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PAGE 10 — The Georgia Bulletin, April 20,1989 Critical History Views Catholicism In U.S. Public Life PUBLIC CATHOLICISM by David O’Brien, Macmillan, New York, 1989, 252 pp., one in a six-volume set $160 (hard cover). REVIEWED BY CHRIS VALLEY David O’Brien, a professor of history at Holy Cross Col lege, examines from a historical perspective the dilemma “Makers of the Catholic Community,’’ a six- volume history of the Catholic Church and its people in the United States has been published under the auspices of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops to celebrate 290 years of Catholic life in America. the appointment of John Carroll as bishop of Baltimore, the first diocese in the new nation. Published by Macmillan Publishing Company, New York, the books cover many aspects of the American Catholic experience, from the pioneering efforts of in fluential bishops to the impact of women, im migrants, intellectuals, and minorities on the shape of the American expression of faith. The Knights of Columbus provided a generous grant to the NCCB for the writing and editing of this six-volume history. Christopher J. Kauffman, editor of the U.S. Catholic Historian, edited the history. The six volumes in the set, written by well-known scholars, are: Patterns of Episcopal Leadership, Im migrants and Their Church, Catholic Intellectual Life in America, American Catholic Women, Public Catholicism, and Living Stones. Public Catholicism is the subject of the accompa nying review. Other volumes will be reviewed in future issues of The Georgia Bulletin. The six volume set is priced at $160. of Catholicism as it intersects American public life. His book addresses “how Catholics thought about their respon sibilities as participants in wider communities, local, state, and national, and how they acted on their responsibilities.” Public Catholicism is one volume of a six-volume history of American Catholicism published in commemoration of the establishment of the first diocese in the United States of 1789, the Diocese of Baltimore. The series was authorized by the National Conference of Catholic Bishops and underwrit ten by the Knights of Columbus. As such, one might expect a “corporation history” which is more a public relations piece than a work of serious scholarship. Fortunately, such is not the case. O’Brien’s book is a first-rate critical treatment of various and often conflicting approaches to Church and societal relations from the colonial times to the present. O’Brien identifies seven distinct approaches which cor respond to seven historical events and trends rather than to ideological positions on Church and societal relations. These he names Republican, Immigrant, Industrial, Liberal, Reform, Social and American. What O’Brien terms “Republican Catholicism” refers to the colonial and Revolutionary period in the English col onies and the new nation. Roughly extending into the early ninteenth century, this “Republican Catholicism” em phasized what Catholics and the broader community held in common rather than what separated them. “Republican Catholicism” was, above all else, a private Catholicism which left to the State the task of dealing with temporal issues. In the first half of the nineteenth century, European im migration brought Catholics to the United States in greater numbers than ever before. These immigrants brought new needs which had to be addressed by the Church in America. “Immigrant Catholicism” emphasized the building of a distinct and separate set of institutions to help the newcomers while preserving their fidelity to the Church. Mutual aid and burial societies were formed: hospitals and orphanages opened; and, most important of all, schools were established. The Industrial Revolution, which affected all of American society in the post-Civil War period, created new tensions for Catholics. The Church was both confused and divided on how to respond to the exploitation of laborers and the appeal to violence being made by Marxist radicals. “Industrial Catholicism” eventually gave strong backing to labor unions and social reform. The late nineteenth century also saw the emergence of what O’Brien calls “Liberal Catholicism.” This approach attempted to bridge both the Republican belief about the task of building the common good and the reality of Catholic separatism which became more pronounced as the number of immigrants continued to increase. Growing out of the confluence of the Industrial Revolu tion and emerging (admittedly short-lived) Liberal Catholic thinking in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, arose what O’Brien terms “Reform Catholicism.” Catholics joined with other Americans to ad dress social ills which spawned labor disputes, slums, child labor, and militant socialism. The main problem with “Reform Catholicism” was that it was a movement essen tially of an elite. The great majority of Catholics