic Action movement seeking the conversion of Europe to a politically-oriented organization that criticized the complicity of German bishops in the human atrocities of the Second World War. Daniel Gibboney, (Florida State University) presented “Monasticisms of Different Flavors: Thomas Merton and Daniel Berrigan’s Engagement with Buddhism, Opposition to the Vietnam War, and the Making of the Catholic Church in Post-Vatican II America” in which he argued that both Merton and Berrigan drew from a model of monasticism and religious community as a critique of worldly realities in order to critique American action in the Vietnam War. Amy Koehlinger (Florida State University) chaired the session and offered a response that highlighted some comparative issues the papers raised, specifically the role that national organizations played (or didn’t, in the German case) in renewal process of women religious and the divergent ways that German and American Catholics responded to the challenge of living in a state that was involved in violent conflict and human rights violations.
In “Rome and American Culture from Leo XIII to John Paul II,” Cassandra L. Yacovazzi (University of Missouri) presented “The Yankee and the Pontiff: A Comparison of Samuel Clemens’ and Pope Leo XIII’s Critique of Modernity in the Late Nineteenth Century”; Peter S. Cajka (Boston College) delivered “Beyond Self-Mortification to the Politics of Human Rights: Paul VI’s 1966 Abolition of Fasting in the American Context, 1930-1985”; and Dominic Faraone (Marquette University) “Death and the Council: Vatican II and Catholic Grief in Milwaukee”; the session was chaired by Charles R. Gallagher, S.J. (Boston College), who also served as commentator. This all-graduate student panel focused on the many aspects of cross contact between Rome and United States from the nineteenth through the twentieth century. These cultural contacts range from American classical literature, to the observation of pietistic practices. All three papers dealt and one way or another with the adjustment of both practice and person to modernity. Cassandra L. Yacovazzi took the view that both Samuel Clemens through his “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court,” and Pope Leo XIII in his encyclical Rerum Novarum, took a cynical position toward modernism and the rise of technology in the West. Rather than counting this as a reaction to industrialization, the paper argued that both principals came from different paths to philosophically agree upon the larger objective. Peter S. Cajka, presenting the most provocative paper, elicited the most response. In his discussion of Lent, Cajka introduced the concept of “disembodiment” in terms of Lenten practice and effects on the body; he argued that a shift occurred prior to and after Vatican II, which allowed for this disembodiment to take place. Dominic Faraone offered a very well-researched and well-argued paper on how one diocese dealt with social and economic problems connected to funeral rites, grieving, and the economic forces connected to modern death and dying issues in Catholicism.
In addition to the various sessions and roundtables that individuals could attend during the annual conference, members were also invited to participate in two Chicago tours. Ellen Skerrett (Jane Addams Papers Project) conducted the first tour: “In the Shadow of Hull House: Catholic Church Architecture on Chicago’s Near West Side,” which was hosted by the Catholic Studies Program, University of Illinois-Chicago. This was followed by a tour of nearby St. James’s Chapel, conducted by Ralph Keen, University of Illinois-Chicago, and sponsored by the Catholic Studies Program at UIC. A reception on site concluded the event.
The annual General Business meeting was held in the late afternoon where changes to the Constitution were voted on and approved after careful and serious deliberation (see Secretary’s report).
Three sessions and a Roundtable were held on Saturday morning.
“Catholic Architecture and the Shaping of Urban America”: Catherine Osborne, “Lay Patrons of Church Architecture in 20th Century American Catholicism” [Fordham University]; Joseph C. Bigott, “Form Followed Culture: Roman Catholic Parish Architecture in Chicagoland, 1860-1935” [Purdue University Calumet]; Denis R. McNamara, “Hidden in Plain Sight: The Theological Foundations of Chicago’s Immigrant Church Architecture” [University of St. Mary of the Lake/Mundelein Seminary]; Chair and commentator: Peter W. Williams [Miami University Ohio].
