Catholic Confederates: Faith and Duty in the Civil War South by Gracjan Kraszewski

Abstract

Reviewed by: Catholic Confederates: Faith and Duty in the Civil War South by Gracjan Kraszewski Carl C. Creason (bio) Catholic Confederates: Faith and Duty in the Civil War South. By Gracjan Kraszewski. (Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 2020. Pp. ix, 196. $45.00 cloth; $37.99 ebook) In the spring of 1864, Jesuit priests at St. Charles College in Grand Coteau suspended classes to celebrate the "good news" of Confederate victories in Louisiana (p. 50). Months later, in neighboring Mississippi, federal troops arrested Bishop William Henry Elder of Natchez for refusing to offer a prayer in support of President Abraham Lincoln. And, in July 1864, Bishop Patrick Lynch of [End Page 92] Charleston arrived in Rome to meet with Pope Pius IX. The American prelate, commissioned as an official Confederate diplomat, traveled to Italy in hopes of securing papal recognition of the Confederacy. All of these events serve as examples of what historian Gracjan Kraszewski terms "Catholic Confederatization." In Catholic Confederates: Faith and Duty in the Civil War South, Kraszweski examines the nature of "Catholic commitment to and involvement in the Confederacy," demonstrating that, for the majority of white southern Catholics, religious and political identities "were not in tension; rather, they mutually reinforced each other" over the course of the Civil War (pp. xvii–xviii). Organized both chronologically and thematically, Catholic Confederates includes six chapters that examine the lives of prominent southern Catholics. Presented together, these case studies provide a representative portrait of the overall white southern Catholic experience. Chapters devoted to the wartime activities of bishops and priests as well as lay soldiers and civilians highlight the spectrum of Catholic Confederatization. Even though "almost all Southern Catholics were somehow involved in the Confederate nation," the degree and manner of Confederatization differed among Catholics for a variety of reasons (p. xix). Chaplains and soldiers remained the most "highly politicized" Catholics, donning rebel uniforms and supporting southern independence on the battlefield (p. xvii). Confederatization among members of the hierarchy, however, ranged from Bishop Lynch's overt display as an international lobbyist to Bishop Elder's position that he prayed only for a quick end to the war. As Catholic Confederates shows, southern prelates often couched their Confederate sympathies in messages advocating peace. Kraszewski's interpretations, then, call into question those religious leaders who claimed to be apolitical or neutral. And, finally, the chapter on sister-nurses focuses on a group of Catholics who participated in the Confederacy "without politicization" (p. 95). Catholic Confederates makes important contributions to the fields of Civil War religion, nineteenth-century southern Catholicism, and [End Page 93] Confederate nationalism. Kraszewski frames his study as an examination of a minority group within the newly established Confederate nation. In doing so, Catholic Confederates builds on the work of Emory Thomas, Drew Gilpin Faust, Anne Sarah Rubin, and other historians who have analyzed loyalty, identity, and citizenship in the Civil War South. Scholars of the Confederacy will benefit from Kraszewski's study of non-Protestant as well as immigrant expressions of nationalism, thereby broadening our understanding of the social makeup of the Confederacy. Historians of U.S. Catholicism, on the other hand, will appreciate Kraszewski's "Confederatization thesis," an alternative to the "Americanization thesis," which has influenced much of the historiography since the mid-twentieth century. While the Americanization thesis highlights the problems Catholics faced with assimilation, often depicting them as "others" or "outsiders," the Confederatization thesis posits that Catholics "were fully integrated members of [Confederate] society" (p. 141). As such, Kraszewski's work supports the arguments of recent publications by Andrew H. Stern, David C. R. Heisser, and Adam L. Tate, all of whom demonstrate that Catholicism thrived as an element of antebellum-southern and Confederate cultures. Throughout Catholic Confederates, Kraszewski illustrates how Catholics seemed "practically indistinguishable from Southern Protestants" (p. xxi). Differences of theology and modes of worship appear in sections about chaplains dispensing the sacraments in campgrounds and on battlefields. However, these activities are presented as examples of accepted religious diversity. In large part, Catholic inclusion in the Confederate nation crystallized because Church leaders either accepted or publicly endorsed slavery and the racial order established by the institution. Kraszewski joins a growing body of scholars who...