Catholic Position Research Articles

American Catholics: A History by Leslie Woodcock Tentler

Reviewed by: American Catholics: A History by Leslie Woodcock Tentler Michael Pasquier American Catholics: A History. By Leslie Woodcock Tentler. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2020. 416 pp. $30.00. There are many ways to tell the story of American Catholicism. And yet there are only a handful of scholars who, in recent times, have tried to craft grand narratives of American Catholic history. They include Jay Dolan, Patrick Carey, James Fisher, Chester Gillis, and James O'Toole. That's it! Enter Leslie Woodcock Tentler, Professor Emerita of History at the Catholic University of America and one of the most accomplished historians of American Catholicism in a generation. American Catholics: A History displays Tentler's knowledge and insight into the Catholic Church's position in American history from the colonial period to the present. She's guided by the obvious, but nonetheless notable fact that "[t]he United States would have been a different kind of country without its Catholic minority" (xii). What results is a book that captures the diversity of human experiences in the Catholic Church and illuminates how that diversity mapped onto American public life. Tentler divides American Catholics into five parts. She begins Part One, "On the Fringes of Empire," with a profile of Eusebio Kino, SJ, and his role as "an agent of empire" in New Spain (5). Missionary priests take center stage in Tentler's account of Spanish colonialism in North America. The same applies to her treatment of New France, usually with an eye toward Native American encounters with Catholicism. In the British colonies, Tentler tracks the impact of anti-Catholicism on the lives of English settlers in Maryland, followed by a description of Catholic involvement in the making of the United States as exemplified through the person of John Carroll. Part Two, "Growing with the Nation, 1815–1870," opens with Samuel Mazzuchelli, an Italian [End Page 97] Dominican missionary who demonstrates "that Catholic life varies in its rhythm, mood, and texture according to the environment in which a church takes root" (72). Chapters on "The Frontier Church," "An Urban Stronghold," and "Slavery and the Civil War" reinforce Tentler's attention to the peculiarities of place and the uneven development of the Catholic Church in different parts of the United States. Part Three, "A Turbulent Passage, 1871–1919," dives headlong into the "institutional growing pains" that European immigration brought to the Catholic Church in the United States (147). Irish, German, Italian, and Polish immigrants enlivened parishes and packed schools, though not without conflict, controversy, and compromise. Tentler turns to Mother Frances Xavier Cabrini, MSC, as someone who modeled the tension between ethnic and national identities among Catholics, as well as the "woman problem" that simmered beneath the surface of a religious institution so defined by clericalism (146). Part Four, "Exuberant Maturity, 1920–1962," tracks the rise of a "confident church" in the twentieth century, one that permitted a Catholic convert like John Cort to leave Harvard and follow the life of a Catholic Worker (217). Through the events of the Great Depression and World War II, Tentler notices the Catholic Church shifting "from the margins to the center" of American society, epitomized in the election of a Catholic president (267). Part Five, "A World Unbound, 1963–2015," captures the "institutional crisis" that came with the Second Vatican Council and the cultural transformations of the 1960s (301). Tentler looks to Patricia Crowley's life as a "lay pioneer" in the sexual politics of the Catholic Church for insight into the "post-subcultural world" that Catholics made for themselves in the second half of the twentieth century (289, 343). "Two milestones"—the Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1965 and Roe v. Wade in 1973—inform Tentler's characterization of the Catholic Church's "uncertain future" following the long tenure of Pope John Paul II and the ongoing consequences of the clerical sex abuse crisis (324, 327). Tentler ends American Catholics by reflecting on "the dwindling inheritance of a time when the church possessed far greater unity and spiritual élan than it does in the present" (351). Priest shortages, church closures, moral failures, demographic shifts—there is no shortage of worry at this moment in American...

