The American Dream in the 21st Century

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 7 Religion and the American Dream A Catholic Reflection A Catholic Reflection in a Generational Context in a Generational Context William V. D’Antonio I N THIS CHAPTER, I explore the meaning and experience of the American Dream as it was perceived and lived out during the twentieth century for those Tom Brokaw has called the “Greatest Generation ” and as it is currently perceived and experienced by those I call the “Millennial Generation.” The former are people who came of age during the Great Depression and World War II. The latter are those who have come of age with the experience of September 11, the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, and now the greatest economic downturn since the Great Depression through which their grandparents lived. Within that context , I will reflect on how the Roman Catholic Church in the United States might have impacted the lives of American Catholics in their quest for the American Dream. This comparison of the grandparents with the grandchildren affords an opportunity to examine the American Dream as it has been lived throughout a period now of a full century. According to Katharine O. Seelye (2009), “the phrase, ‘the American dream’ is generally agreed to have been coined first in 1931, in the midst of the Depression. In his book, The Epic of America, the historian James Truslow Adams wrote, ‘It is not a dream of motor cars and high wages merely, but a dream of social order in which each man and each woman shall be able to attain the fullest stature of which they are innately capable.’” In this chapter, I address this question: Is the social order that Adams saw as the grounding that would enable each person to achieve his or 118 ■ William V. D’Antonio her maximum potential perceived to be relevant in this quest to Americans in general and Catholics in particular of the two generations noted? Do pollsters even ask that question? Or do the questions asked in most polls focus on the Dream as an individual goal or achievement? And, finally, what difference does it make? I take the phrase “social order” to refer to the institutional factors that may enhance or inhibit the quest for the Dream—in this chapter, church, government, and economy. Most of the Brokaw generation began their lives as immediate descendents of the primarily white-ethnic European migration (1870– 1925) and experienced the Depression of the 1930s, then World War II and its aftermath—the GI Bill, the baby boom, and the suburbanization of American life. Their grandchildren, the Millennials, were born into a post–Vietnam War world that has morphed into a seemingly endless series of wars that are fought at a distance involving a volunteer military. But they are also a generation in which more than a third achieved a college-plus education and experienced almost universal access to the Internet, the iPod, and all the technologies that link them to a rapidly globalizing world. They also were witness to the events of September 11 and their consequences and, especially for young Catholics, the sexualabuse scandal that became widely known early in 2002. Moreover, they are the first generation to give majority support to same-sex marriage. Now, of course, they confront an economic meltdown that may be as traumatic for them as the Great Depression was for their grandparents. This combination of physical destruction, sexual abuse, wars without end, and an economic downturn that will not be easy to overcome poses financial, physical, and mental costs embedded in a social order that may threaten if not derail the quest for the Dream. This may be especially the case because of the way in which our social order is perceived across generations. Background: A Version of the American Dream during the Great Depression I begin my reflection on the Dream by returning to a date some seventyplus years ago (1937), when my sixth-grade public school teacher asked me to recite a poem in honor of George Washington’s birthday. The poem was written in the manner of how a first-generation ItalianAmerican father might speak to his young son. So, with apologies to my ancestors, I offer you a few words from the past: Religion and the American Dream ■ 119 U know wat for isa schul keep out disa holiday, my son? No? Wal, den, I gonna tell u bouta dessa Giorgio Washeenton. Wal Giorgio wassa littla kid—hesa liv longa time ago— The poem goes on to tell...