“Urban Catholic Education: The Best of Times, the Worst of Times.” This session, for which Philip Gleason (professor emeritus, Notre Dame) served as chair/commentator, began with a paper delivered by Timothy Walch (director emeritus of the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library) “Praying to Saint Anthony,” in which Dr. Walch reviewed a number of initiatives undertaken to respond to the critical challenges facing Catholic educators since the 1960s. He viewed as particularly encouraging the development of the combined Nativity/Miguel-Cristo Rey network of schools, and the growth of teacher-preparation programs carried on under the aegis of the University Consortium for Catholic Education. In contrast to Walch’s broad overview of recent initiatives, Justin Poché (College of the Holy Cross) concentrated on a highly charged moment in a particular locale in “The Politics of Reconciliation in New Orleans Catholic Schools, 1962-1972” (a title different from one provided the planners of the ACHA program). Poché reviewed the problems encountered by Catholic educators in their efforts to achieve racial integration in the decade following Archbishop Rummel’s integration order of 1962. The third paper, “Re-imagining Catholic Education in Newark: The Resurrection of St. Benedict’s Prep,” was presented by Thomas A. McCabe (visiting professor, Rutgers University-Newark). As the title suggests, it was sharply focused on the experience of a single school in Newark, NJ, a city torn by social, economic, and racial upheaval. Required by exigent pressures to close for the academic year 1972-73, St. Benedict’s prep managed to re-invent itself to serve a new, nearly all-black clientele; it has since prospered as an integrated academy. In his comments, Professor Gleason noted that the three presentations moved from the national, through the regional, to the individual-school level in terms of scale. He also called attention to the interesting role played by religious communities of men in Walch’s and McCabe’s papers. The audience though small raised a number of questions and a lively discussion ensued.
Dr. Shawn Peters (University of Wisconsin, Madison) responded to two papers for the panel titled “Issues and Outcomes Surrounding the Second Vatican Council.” These were supplied by Rosalie G. Riegle (Saginaw Valley State University) and Nicholas Rademacher (Cabrini College). Dr. Riegle’s work centered on oral testimonies of several dozen Catholic Workers, the results of which form part of two forthcoming books that will emerge in 2012. The paper was a foretaste of these volumes, as was the response of Peters, whose own book on the Catonsville Nine is under contract with Oxford University Press. Peters, a native of Catonsville, Maryland, felt that a more balanced historiographical study was required to place the trial that took place in Catonsville into a broader cultural and religious context. Dr. Rademacher is also interested in the social activism of Catholics and one in particular was the focus of his contribution. He examined the life of Catherine de Hueck Doherty as she moved from the slums of Chicago to her spiritual retreat in Combermere, Ontario, Canada. For this work, he mined both American and Canadian archives and built his paper on unpublished letters between Doherty and her spiritual director, Fr. Paul Hanley Furfey of The Catholic University of America. Patrick J. Hayes (Redemptorist Archives of the Baltimore Province) moderated this session.
Matthew Cressler, Ph.D. candidate at Northwestern University and the 2011 John Tracy Ellis Outstanding Dissertation recipient, chaired “Scandal, Resistance, and Practice: A Roundtable on John Seitz’s No Closure (2011)”. Participants included Brian J. Clites (Ph.D. Candidate, Department of Religious Studies, Northwestern University), who discussed the relationship between the clergy sex abuse crisis and the crisis of parish closures in contemporary American Catholic life. John T. McGreevy (University of Notre Dame) discussed the relationship between the parish as a pivotal institution in American Catholic history and notions of Catholic modernity. Kristy Nabhan-Warren (Augustana College, Rock Island, IL) discussed the use of ethnographic and ethno-historical methods in the study of American Catholicism. And John Seitz (Fordham University) responded to the three commentators and discussed new avenues for further research of 21st century American Catholic life.
At Presidential luncheon convened at 12noon with President Thomas F.X. Noble, University of Notre Dame, presiding. Sixty-four members and guests were in attendance. Cardinal Francis George, archbishop of Chicago, welcomed the members of the Association to Chicago and offered the blessing. Several awards were presented during the affair (for details regarding the recipients, see the Awards section of this report). Following the luncheon, Professor Larissa J. Taylor, Colby College and ACHA president in 2011, delivered her presidential address, “Joan of Arc, The Church and The Papacy, 1429-1920.”
Saturday afternoon had one session with four panels. Panel one titled “Protestant Catholicity: The Hidden Reformation of American Christian Communities” was chaired by James Hudnut-Beumler (Vanderbilt University). Papers by Thomas F. Rzeznik (Seton Hall University) on “The Measure of Faith: Religious Communities and the Culture of Assessment in Early Twentieth-Century Church Surveys,” Mark Thomas Edwards (Spring Arbor University) on “A Higher Form of Collectivism: The Rise of Evangelical Catholicism,” and David R. Bains (Samford University) on “Where Rome is Right: Shaping a Protestant Catholicism Through Worship” were commented upon by Elesha Coffman (Princeton University) and Laura R. Olson (Clemson University).