Theological Perspectives on Development: Comparing Roman Catholic, ecumenical and evangelical positions

Since the middle of the 20th century, Christian churches have been involved internationally in development activities. In recent years, international agencies and national governments have recognised the role of religions in international development. This article reviews theological views on international development. For this purpose, official documents of the Roman Catholic Church, the ecumenical movement and the World Evangelical Alliance/Lausanne Movement are compared regarding concepts of development and its role in the mission of the Church and views on the world and humankind, actions and actors of development and eschatology. The study finds wide agreement in many aspects, but also some differences between the theological traditions. It discusses theological aspects that are relevant for the praxis of Christian development work and identifies issues that may need further research.

The Eucharist and the Ministerial Priesthood a Reply to Kenneth Collins and Jerry Walls

Abstract In chapters 9 and 10 of their book Roman but Not Catholic, Kenneth Collins and Jerry Walls criticize the Roman Catholic positions on the Eucharist as a sacrifice and on the ministerial priesthood. I reply to their historical and theological objections, and defend the belief that the Eucharistic sacrifice, the Mass, is a re-presentation, or making present, of Jesus’s redemptive sacrifice on Calvary, and a key component in God’s incarnational strategy for redeeming us.

American Judaism and the Second Vatican Council: The Response of the American Jewish Committee to Nostra Aetate

During the Second Vatican Council, American Jewish community members impacted the drafting of the declaration on the Catholic Church's attitude toward Jews and Judaism. This article explores the American Jewish Committee's reactions to the drafting and promulgation of the Declaration on the Relation of the Church with Non-Christian Religions (Nostra Aetate) and its contribution to establishing interfaith relations. The varied Jewish reactions to the declaration provide insight into the internal Jewish discussions regarding Nostra Aetate, revealing that even though the declaration is assessed positively today, initial Jewish reactions were not enthusiastic.

The Nineteenth Century Reception of Leibniz’s Examination of the Christian Religion

Leibniz’s lengthy theological treatise, Examen religionis christianae, has long puzzled scholars. Although a lifelong Lutheran who spurned many attempts to convert him to Catholicism, in the Examen Leibniz defends the Catholic position on a range of matters of controversy, from justification of the sinner to transubstantiation, from veneration of images to communion under both kinds. Inevitably, when finally published in 1819, the Examen quickly became the focus of a heated and sometimes ill-tempered debate about Leibniz’s true religious commitments. For many, what was at stake was not simply the interpretation of a particular text but the very soul of Leibniz, that universal genius and ornament of Europe. The aim of this paper is to chart the various ways in which the earliest readers of the Examen responded to the text and sought to understand it. Such a study will enable us not only to see the varying and quite contrasting interpretations put forward for Leibniz’s motive for writing the Examen, some of which inform contemporary interpretations, but also give us the opportunity to take a deeper look at certain features of the text and the context in which it was written.

The Memoirs of St. Peter: A New Translation of the Gospel According to Mark by Michael Pakaluk

