Kinds of Catholics

I had to send the cover design of the book back to the publishers. They had printed the title as “The Catholic Moment.” The italicized definite article would be presumptuous, as though this were the definitive, make -or-break, do-or-die moment for Roman Catholicism. That community of faith has been around for a while and, come what may, will doubtless survive this moment as well. The question posed by “The Catholic Moment” is whether the Roman Catholic Church will play the culture-transforming role for which it is now singularly positioned in America and the world.

It certainly is not going to do that if Jay P. Dolan is right. Dolan is an historian at Notre Dame and has written a very big book titled The American Catholic Experience. There is little risk of doing the book an injustice by summarizing its argument in two propositions: 1) The American Catholic experience is, all in all, a success story. 2) The evidence of success is that Catholics have become like everybody else in America. Oddly enough, and perhaps unconsciously, Dolan accepts as his premise the thesis of rabid anti-Catholics like the late Paul Blanshard, who contended that the issue is whether one could be both a loyal Roman Catholic and a real American.

RJ

About the Author

Richard John Neuhaus

Featured Tags

I had to send the cover design of the book back to the publishers. They had printed the title as “The Catholic Moment.” The italicized definite article would be presumptuous, as though this were the definitive, make -or-break, do-or-die moment for Roman Catholicism. That community of faith has been around for a while and, come what may, will doubtless survive this moment as well. The question posed by “The Catholic Moment” is whether the Roman Catholic Church will play the culture-transforming role for which it is now singularly positioned in America and the world.

It certainly is not going to do that if Jay P. Dolan is right. Dolan is an historian at Notre Dame and has written a very big book titled The American Catholic Experience. There is little risk of doing the book an injustice by summarizing its argument in two propositions: 1) The American Catholic experience is, all in all, a success story. 2) The evidence of success is that Catholics have become like everybody else in America. Oddly enough, and perhaps unconsciously, Dolan accepts as his premise the thesis of rabid anti-Catholics like the late Paul Blanshard, who contended that the issue is whether one could be both a loyal Roman Catholic and a real American.