simply were not involved. The period after World War I saw the emergence of what O’Brien calls “Social Catholicism.” This was an approach that consciously sought means to influence wider society through forming Catholic opinion on racial, economic and political issues. The post-World War II years brought a certain type of maturing to “American Catholicism.” Immigration in large numbers effectively had ceased a generation earlier The Church had been able to retain the fidelity of newcomers while not only assisting in their adjustment but also voicing their concerns to the wider community. In some senses, Catholicism had finally “arrived” as an American institution. A Catholic even was elected Presi dent of the United States. While O'Brien acknowledges these successes, he rightly points out that there is still much more to be done if American Catholics are to contribute their unique angle of vision to American society and the ongoing debate over public policy and the responsibilities of government. Public Catholicism contributes much to our understand ing and appreciation of our history as Americans within the Catholic Church and as Catholics within American society. O’Brien has provided not only a history of our peo ple, but also a perspective on what needs to be done in the future. Chris Valley is a frequent contributor to The Georgia Bulletin. Catholic Novelist Prefers To Attack Ills Of Society BY JOSEPH LAROSE NEW ORLEANS (NC) - Author Walker Percy says a Catholic novelist “has a vocation, like the priest or apostle,” but that while the priest and apostle teach “by design,” the writer does so indirectly, transmitting “a theory of the way man is or should be.” The award-winning author and convert to Catholicism made the comments in an interview with the Clarion Heald, newspaper of the New Orleans Arch diocese. Percy and his family have lived in Covington, La., across Lake Pontchartrain from New Orleans, for 40 years. “God help you if you set out to write an edifying book,” Percy said, quoting his friend Flannery O’Connor, a Catholic novelist and short-story writer who died in 1964. Percy, who considers Miss O’Connor not only a great writer but a tremendous Christian and “great lady,” said that “if you set out to write a Christian book, to edi- ty readers, you may write a good religious tract, but it will be a poor novel.” Christian-Catholic values are transmit ted in fiction because as an author “you can’t help but transmit the way you see the world,” Percy said. “The way I see the world is unlike the way the atheist does. Every writer has to have a philosophy, a theory of the way man is or should be.” About his own Catholicism, he said that once he decided to join the church, in 1947, he “simply went to a Jesuit priest and told him, ‘I want to become a Catholic.’” What his novels convey, Percy said, is first that “man is a pilgrim, a searcher.” For example, he said, in his first novel, “The Moviegoer,” which won a National Book Award in 1962, he wrote about a young man in New Orleans who “is very materialistic,” but “when things don’t work out, what develops is a search for what is missing from his life.” A second thrust is “the church’s notion of fallen nature, of a wrong order even in the best of circumstances,” Percy said. And third is “the disintegration of modern society. Things are falling apart,” he added. In his writing, Percy said, he likes “to attack something wrong with society,” and noted that Russian novelist Feodor Dostoevski had influenced him most. “Dostoevski writes about the falling apart of Western civilization. He almost predicted the rise of communism,” Percy said, adding that in his own work he likes “to do a number” on people. “Today people are happy to have others tell them what to think, to believe,” he said. “They put their faith in experts. We’ve become a society of experts on the one hand and laymen on the other.” In his latest novel, “The Thanatos Syn drome,” a best seller, Percy presented “a paradox” between use of behavior- altering drugs and a saintly old priest, regarded as an oddball, who warns against social engineering. “The priest remembered when he was in Germany after the Nazis had come to power,” Percy said. “It goes back to a fun AUTHOR AT EASE — Louisiana writer Walker Percy relaxes with his dog Luke on a comfortable porch. (NC photo by Monsignor Elmo Romagosa, courtesy of Clarion Herald.) damental philosophy carried to its ultimate conclusion. Why not get rid of the unfit?” Reading “is a great pleasure,” Percy said, adding that he is concerned by the great amount of television young people watch and how little they read. “We’ve got to get young people turned on to reading.” Computers, too, have had the effect of making academics passive, he said. “Lost is the idea of academic work; the focus is only on business,”’ he added. “The com puter is an extremely efficient mechanical tool for business, but it’s a poor model for human living.”