Reviewed by: The Memoirs of St. Peter: A New Translation of the Gospel According to Mark by Michael Pakaluk David Friel Pakaluk, Michael. The Memoirs of St. Peter: A New Translation of the Gospel According to Mark. Washington, DC: Regnery Gateway, 2019. Hardcover. 256 pages. $28.99. ISBN: 9781621578345 Well known for its rough Greek, repetitious vocabulary, and sense of immediacy, the Gospel of Mark is also frequently overlooked, since so much of its text is paralleled in other Gospels. Michael Pakaluk, professor of ethics and social philosophy in the Busch School of Business at The Catholic University of America, sets out in this work to draw new attention to the merits of Mark’s Gospel. The title, drawn from Justin Martyr, reflects Pakaluk’s interpretive key, namely that the Gospel of Mark is a product of the evangelist’s friendship with Simon Peter, whose first-hand experiences with Jesus were recorded for the benefit of the Christian community in Rome. Because of the unique fruits of this collaboration between Peter and Mark, Pakaluk argues that Mark’s Gospel “seems to exercise a certain authority over the other Gospels” (xxii). Structurally, the book opens with a useful introduction, which presents an overview of the provenance of the text and the translator’s methodological approach. There follow sixteen chapters, corresponding to [End Page 246] the sixteen chapters of Mark’s Gospel, each beginning with Pakaluk’s uninterrupted translation of the text and continuing with his substantive commentary. The volume concludes with a short index. With respect to the translation, Pakaluk shows his command of biblical Greek and his familiarity with textual discrepancies and debates without weighing down his own work. His expertise makes nuances of Mark’s text accessible even to readers with no knowledge of Greek. The most distinctive feature of the translation is its careful attention to tenses, especially the characteristic Markan use of the historic present to draw readers into the narrative. Whereas Mark’s tense shifts are often “polished” out of other translations, Pakaluk retains them, often to purposeful effect. In the nested stories of the raising of Jairus’ daughter and the healing of the woman with hemorrhages (Mk 5:21–43), for example, the contrast between the aorist tense and the historic present makes the narrative both clearer and more engaging. With regard to the commentary, several aspects are noteworthy. First, against the common theory that Mark’s Christ is not fully self-aware, Pakaluk identifies many passages that show “the divinity of Christ is implicit in almost every sentence of the Gospel of Mark” (40). Second, Pakaluk takes advantage of numerous opportunities to demonstrate how later theological ideas are present in seminal form in Mark’s narrative (e.g., the sacrament of holy orders, 103; the broad meaning of “no salvation outside the Church,” 153–154; the goods of marriage, 175–176; religious life, 184; the two wills of Christ, 257–258; and the hypostatic union, 279). Third, in places where the scriptural text tends to be interpreted differently by Catholics and non-Catholics, the commentary seeks to elucidate the Catholic position (e.g., the relationship between faith and works, 30; the primacy of Peter, 56–57; the identity of the Lord’s brothers and sisters, 61 and 100; the meaning of pro multis, 189; and the significance of the Lord’s words at the Last Supper, 251–252). Fourth, with judicious moderation, Pakaluk offers explanations in several places of how Mark’s account can be “harmonized” with the Gospels of Matthew, Luke, and John (e.g., the chronology of the Transfiguration, 151–152; the Palm Sunday narrative, 197; the cursing of the fig tree, 202–203; the parable of the vineyard, 213–214; the chronology of Peter’s denial, 253–254 and 262–263; and the chronology of the crucifixion, 274). Finally, and above all, the commentary is quite evidently a distillation of many years of prayerful study and personal reflection on the part of the author, having more the character of a faith-filled testimony rooted in scholarship than a highbrow academic treatise. [End Page 247] Certain portions of the commentary read as though they have been substantially shortened through editing, a situation...

Wiara i krew. Porównanie treści religijnych w komiksach Jan Hardy. Żołnierz Wyklęty i Polski Superbohater Biały Orzeł. Kroniki konfliktu

The creators and publishers of patriotic comics pursue social and educational goals – they try to popularize the idea of the national community and solidify national values. They develop variety of means to effectively promote specific attitudes and actions. For this purpose, they use, inter alia, a religious imaginarium, often identified with national symbolism. The analysis of the content of the two most popular patriotic comics – the Biały Orzeł. Kroniki konfliktu and Jan Hardy. Żołnierz Wyklęty – shows differences in using varied religious symbols. The comics by using similar signs shape disparate universe and promote different attitudes. The origin of the superpower separates what is human and divine, at the same time determining the way of understanding the nation. The blood and faith become a medium of Polishness – to save the consistency of the nation, one must care of the proper Catholic attitude and pay attention to the cultural and ethnic heritage.

You shall bury him: burial, suicide and the development of Catholic law and theology

Whether physician-assisted dying should be legalised is a major debate in medical ethics and much has been written on it from both secular and religious perspectives. Less, however, has been...