Second panel of the afternoon: “Depictions of Catholic Life on the Silver Screen: From Italy to Hollywood”: Anthony Smith (University of Dayton) “Manhattan Citta Aperta: Neo-Realism, Catholicism & Postwar American Cinema”; Thomas Aiello (Valdosta State Universty) “The Paranoid and the Damned: Ira Levine’s Rosemary’s Baby and the Changing Religious Culture of the 1960s”; Debra Campbell (Colby College) Sisters Have At It: Women Religious React to The Nun’s Story.” Chair and commentator: Bren Murphy (Loyola Chicago).
The third panel of the afternoon, “Catholicism in the City of the Big Shoulders” was chaired by Steve Rosswurm (Lake Forest College) with Dominic A. Pacyga, “The Hardscrabble Roots of The Daley Machine: Bridgeport and the Rise of Richard J. Daley,” (Columbia College), Charles H. Shanabruch, “Edward Marciniak: Secular Christian Service,” (St Xavier University), and Timothy B. Neary, “The People’s Bishop: Bernard J. Sheil of Chicago” (Salve Regina University), presenting. The commentator was Steve Rosswurm, (Lake Forest College).
And the last panel of the afternoon, “Presidential Policy and the Catholic Church in America from Jimmy Carter to George H.W. Bush” was chaired by Timothy Walch, Emeritus, Herbert Hoover Presidential Library, in which all three panelists delivered substantive papers on the growing influence and role of Catholicism in American political life in the decades after World War II. Of particular note was the discussion of the challenges faced by Presidents Carter and Bush in eliciting support for their programs from the leadership on the American Catholic establishment. These findings were presented by Kevin Schultz, “William F. Buckley, Jr. and the Catholic Accommodation to Free Market Capitalism,” (University of Illinois at Chicago); J. Brooks Flippen, “Catholicism and the Politics of Family during the Carter Administration,” (Southeastern Oklahoma State University); and Lawrence J. McAndrews, “Success and Setbacks of American Catholics during the Bush Administration,” (St Norbert College).
The annual Mass for the deceased members of the Association was held on Saturday evening with Bishop Joseph N. Perry, auxiliary bishop of Chicago, presiding. As was the case last year, the liturgy was well attended. Following Mass, a Social was held for members of the Association.
Sunday’s first sessions began at 8:30am with four panels. “Franciscan Pioneers and Prophets in the United States.” Jeffrey M. Burns (Academy of American Franciscan History) “Prophetic Franciscans in California, 1795-1970”; Lawrence Jagdfeld, O.F.M., (Sacred Heart Province) “Challenges to and Accommodations by Pioneer Friars of the Sacred Heart Province; James A. Gutowski (Gilmour Academy) “Hyacinth Epp, O.F.M. Cap., Pioneer and Prophet in Pennsylvania.” Chair: Jack Clark Robinson, O.F.M. (Oblate School of Theology); and commentator: Daniel Dwyer, O.F.M. (Siena College).
“Catholic Response to Modernity,” Thomas Albert Howard (Gordon College), “Ignaz von Dollinger on the Eve of Vatican I,” K. Aaron Van Oosterhout (Michigan State University), “The Church under Siege: Popular Conservatism and Defense of Religion in the Mexican Reform Period, 1858-1867,” Indre Cuplinskas, “Theological Sources for the Spirituality of Specialized Catholic Action in Quebec, 1930s and 1940s, Thomas F.X. Noble (University of Notre Dame and ACHA president) commented, and R. Bentley Anderson, S.J., (Fordham University and ACHA Executive Secretary-Treasurer) served as chair of the panel.
The panel titled “Martin Luther in His Catholic Context: Some New Research,” found David Luy (Marquette University), discussing “Martin Luther on the Metaphysics of the Incarnation: Medieval or Modern?”, Christopher Samuel (Marquette University), “Heavenly Princes and Superior Servants: Angels in the Sermons of Martin Luther,” and Charles L. Cortright (Wisconsin Lutheran College), “Medieval and Catholic Continuities in Martin Luther’s Understanding of the Human Body.” The panel was chaired by Brad Gregory, and the commentator was Ron Rittgers (Valparaiso University).
