The Search for an American Catholicism

JAY P. DOLAN President of the American Catholic Historical Association 1995 The Catholic Historical Review VOL. LXXXII APRIL, 1996 Ñ072 THE SEARCH FOR AN AMERICAN CATHOLICISM BY Jay P. Dolan* Vetera novis augere etperficere From the very first moment Europeans set foot on America's shores they have sought to adapt their culture and customs to the environment of the New World. This was very evident in the area of religion. For more than one hundred and fifty years Jews in America had to learn how to survive without a rabbi to lead them in prayer. This meant that throughout the colonial period lay men became the dominant religious leaders in the local synagogue. In Virginia the first English settlers wanted to fashion a church that would be in conformity with the Church of England "as neere as may be." Since no bishop was willing to settle in Virginia, this pioneer generation was forced to establish "an Episcopal church without bishops."1 Because of this situation lay vestrymen took control of church affairs. The first generation of Catholic settlers in Maryland had to learn how to govern a colony in which Protestants outnumbered Catholics. For Cecil Calvert, the founder of *Mr. Dolan is a professor ofhistory in the University of Notre Dame. He read this paper as his presidential address at a luncheon held in the Atlanta Hilton Hotel on Saturday,January 6, 1996,during the seventy-sixth annual meeting ofthe American Catholic Historical Association. He wishes to thank Martin Marty, Walter Nugent, Scott Appleby, John McGreevy , and Kathleen Sprows for their helpful comments on an earlier draft of this address . The Latin epigraph may be translated,"To enlarge and enrich the old with the new." 'William H. Seiler, "The Anglican Parish in Virginia," in James Morton Smith (ed.), Seventeenth Century America: Essays in Colonial History (Chapel Hill, North Carolina, 1959), p. 123, and DanielJ. Boorstin, TheAmericans: The Colonial Experience (NewYork, 1958), p. 123. 169 170 THE SEARCH FOR AN AMERICAN CATHOLICISM the Maryland colony, this meant that civil harmony was of primary importance ; for this reason religion was to remain a private affair, neither shaping the destiny of the colony nor impeding its progress. The first Jesuits in Maryland were not pleased with this idea. They wanted the Catholic Church and its clergy to enjoy a special place in the new colony, a privileged status that was commonplace at that time in Europe . Calvert would not give in to their demands. If the Jesuits were to remain in Maryland, they would have to do so without any special privileges . The Jesuits stayed, and Catholicism in America became a church free and independent of state control. Each of these three stories suggests that new models of church and denomination were to emerge in the NewWorld. The first generation of European settlers was compelled to adapt its ways to the challenges posed by the New Worlds geographical, social, and political environment . Thus, the history of religion in America has been a history of the adaptation of the ancient religious traditions, be they Christian,Jewish, Muslim, or Hindu, to the challenges posed by the New World environment . For Catholics their history has been a continuous search for an American Catholicism, a Catholicism rooted in the ancient Catholic tradition but always seeking to adapt itself to the culture of what we now call the United States. In 1966 1 began my graduate studies in the history ofAmerican Christianity at the University of Chicago. During these past thirty years the historical study of religion in the United States, and of Catholicism in particular, has undergone substantial change. Many of us have lived through these changes and they have been truly remarkable. The emergence of the new social history in the 1960s sparked an interest in intensive studies of individual communities. With this focus on community studies the local parish became a concern of historians, and this has remained true to the present. For this new generation of historians the religion of the people rather than the activities of the prelates has become a primary focus of study. The growth and development of immigration history sparked an interest in the study of immigrant groups; the...