Same-sex marriage: a defense based on foundations of natural law

Abstract Laymen in general associate natural law theories to conservative moral conceptions, like traditional marriage of a man and a woman. That makes sense when we notice Catholic Church's position about matrimony or even academic marriage conceptions as the one claimed by John Finnis. But would be possible to defend the so called “marriage equality” in natural law grounds? This paper aims to answer this question affirmatively. Departing from a critical analysis of Finnis’ natural law theory and his marriage conception, I argue that a better matrimony conception needs to be grounded on a wide vision of human sexuality, which encompasses lesbian and gay couples. Instead of procreation (which is one of the marriage points in Finnis’ conception), human experience shows that sex is not limited to breeding - it is a way people can achieve pleasure and high levels of intimacy, regardless their sexual orientation. I conclude that this way of conceptualizing human sexuality is “far more evident” than the one suggested by Finnis and is also consistent with Germain Grisez's interpretation of Aquinas’ first principle of practical reason - with which Finnis himself agrees.

How to Bring About “Peace on Earth”? Catholic "Moralities of Warfare" and Their Shifts after 1945

The paper explores how and why Catholic thinking and teaching about war changed during the second half of the 20th century. To do so, I will examine the ways in which the two world wars and the atomic bomb shaped the Catholic perception of modern warfare, outline how declarations of the Roman Catholic Church shifted the official Catholic position, and examine the impact of those changes with regard to West Germany and the United States. I conclude that, while the fundaments of Catholic "moralities of warfare" such as the just war concept, remained unchanged even after 1945, there were essential shifts in what can be said and what can be done about war and peace. These shifts exceeded general Catholic ambiguity on the topic, which had existed for many centuries. Thepaper will discuss how these shifts were linked to other fundamental developments of recent decades, such as the globalisation of the Catholic Church, the pluralisation of the religious field, and the individualisation of life style in Western countries.

La masculinidad huichol en reacomodo para el costumbre

Los estudios sobre masculinidades en poblaciones indígenas son exiguos y en el caso de los huicholes casi nulos, el objetivo del artículo es exponer cómo un grupo de familias de San José el Tesorero Mezquitic, Jalisco, en 2014 eligieron a dos mujeres para ocupar el cargo de “guías o cantadoras” de la peregrinación anual al desierto de Real de Catorce. Se trata de un estudio de caso que se contrapone a las etnografías clásicas y contemporáneas sobre la compleja jerarquía patriarcal de cargos rituales, civiles y católicos huicholes. Las adecuaciones en las asignaciones de género para proseguir con el costumbre de peregrinaje huichol, para este caso, puede significar una ventana que da cabida a nuevas relaciones de género, y que a su vez sean propulsores del inicio de cambios sociales no sólo entre hombres y mujeres sino en los referentes a lo femenino y lo masculino constituidos en su propia cosmovisión. El estudio de caso que aquí se presenta repara en esta reflexión, retomando la religión, las instituciones y las propias relaciones de género en el peregrinaje. Es a través del reacomodo de roles, que observamos un proceso de legitimación de nuevas masculinidades huicholes.

Die tirolische Legende vom „Anderl von Rinn“. Andreaskult und Wallfahrtskirche

Hippolyt Guarinoni is a key figure in the Tyrolean Anderl-cult. His anti Jewish attitude rooted in a deeply Catholic attitude very common in the baroque era. He created a Tyrolean marthyr’s cult („Anderl-cult“) following the concept of the Simon of Trient-legend. The Anderl-legend spread very fast. It was then connected to a child’s murder in Judenstein, near Innsbruck, for which Jews were made responsible. To commemorate the violent „ritual death“ of Anderl Guarinoni planned a church at the very spot of his death. The plan was realized after Guarinonis death in the 17th century. Pilgrimages, processions, songs, prayers, plays, etc. made the place famous far across the borders. These pilgrimages continued far into the 20th century thus keeping up a latent antisemitism in the population. The cult was forbidden in 1989 by Bishop Stecher.

