Notes and Comments

The Spring Meeting of the American Catholic Historical Association

The 2005 spring meeting of the American Catholic Historical Association convened on the afternoon of Friday, April 22, at the University of Dayton, Dayton, Ohio, under the sponsorship of the Departments of History and Religious Studies. Members of the Program Committee included Julius A. Amin (Chairperson, Department of History), Una M. Cadegan (Department of History), Cecilia Moore (Department of Religious Studies), William Portier (Department of Religious Studies), William V. Trollinger, Jr. (Department of History), and Sandra Yocum Mize (Chairperson, Department of Religious Studies).

Session I on Friday afternoon included three sessions. The first, with Terrence W. Tilley of UD's Department of Religious Studies as chair and commentator, showcased "Recent Work in the University of Dayton's Doctoral Program in the Theology of the U.S. Catholic Experience." Presenters included Damian Costello, whose paper, "Black Elk: Colonialism and Lakota Catholicism," examined the implications of Black Elk's conversion and challenged the assumptions that many scholars and popular culture use to dismiss the significance of his Catholic life. Joseph H. Jacobs presented "When George Met Maude," which investigated the personal and intellectual relationship between Maude Petre and George Tyrrell as part of a larger project arguing for the importance of Petre's role in the Modernist controversy. The third presenter was Satish Joseph, who argued in "The Changing Face of Fundamentalism: An American and Catholic Perspective," that not all traditionalist, conservative, or orthodox movements (including some forms of contemporary conservative Catholicism) can be identified as fundamentalist, thus reserving the term for movements of a particular kind.

The second panel on Friday afternoon, on "Formation and Transmission," was chaired by David Darrow, of UD's Department of History and included as its first presentation Carole Boris MacClennan's (University of Dayton) "'Kto Ty Jestes?' The Polish Parish as Preserver and Transmitter of Polish Identity." The second presenter was John J. O'Brien, C.P., of Blessed John XXIII National Seminary, on "Catechizing Working Class Catholics in Depression-era America," examining twenty-three pamphlets produced by the Social Action Department of the National Catholic Welfare Conference in co-operation with Paulist Press in the late 1930's and early 1940's. Owen Phelan of the University of Notre Dame completed the panel, arguing in "Christian Initiation in the Early Middle Ages: Extending Christian Formation beyond Baptism" that the writings of two mid-ninth-century authors (Jonas, bishop of Orleans, and Dhuoda, a laywoman and wife of the duke of Septimania) show that the Carolingian Renewal was dynamic and open to innovation and not simply recovery of the past, using the example of an important evolution in the idea of Christian formation through the sacrament of baptism.

The third panel in the meeting's first session consisted of presentations of undergraduate research in Catholic history. Proposed by Sister Madeleine Grace, C.V.I., of the University of St. Thomas, Houston, the panel was chaired by Nikki Coffey Tousley, a University of Dayton doctoral student, and included two presentations by students of Sister Madeleine Grace. Taylor Fayle presented "Iconoclasm in the Eighth Century: Leo III, John of Damascus, and Constantine V," and Nicholas James Ryan presented "Pelagius the Gnostic: An Assault on the Foundations of Original Sin and Natural Law." The third presenter in this session was University of Dayton student Catharine Gamble, who presented "The Decline of the Catholic Church in Cuba after the Cuban Revolution."

The afternoon continued with a social sponsored by the President of the University of Dayton, Dr. Daniel Curran; the Vice President for Educational Affairs and Provost, Dr. Fred Pestello, and the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, Dr. Mary Morton. During the social, with the gracious co-operation of Father Tom Thompson, S.M., Dr. Nicoletta Hary, and Father Paul Vieson, S.M., and members of their staffs, we were able to make available tours of the University's Marian Library, the U.S. Catholic Collection, and the Marianist Archives, all housed in Roesch Library.

The evening concluded...