John Cardinal Farley and Modernism in New York

Abstract

It is now well recognized that the papal condemnation of Modernism in 1907 had a devastating effect on American Catholic intellectual life. This was particularly true in the archdiocese of New York where St. Joseph's Seminary, Dunwoodie, had been one of the leading centers of scholarly activity. Suspicion of Modernism cast a cloud over several of the professors and led to the termination of their highly-regarded journal, theNew York Review. The fate of the Dunwoodie faculty during the Modernist crisis is a story that has often been told. Less well known, however, is the effect that the condemna knowledge of the colonial situation to a larger canvas in his widely-read synoptic workAmerican Indians and Christian Missions: Studies in Cultural Conflict(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981). Clyde A. Milner II and Floyd A. O'Neil, eds.,Churchmen and the Western Indians, 1820–1920 (Norman, Okla.: University of Oklahoma Press, 1985) was a much-noticed collection of essays on interactions. At the middle of this period President Grant inaugurated new policies on church and state; these are well reviewed in Robert H. Keller, Jr.,American Protestantism and the United States Indian Policy, 1869–1882 (Lincoln, Neb.: University of Nebraska Press, 1983).