The Vietnam War, the Church, the Christian Democratic Party and the Italian Left Catholics

Over the years of the Cold War, the conflict in Vietnam assumed the significance of a clash between two civilizations, the West and communism. Italian Catholics thus found themselves not only invoking the end of the conflict, but also expressing their evaluations on the choices made in international politics by the two superpowers. The positions assumed by the ecclesiastic Institution, the Christian Democrats and the Catholic world in Italy towards the war in Indochina were not identical: in fact, if—with a few exceptions—the ecclesiastic hierarchy was distinguished by its extreme caution, in the Catholic party different positions became manifest. It was mainly in Catholic associations, and in general amongst believers closer to the experience of the Vatican Council, that a radical sense of aversion to U.S. foreign policy developed.

"A disease of our time": The Catholic Church's condemnation and absolution of psychoanalysis (1924-1975).

The present paper is focused on the evolution of the position of the Catholic Church toward psychoanalysis. Even before Freud's The Future of an Illusion (1927), psychoanalysis was criticized by Catholic theologians. Psychoanalysis was viewed with either contempt or with indifference, but nonpsychoanalytic psychotherapy was accepted, especially for pastoral use. Freudian theory remained for most Catholics a delicate and dangerous subject for a long time. From the center to the periphery of the Vatican, Catholic positions against psychoanalysis have varied in the way that theological stances have varied. In the middle decades of the twentieth century, some Catholics changed their attitudes and even practiced psychoanalysis, challenging the interdict of the Holy Office, which prohibited psychoanalytic practice until 1961. During the Cold War, psychoanalysis progressively became more and more relevant within Catholic culture for two main reasons: changes in psychoanalytic doctrine (which began to stress sexuality to a lesser degree) and the increasing number of Catholic psychoanalysts, even among priests. Between the 1960s and the 1970s, psychoanalysis was eventually accepted and became the main topic of a famous speech by Pope Paul VI. This paper illustrates how this acceptance was a sort of unofficial endorsement of a movement that had already won acceptance within the Church. The situation was fostered by people like Maryse Choisy or Leonardo Ancona, who had advocated within the Church for a sui generis use of psychoanalysis (e.g., proposing a desexualized version of Freudian theories), despite warnings and prohibitions from the hierarchies of the Church.

Cremation and Christianity: English Anglican and Roman Catholic attitudes to cremation since 1885

Britain was the first modern European country to adopt the widespread practice of cremation, and by 2010, it took place in around three-quarters of all funerals. Although the clergy had ceased to be the exclusive custodians of funeral ritual, their views and example remained highly significant in conveying approval, or disapproval, of cremation to their religious constituencies. This article explores attitudes to cremation amongst the English Anglican and Roman Catholic leadership in the twentieth century. In the first half of the century, a number of high-profile Anglican bishops promoted cremation by both teaching and example. The Roman Catholic Church, however, remained opposed to the practice, which it equated with atheism and inhumanity. Although the Catholic position began to soften from the 1960s, it is evident that some reticence about cremation remains. The different approaches to cremation illuminate a subtle religious and cultural fault line between the two ecclesial communities which has hitherto been little explored. The article highlights the role of the Cremation Society of Great Britain in working with members of both Churches to normalise cremation.

La prensa católica argentina ante la Ley Federal de Educación (1993-1999)

The purpose of this study is to analyze the response of the Catholic Church in Argentina to the educational reform undertaken by the government of Carlos Menem in the 1990's. It offers an interpretation of the Catholic position on the basis of a review of the Catholic educational press, represented by the CONSUDEC newspaper, published by the Catholic Superior Council of Education. It highlights the general reception given to the Federal Education Law and the changes and continuities which occurred in the 1990's. It then analyzes two questions which are fundamental for understanding the link between the Church and the educational system: on the one hand, religious education, and on the other, the definition of the concept public. It likewise discusses the auspicious but critical welcome the Church gave to the reform and the limits of its political support after the educational crisis at the end of that decade.