“Looking at the Face of European Catholicism with North American Eyes,” the third panel of the morning, found Charles Keenan (Northwestern University) focusing on the dimensions of ecclesiastical reform by a faction of cardinals in the sixteenth century in “Right to Reform: Cardinals, Popes, and the Schismatic Council of Pisa, 1511.” Next, Sean Phillips (University of Notre Dame) presented “‘But Sin Maketh Nations Miserable’: Usury, Catholicism, and the Political Economy in Early Nineteenth-Century France.” This was followed by J. Casey Hammond (University of Pennsylvania) who presented “‘The Need for a Body that Strengthens our Vocation’: An Episode of Laity Seeking Lives of Perfection in Fascist Italy,” which explored the intensely spiritual, but apolitical, activities of the Pio Sodalizio dei Missionari della Regalità di Cristo. Finally, Sarah Shortall (Harvard University) presented “Dueling Modernisms: Henri de Lubac and the Interwar Critique of Neo-Thomism.” Barton Price (Grand Valley State University) chaired. The panel entertained a lively discussion, which focused focusing on the panel’s theme of viewing European history with North American interpretations.
The second and final session of the conference had three panels of interest. First, “The American Catholic Church and the ‘Problem’ of Immigration in the Twentieth Century,” had three presenters: Grainne McEvoy (Boston College) “A ‘Constructive Immigration Policy: American Catholic Social Critics and Immigration Restriction, 1916-1929″; Maggie Elmore (University of California Berkeley) “Segregating Sacred Space: Mexican American Catholicism in Northwest Texas, 1924-1936″; and Todd Scribner (Catholic University of America) “Not Because They are Catholic, but Because We are Catholic: The Bishops’ Engagement with Immigration in Twentieth-Century America”; Maddalena Marinari (St. Bonaventure University) served as chair and commentator.
The penultimate panel, “De-centering Old Stories: Where Was North American Catholicism Born?”, was comprised of Guillaume Teasdale, of the University of Ottawa, speaking on “Trans-Atlantic and Cross-Border Catholicism: the French Parishes of the Detroit River Region before the 1830s”; Eric Desautels, of Concordia University, Montreal, speaking on “Keeping in Touch with National Heroes: the French Canadian Missionaries, Their Journals, and the Deconfessionalization Process, 1920-80″; Catherine O’Donnell, of Arizona State University, speaking on “Loretto, Pensylvannia as an Experimental Catholic Community”; and Tangi Villerbu, of the University of La Rochelle, speaking on “Vincennes, 1804-1823: ‘Marguilliers’ French Missionaries, and the New Nation.” Kent Wright, of Arizona State University, provided commentary, noting that the panel papers complemented each other very well as they presented the French, Russian, Spanish, and Old-World Europeans in general, contributions to the development of Catholicism in North American. A lively question-and-answer period followed. As Tangi Villerbu remarked, this may have been the most “French” session at the ACHA, given the participation of three native speakers of French and two other fellow travelers.
And finally, panelists of “Tensions within the North American Church,” presented local, regional, national, and international case studies that focused on tensions facing the church in the twentieth century. From the University of New Orleans, Alvah H. Green, III, focused on the issue of parish closings in post-Katrina New Orleans in “Fighting Spirit: New Orleans’ St. Henry’s 160-Year Long Effort to Survive, 1856-2007.” Seth Smith, The Catholic University of America, “Implementing Vatican II Outside of the ‘Ghetto’: A Comparison of Two Isolated, Southern Parishes,” took a regional approach to conflict within American Roman Catholicism in the post-Conciliar era. In “Sectarian or Sanctifying: John Hugo and the Historiography of Catholic Radicalism,” Benjamin Peters from St. Joseph College, Connecticut, delved into the conundrum of prophetic witness within a triumphant ecclesiology. And Peter E. Baltutis, St. Michael’s College (University of Toronto) and Presidential Travel Grant recipient, pursued dual approaches to the question of charity and justice within the Canadian context in “Creative Tension between the Laity and the Institutional Church: Development and Peace, Cardinal Carter of Toronto, and the ‘1982 Funding Crisis’.” While R. Bentley Anderson, S.J., chaired the session, the audience provided a lively exchange with the panelists, serving as the commentator.
This was one of the largest annual meetings in terms of panels, papers and participants. Over 150 individuals registered for the conference; 90 papers were presented; 30 panels were organized. A special word of thanks is due to both Ellen Skerrett and Malachy McCarthy, who served as co-chairs of the Program Committee. Their tireless efforts ensured that Annual Conference XCII was a success.
