Shaping American Catholicism: Maryland and New York, 1805-1915 by Robert Emmett Curran (review)

For over thirty years, Curran's work has centered on the history of Jesuits in the American provinces. The strengths of his prior investigations coalesce in this latest collection. Nine of the twelve essays have appeared in print elsewhere; two others were conference papers. A first cluster of essays touch on early Jesuit life in Maryland, including property disputes between Archbishop Ambrose Maréchal and the Society of Jesus, slaveholding at White Marsh and other Jesuit plantations, and the relationship between Georgetown Jesuits and a spate of miraculous cures in the United States' capital. A second section canvasses the intrigues of New York clergy in the late nineteenth century, save for an essay on the development of the parochial school system - a tour de force ranging from Archbishop John Carroll to the lobbying efforts of publisher James McMaster, who opposed any government funding as an intrusion on religious liberty. The last two essays form part three, under the rubric of "social justice and the intellectual life," which explores the impact that Catholic conceptions of the socio-economic order and the development of the Catholic University of America had upon the region of "the Chesapeake."

The book assembles a wealth of archival data, especially from microfilm copies of documents on the Jesuits' American mission contained in the Society's Roman archive. Curran also drew from papers related to the tenure of Archbishop Michael Corrigan of New York (1880-1902) which are used to remarkably good effect for his analysis of Father Edward McGlynn and the New York Accadèmia on the advent of the Catholic modernist crisis.

Justifying the purchase of a book with this price tag, however, is difficult. It is a disappointment that there are few updates made to the text. The original pieces that appear in print for the first time constitute only a fraction of the whole. But there are larger problems. The overall presentation of the essays seems rather forced and the argument that cities or regions were vying with one another for ecclesiastical power is both artificial and hollow. Far too frequently Curran is geographically challenged. He discusses episodes that have little or nothing to do with either Maryland or New York. For all his wisdom on Jesuit historiography, he does not delve into the recent scholarship on the New York Province or its most important educational institutions. It is not essential to go into that, though. The book gives the impression that Catholicism in the two regions owed its very existence to the Society of Jesus. There is barely mention of any other religious community and how they helped to ground and grow the faith through a century of immigration, war, and industrialization. This is a missed opportunity. Further, we get very little sense of the growth of Catholic life in Baltimore, particularly from the waves of Germans whose extraordinary thrift and vitality sunk deep roots around neighborhood churches. In short, this "best of" book is suitable for graduate and seminary libraries, but it should be a spur to further research and not considered the last word on these subjects.