Perils and Possibilities of Multiple Religions Belonging: Test Case in Roman Catholicism

Abstract After reviewing various forms of multiple religious belonging, the author argues for the necessity of preliminary first principles, primarily coming from a considered form of a theology of religions. While an exclusivist theology would not allow multiple belongings, forms of inclusivism, pluralism, and postmodern mutualism provide possibilities. Since Roman Catholicism takes the most typical inclusivist position and has documented authoritative magisterial texts regarding Christianity and the religious other, the author makes a test case from the official Roman Catholic position. These he uses to guide theological possibilities and limitations. Ultimately, what he argues is that the Catholic position is not completely coherent and itself weaves some pluralist and postmodern principles into its supposedly rigid inclusivist position. As a test case, it shows the problems in creating a complete and absolute paradigm regarding Christianity‘s relationship with other religions. He finally argues for a modestly faithful form of Catholic theology that allows for some forms of multiple religious belonging, but also shows how full-fledged multiple identities are fraught.

The Catholic Press, the Bible, and Protestant Responsibility for the Civil War

The Catholic Press, the Bible, and Protestant Responsibility for the Civil War Mark A. Noll (bio) In his April 3, 1865, diary entry, George Templeton Strong recorded the transcendent exultation he witnessed in New York City when news arrived that Richmond had fallen to Union forces. Strong, a prominent lawyer, founder of the U.S. Sanitary Commission, and a vestryman at Wall Street's Trinity Episcopal Church, immediately secured permission to ring the bells at Trinity in celebration. His diary entry, headed "Petersburg and Richmond! Gloria in Excelsis Deo," underscored the harmony of religious and civic sentiments that fueled the city's jubilation. A great crowd, he wrote, "a rude, many-voiced chorale," repeatedly sang "the last two lines" of the national anthem "with a massive roar." As religious ardor rose with patriotic zeal, the throng also joined in singing the "Doxology" ("Praise God from whom all blessings flow") and "Old Hundred" ("All people that on earth do dwell / Sing to the Lord with cheerful voice").1 Two days earlier, the New York Tablet had also offered a religiously inflected meditation on the end of the nation's bloody civil conflict. Yet, rather than synthesizing civic and Christian jubilation, this Catholic newspaper answered its own question, "Who Are the Loyal Citizens?" with an all-out attack on the nation's Protestants. After detailing errors of belief and practice in various Protestant churches, the Tablet closed with a denunciation that borrowed invective from northern political polemics: "Aggressive Protestantism is essentially rebellious, … its origin is the spirit of secession and revolt, … its history is but a chronicle of insurrection, and…, in short, sedition and mutiny are but fruits of the Lutheran leaven spreading under the specious name of Liberty and Independence into all the ramifications of political, social and domestic life."2 The difference between George Templeton Strong's celebration of northern victory and the Tablet's accusatory indictment reflects the contrarian stance that characterized the nation's Catholic press during the great fratricidal conflict. That stance, in turn, hints at the rapidly maturing presence of Catholics in American public life. For prominent voices within the growing Catholic population, the [End Page 355] war became an occasion for translating an inherited general indictment of Protestantism into a specific charge that the divisiveness of American Protestants imperiled what had now also become the Catholics' country. The best scholarship on Roman Catholicism and the Civil War has expertly charted the main Catholic attitudes of the era. Prominent in that scholarship has been an awareness that even as Catholics divided in their political allegiance—strongly unionist versus anti-Republican unionist versus anguished neutrality versus strongly Confederate—they remained united as a church and united as well in underlying moral convictions, especially in condemning abolitionism of whatever form. In 1945, a pioneering book by the Rev. Benjamin Blied canvassed the era's Catholic press, in which he found a general Catholic disposition in favor of states' rights, along with corresponding opposition to northern abolitionism and Protestant political preaching.3 A more comprehensive dissertation by Judith Conrad Wimmer from 1980 demonstrated that Catholics remained strongly patriotic, though with conflicting sectional loyalties, even as they regularly appealed for peace and unity against all forms of social fragmentation.4 Michael Hochgeschwender's magisterial 2006 Wahrheit, Einheit, Ordnung (Truth, Unity, Order), documented in exquisite detail the factors that sustained a strong stance against abolition before and during the war: "Catholicity, conservativism, thinking fixated on order and unity, anti-British and anti-Protestant stereotypes reinforced each other and built the intellectual context for a fundamentally anti-abolitionist imagination."5 At about the same time, a book and an essay by John McGreevy explained with unprecedented depth why a European context was necessary for understanding American developments. In his account, European conflict between liberal political reformers and a Vatican determined to uphold both its moral traditions and its territorial prerogatives explains why the Civil War spurred American Catholics "to take the offensive and … expose to the public the erroneous doctrines of Protestantism and impiety."6 Then in 2010 appeared George Rable's comprehensive study, God's Almost Chosen People, which for the first time fully incorporated Catholics into a general account of...