The next meeting of the ACHA will be held in New Orleans for the spring gathering, March 22-25, 2012, on the campuses of Loyola University and Tulane University. The Association will return to New Orleans in January 2013 for the Ninety-third annual meeting.
R. Bentley Anderson, S.J,
Executive Secretary-Treasurer
Report of the Committee on Nominations
At the General Meeting of the Association, Kathleen Sprows Cummings, chair of the Nominating Committee, reported and certified that the following individuals had been elected to office this past Fall. To the office of the vice president: Margaret McGuinness, La Salle University; to the Executive Council, the following three individuals were elected: Charles R. Gallagher, S.J., Boston College (to serve the unexpired term of R. Bentley Anderson, S.J., Fordham University) for the term 2011-2014; Suzanne Brown-Fleming, Holocaust Museum, Washington, D.C., for the term 2012-2015; and Leigh Anne Craig, Virginia Commonwealth University, for the term 2012-2015. And for a position on the Committee on Nominations, Una Cadegan, University of Dayton.
Kathleen Sprows Cummings, chair
University of Notre Dame
Report of the Committee for Distinguished Award Recipients
Presented at the Presidential Luncheon on Saturday, January 7, 2012.
John O’Malley, university professor at Georgetown University, was this year’s recipient of the ACHA Distinguished Achievement Award for Scholarship for his sustained contribution to our understanding of Catholic history. This award was given not for any single piece of scholarship, rather it was awarded for a sustained series of works that John had produced that had animated and influenced the discipline and those who follow it. As one who nominated him stated, “John’s scholarship represents a tremendous service to the Catholic Church. He has taught those within and without to see it not as a timeless monolith, but as a vast and dynamic community whose changes and continuities deserve consideration and respect. His scholarship demonstrates his abiding commitment to the Church.” John O’Malley has toiled in the field of Catholic history for more than forty years, producing such seminal works as The First Jesuits and What Happened At Vatican II. But just as important, he has given of his time to help form generations of new scholars, interested in the dynamic nature of Christianity. Stated one of his former students, John “is not simply a great scholar…more important, [he is] a great friend of scholars.”
Anglyn Dries, O.S.F., professor emerita, Saint Louis University, received the ACHA’s Distinguished Teaching Award for an outstanding career as teacher, mentor, and friend to numerous young scholars. Angie was recognized for her commitment to educating and developing not just the mind but also the spirit of her students. In doing so, she has modeled what a true teacher is: instructor, guide, inspiration. As a scholar and teacher of American Missiology, Angie has challenged her students to envision U.S. Catholicism from various perspectives, including cross-cultural experiences in the eyes of women, the poor, and the migrant. In doing so, she has exposed young scholars to new ways of understanding the Christian world, and, more importantly, she has trained the next generation of teachers to think beyond the conventional. As one of her students wrote, “She has treated me with the utmost respect, in many ways like the very figures that she studies, as persons with multifaceted lives whose value can surface in unexpected ways. Angelyn has an inestimable gift for connecting people and looking positively toward future possibilities that will remain a permanent legacy among her students.”
John (Jac) Treanor, archivist for the archdiocese of Chicago, was this year’s “Service to Catholic Studies” award recipient for his contribution to the promotion of Catholic Studies beyond the arena of the classroom or publishing field. For some three decades, Jac has been a national leader in the professionalization of church archives in the United States. One of the founders and officers of the Association of Catholic Diocesan Archivists, Treanor has provided critical leadership and guidance to many dioceses and religious orders in the United States seeking to upgrade and improve the quality and accessibility of church archives. He is an archivists’s archivist. As the Chancellor of the Archdiocese of Chicago has noted, “Jac is an outstanding advocate for an understanding of Church history and records as the footprints of the Holy Spirit, demonstrating sacred interventions in this local church to those who would see….The Archdiocese of Chicago is privileged to have such a talented and committed leader as Jac Treanor.”
