Strangers in Our Midst: Catholics in Rural America

Abstract

This chapter discusses the history of Catholics in the rural United States, which engages three narrative strands. The role of the institutional church—its schools, churches, monasteries, and hospitals—and its clergy represent perhaps the most visible strand. Then there is the story of rural Catholic people themselves: where they came from, what they did, and how their religious faith separated them from their non-Catholic rural neighbors. An often-tense relationship between the city and the country constitutes the third strand; stereotypes aside, rural America has never existed in isolation from American cities. This dynamic was especially evident in the history of rural Catholics. That history generated some of its own quintessentially “American” images: family farms, wholesome church life, the simplicity and honesty of small town life; but these images were inevitably read as anomalous when Catholics staked their proprietary claims.