About this Issue

About this Issue Nicholas Rademacher, Associate Editor This issue of American Catholic Studies includes essays that nicely complement one another—a pair of pairs. Two articles address the scholarship on women religious and two address Catholic responses to poverty in the developing world and at home. The articles by Joseph G. Mannard (Indiana University of Pennsylvania) and Deirdre Raftery (University College Dublin) focus on discrete dimensions of the scholarship on women religious in the United States. Mannard examines the proliferation of communities of women religious in antebellum America. He speaks of a “convent revolution” to argue that the three decades between 1830 and 1860 can be viewed as the starting point of the growth and influence of women religious in the United States. Raftery’s article turns readers’ attention to the future of scholarship on the history of women religious. The coming “third wave” of scholarship in this field will include advanced technological methods, equipping historians with new tools and, one anticipates, fresh insights into the lives of women religious. Edward T. Brett’s (La Roche College) article on Oscar Romero and Mary Elizabeth Brown’s (Marymount Manhattan College) cover essay on archival resources pertinent to U.S. Catholic immigrant aid societies both address matters of pressing contemporary concern, namely American Catholic attitudes toward poverty in the developing world and the U.S. Catholic reception of people fleeing poverty, violence, and political oppression. Brett investigates the contrasting views of Romero held by traditional, conservative elites and those who were influenced by Vatican II’s people of God ecclesiology and the preferential option for the poor. Brown provides an overview of archival collections available at the Center for Migration Studies in New York City, including papers of the Italian Saint Raphael Society, the National Catholic Welfare Conference (NCWC), and the American Committee for Italian Migration (ACIM). Scholars can use these important collections to track the various responses of U.S. Catholics to immigration. Taken together, the articles in this issue provide readers with fresh insights into and methodological resources for the study of subjects that remain pressing contemporary concerns. [End Page i] Copyright © 2017 American Catholic Historical Society

Authoritarianism and punitive eugenics: racial hygiene and national Catholicism during Francoism, 1936-1945.

This paper examines some of the main elements that shaped eugenic discourse and practices during the first decades of the Franco regime. It primarily addresses the ideological basis of racial hygiene stemming from Francoist medicine and psychiatry, examining its relationship with the concept of Spanishness (Hispanidad). It shows that Francoist eugenics had punitive and coercive aspects and outlines the role it played in the brutal repression unleashed against the regime's political enemies, constructing its anti-Spanish identity. The paper also explores how the Catholic Church accepted eugenics as long as it was not linked to neo-Malthusianism and did not propagate sterilization, contraception, and abortion. In this respect, the paper examines the Catholic Church's position on the premarital certificate and counseling.