Larissa J. Taylor, chair
Colby College
Report of the Committee for the John Gilmary Shea Prize
Ulrich L. Lehner received the John Gilmary Shea book prize for his monograph “Enlightened Monks: The German Benedictines, 1740-1803″ (Oxford University Press). Dr. Lehner’s remarkable book adopts the notion of an eighteenth-century religious enlightenment to argue that a large number of German Benedictines in southern and Middle Germany (as well as Austria and Switzerland) responded to the unprecedented challenges of the period by promoting enlightened thought and attitudes which steered between the extremes of secularism and reactionary Catholicism. The book demonstrates in surprising new ways how eighteenth-century Benedictines of the Catholic Enlightenment engaged with all branches of contemporary academic study while simultaneously accommodating the monastic life to modernizing trends in European society. Engagingly written, deeply researched, and seriously engaged with current research, Lehner’s work demonstrates that the Enlightenment was far more than a secular movement pitted against an obscurantist religious outlook. It was, rather, a multi-faceted trend to reconcile science and reason with matters of faith. Enlightened Monks illustrates how, paradoxically, an institution known most as a relic of the medieval past actually stood on the front lines of this endeavor.
Katherine L. Jansen, Chair
Howard R. Marraro Prize
Stefania Tutino has garnered the Howard R. Marraro book prize for Empire of Souls: Robert Bellarmine and the Christian Commonwealth (Oxford University Press). In this meticulously researched volume, Tutino rescues the Jesuit saint and cardinal Robert Bellarmine from the box in which he has been placed – censor, inquisitor, opponent of Galileo – and sets him in the context of a confessionalized Europe of developing temporal states over which, according to Bellarmine’s theory of potestas indirecta (“indirect power”), the church exercises spiritual hegemony — thus empowering the pope, as emperor of souls, to intervene at will.
Sharon Strocchia , chair
Emory University
The Report of the John Tracy Ellis prize
Matthew Cressler received the John Tracy Ellis prize for best dissertation written in 2011: “To Be Black and Catholic: African American Catholics in Chicago from Postwar Migrations to Black Power.” The committee was especially impressed by the richness of his topic, blending a Chicago-based micro-history with a reevaluation of African-American Catholicism. The also applauded the clarity of his research presentation, which impressively conveyed its vitality.
Lezlie Knox, chair
Marquette University
The Peter Guilday Prize
The Peter Guilday Prize for 2011 goes to Helena Dawes for her article “The Catholic Church and the Woman Question: Catholic Feminism in Italy in the Early 1900s” that appeared in the July issue (XCII, no. 3, pp. 484-526). Based on an extensive use of relevant secondary literature that places the issue in the context of Italian politics and culture and on a close reading of the contemporary newspapers and journals, but especially of the collection of personal papers of Adelaide Coari (1881-1966) housed at the Fondazione per le Scienze Religiose Giovanni XXIII in Bologna, Dawes’ study tells the fascinating story of an emerging Catholic feminist movement that was crushed by an alliance of upper class Catholic women with ecclesiastical authorities fearful of possible modernist influences.
The principal antagonists of the story are the school teacher turned secretary and then editor, Adelaide Coari, and her protector and patron Giacomo Maria Radini Tedeschi, the social activist bishop of Bergamo (1904-14), who advocated more rights for women to re-Christianize Italian society. They were opposed by the Veronese contessa Elena da Persico (1869-1948) and Pius X (1903-14) who held traditional Augustinian and Thomistic views of women as misbegotten males with flawed rational faculties whose primary role was to propagate and care for children and to serve men. When the contessa da Persico and her ally the priest Francesco Mariani forced the resignation of the progressive Maria Baldo Maggioni as editor of the periodical L’azione muliebre, Coari left the journal where she had served as secretary and founded a new journal Pensiero e azione.
From 1904 to 1908 this journal became the mouthpiece of middle and working class Catholic women and the organ of the Milanese branch of the Christian Democracy movement. It backed workers’ rights and women’s suffrage and entered into dialogue with secular feminists. Against the advice of Pius X, Coari attended the First National Congress of Italian Women meeting in Rome in April of 1908. When her motion to promote instruction in Catholicism in primary schools was voted down, the congress “unanimously” voted for religious neutrality in primary schools. Conservative Catholics launched a campaign against Pensiero e azione as a “nest of heretics” infected with modernist ideas. Despite his earlier support for the periodical, Andrea Carlo Ferrari, the archbishop of Milan (1894-1921) who was accused of modernist tendencies, was pressured to suppress the periodical in July of 1908.
With balance and objectivity, Dawes documents the efforts of Baldo and Coari to promote their cause without rousing the ire of conservatives and reveals the strategies used by their opponents to suppress their efforts to obtain for women better employment, educational, social, and legal rights. As such, this article is a significant contribution to the literature on Catholicism in Italy at the beginning of the last century and merits the Peter Guilday Prize of the American Catholic Historical Association.
Nelson H. Minnich, Editor
Robert Trisco, Acting Editor
