This Confident Church: Catholic Leadership and Life in Chicago, 1940-1965 by Steven M. Avella (review)

330 BOOK REVIEWS As inspiring as Sicius' story is, the people and activities described in this book were only a part ofthe larger mosaic of Catholic life in Chicago. Indeed, the real strength of Chicago Catholicism was the creative and purposeful collaboration between clergy and laity. Mayor Richard Daley called Chicago "the city that works." This was no less true in Chicago Catholicism, where the pressing urgency of the city's urban problems after World War II broke down walls of separation between cleric and lay to bring about action for the common good. Steven M.Avelia Marquette University This Confident Church: Catholic Leadership and Life in Chicago, 1940-1965. By Steven M. Avella. (Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press. 1992. Pp. xviii,4l0. $29.95.) Father Avella, a priest and historian of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, has written a partial history of the Archdiocese of Chicago during the episcopates of the two archbishops who had previously held that office successively in Milwaukee , namely, Cardinals Samuel Stritch and Albert Meyer. During this quartercentury Chicago was the largest archdiocese in the United States and a pacesetter for the rest of the American Catholic Church. Hence, this period, extending from the beginning ofWorld War II to the end of Vatican Council II, is especially suitable for historical investigation, although other predominantly urban dioceses were experiencing the same kinds of social and demographic changes, such as the supplanting of whites by blacks in neighborhoods and parishes and suburbanization, while exhibiting the same kind of confidence noted in the title of the book. None of those dioceses, however, has until now been subjected to similar study in a separate monograph. Such research, of course, would not be possible in some comparable archdioceses, for example, New York, where the papers of Cardinal Francis Spellman are still closed to scholars although he died less than three years after Meyer. The author has also made use of other diocesan archives and manuscript collections; one may doubt, however, whether he has fully exploited the Chicago daily newspapers. It was timely, moreover, to undertake this project while some of the protagonists of the story and contemporary observers could still be interviewed. Father Avella centers his presentation on individuals—principally the two archbishops but also their auxiliary bishop Bernard Sheil and priests of the archdiocese, notably Reynold H. Hillenbrand, Daniel M. Cantwell (who died on January 2 of this year), and John Egan. He emphasizes, therefore, matters in which they were involved—Stritch's interest in the Poles and other refugees and displaced persons after the war, international peace and the Communist threat, social reconstruction, institutional growth, the seminary system, and Catholic Charities; Shell's troubled direction of the Catholic Youth Organization ; Hillenbrand's promotion of liturgical reform, specialized Catholic Action BOOK REVIEWS 331 (especially the Young Christian Workers and the Christian Family Movement), and labor unions; Cantwell's role in the Catholic Labor Alliance, controversies over public housing and urban planning and renewal, and the Catholic Interracial Council of Chicago; and Egan's expansion ofthe Cana Conference, his use of power politics and confrontational tactics in the ultimately unsuccessful campaign against the University of Chicago's plans for redevelopment of the Hyde Park-Kenwood communities, and his management of the Office of Urban Affairs. Community organizing for the Spanish-speaking, struggles over civil rights, and racial violence perpetrated by Catholics are also treated at length. Focusing his attention on these social problems, Avella gives short shrift to many other facets of the Catholic presence in Chicago. Aside from a few prominent laymen such as Edward Marciniak, he largely ignores the laity, especially the organizations in which so many were active, such as the Holy Name Society, the Archdiocesan Council of Catholic Women, the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine (briefly mentioned), most of the ten Newman clubs or centers at nonCatholic universities, and the lay retreat movement. He does not acknowledge the importance of the religious congregations of men which operated two universities , five major and several minor seminaries, and novitiates; the universities educated not only undergraduates but also many lawyers, accountants, doctors, dentists, and other professional people for the metropolitan area. Most notably, he fails to credit women...