The Catholic Experience in America

by Joseph A. Varacalli

Greenwood Press, 2006

339 pages, $55

To order: (203) 226-3571

greenwood.com

Joseph A. Varacalli, co-founder of the Society of Catholic Social Scientists, compresses a wealth of sociological data to tell the story of Catholics in America past and present. He suggests — but does not predict — what the future may hold.

Varacalli lays out the Church’s amazing tale of growth in the United States, taking the reader from colonial days, when Catholics were just 1% of the population, to today, when Catholics make up the nation’s largest single religious group. He covers the conflicts with the predominant Protestant culture and conflicts within the Catholic Church itself. And he shows how the Second Vatican Council was a turning point for how Catholics in the United States deal with the culture and relate to the Church’s hierarchy and official teachings.

The author shows that, despite the positive gains for Catholics after the council in terms of economic advancement and social assimilation, much has been lost in terms of Catholic cohesiveness and identity. Indeed, he explains, most studies indicate that “the prospects for an authentic Catholic presence in the United States in the immediate future are extraordinarily bleak.” The enthusiasm of young people for Pope John Paul II has, he says, caused only a hopeful ripple on the surface of a pond of problems. These include an overall decline in church attendance since the 1950s and widespread dissent from Church teachings on contraception and abortion.

This volume is part of Greenwood Press’ series on “The American Religious Experience,” which also includes titles on Protestantism, Islam and Buddhism. There is little in the way of narrative here; this is not a popular history, a personal memoir or an opinion essay. It is a sociological text, complete with citations, references and 60 pages of appendices.

As the author states at the beginning, his sociological method sees the future as “open,” which means that he does not consider facts or trends of the past to determine the future. Therefore, Varacalli, who is a sociology professor at Nassau Community College in Long Island, N.Y., does not draw many conclusions. He ends most chapters by citing a study or a scholar, or by leading the reader to further study.

Of course, from the facts and data he chooses, and the general way in which he presents them, the reader can surmise that Varacalli takes a somewhat dim view of the direction of the Church since Vatican II. He presents evidence showing that, before the council, Catholics formed a vital “subculture” in which “the Catholic religion was embedded in a Catholic cultural milieu and set of institutional arrangements that surrounded the Catholic individual in his/her round of daily existence, hence constantly reinforcing and reasserting the reality and imperatives of that faith.”

What went wrong? As Varacalli points out, Msgr. John Tracy Ellis, the most influential Church historian of the 20th century, claimed that Catholics had an abysmal intellectual track record, and he pushed Catholic institutions of higher learning to adopt the methods and standards of secular universities.

On the other hand, Varacalli adds, scholars such as Msgr. George A. Kelly claimed that Catholics had a proud intellectual tradition that was winning big-name converts before Vatican II. This tradition, Msgr. Kelly claimed, was being ruined by an unthinking imitation of the secular world.

Varacalli presents both sides fairly and lets the reader draw his or her own conclusions.

Stephen Vincent writes from

Wallingford, Connecticut.