A Concise History of Christianity in Canada ed. by Terrence Murphy and Roberto Perin

Abstract

534BOOK REVIEWS homes? And what about the traditional religious communities which have been experiencing steady growth in recent years? The Legionaries of Christ and the Daughters of St. Paul would be logical choices.These drawbacks notwithstanding ,Weaver and Appleby have made a very good start.This is a detaUed and fairminded overview of conservative CathoUcism which should be of interest to anyone concerned with post-concUiarAmerican CathoUcism. John E Qulnn Salve Regina University Newport, Rhode Island Canadian A Concise History ofChristianity in Canada. Edited byTerrence Murphy and Roberto Perin. (New York: Oxford University Press. 1996. Pp. xU, 456. $27.95 paperback.) Since the trilogy ofA History ofthe Christian Church in Canada byWalsh, Moir, and Grant was pubUshed in the early 1970's, the speciaUzation of Canadian history has produced new and more accurate methods of gathering information and deepening our understanding of the more sensitive issues of history. Fields such as gender, Native, reUgious devotion, and popular history have opened up whole new horizons which had been hidden or forgotten. Under the editorial leadership ofTerrence Murphy and Roberto Perin, Oxford University Press has pubUshed a new history of Canadian Christianity. Its emphasis is centered on the people's beUefs and practices in an effort to move away from institutional history.The five historians mobilized to write the lengthy sections of this substantial volume are skUled methodologists in researching and writing contemporary history. For instance, the American CathoUc Historical Association m 1995 bestowed its John Gilmary Shea Award on one of the authors, Brian Clarke, for his Piety and Nationalism: Lay Voluntary Associations and the Creation of an Irish-Catholic Community in Toronto, 1850-1895. And so the other authors are equaUy weU respected and weU pubUshed in their fields. Five essays averaging seventy pages each are carefully researched and skiUfuUywritten .The authors demonstrate that five researchers writing an historical synthesis are more powerful in skills and thoroughness than Individual researchers . Each of these speciaUsts has unique insights to share into the "fundamental turning-points" of Canadian church history. Although a bibUography is not compüed at the end of the volume, the endnotes of each section provide a record of the latest research on each topic. If this is the upside of the volume, the downside is that there is a wrench as one finishes one essay and goes on to the next. By means of the preface and epUogue, Murphy works to draw the volume Into structural unity and raise questions about the future of Christianity in Canada. In the first essay,Terry Crowley treats the French colonization tul its BOOK REVIEWS535 cessation at the British Conquest in Canada in 1763. He documents the rise of seventeenth-century baroque spirituaUty with a cast of colorful characters, such as John de Brébeuf, Marguerite Bourgeoys, Marie de l'Incarnation, and Kateri Tekakwitha. He misses, however, some outstanding Native Christians such as Joseph ChUiwatenha and LouisTaondechoren. Proceeding to the eighteenth century, Crowley reveals the creeping Influence of secularism and the superficiality to which religious practices had degenerated.With a dearth ofvocations and lack of funding, one of the few bright spots on the Canadian horizon was the founding of the Grey Nuns in Montreal by Marguerite d'Youvüle. Analyzing the period after the Conquest, Gules Chaussé focuses on the alienation which developed between the Church and the Québécois between 1791 and 1840. He refers to this period as the "hibernation" of the Canadian church, a period when it sidled up to the British government aUowüig the "new lay élite" in the Legislative Assembly to lead the Canadian community. Church officials at the time faUed to show sympathy for the pUght of an oppressed people. The breach between the upper clergy and faithful was later restored by the ultramontane renewal beginning in 1840. Murphy reviews the period from the founding of Scottish and Irish communities in the Atlantic region and Upper Canada to the disestabUshment oftheAngUcan Church in 1854.The assertion of the rights of the Protestant evangeUcals, the Church of Scotland, and the Catholics brought an end to the privUeges of the AngUcan Church. These changes and the emergence ofvoluntarism, however, did not fracture the traditional harmony...