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Reviewed by:
  • The American Catholic Revolution: How the ‘60s Changed the Church Forever
  • Jeffrey M. Burns

III

Massa has written an important and interesting book. His central argument is that the American Catholic revolution of the 1960s is rooted in a shift within the church to a historical consciousness, or as Lonergan put it, “the transition from a classicist world view to historical mindedness” (160) The “timeless,” “unchanging” Catholic Church, now exposed its “dirty little secret” – the church could change. This simple insight, Massa claims, provides the key to understanding the upheaval of the 1960s. Indeed, as he shows throughout the book, it provides a most useful tool. Massa’s insight is an important one as is what he calls “the law of unintended consequences.”

I would like to see three areas more fully explored and developed. First, it seems to me that Massa undervalues the impact of the social movements of the 1960s on the church. He writes, “. . . individual Catholic participation in the movements of the decade was not itself the cause of the revolution in any simplistic or deterministic sense”(xii). But it was fundamental. Countless Catholics underwent profound personal and religious change as they struggled with racism – individual, communal, and ecclesial – war, and poverty. 1964 was a shattering year for the popular Christian Family Movement, not because of the Council, but because its yearly inquiry addressed the problem of race. A critical moment in Philip Berrigan’s development was his being asked by his superior to leave a Freedom Ride. He vowed never to allow his superior to trump his conscience again. And when Massa argues the Catonsville incident challenged concepts of American Catholic identity (112), it could only have done so because the larger concept of American identity was already unraveling. The social movements profoundly influenced the Catholic revolution.

Second, in a similar vein, the emergence of “rights language” is integral to the revolution. While Catholics may have used Catholic language and categories, the impetus of much of the rhetoric came from the rights movements. In San Francisco, the Association of Priests suggested that celibacy violated a person’s “right to marriage,” surely a new concept. Others called for greater democracy in the church as well as due process. The language of rights was pervasive, within the Church and without, and the role that this shift in language played needs to be further examined.

Finally, at the heart of the 1960s was the issue of authority. So many of the Catholic disputes devolved into struggles over authority and obedience. I suspect this conflict had less to do with changing concepts of history and more to do with power. In both the Curran and IHMs’ conflicts the issue became authority (68, 78). I would argue that [End Page 67] the revolution of the 1960s had more to do with the attack on authority and authority’s inability to respond in a credible, effective manner than it did with historical consciousness. More often than not, authority discredited itself, whether it was southern sheriffs abusing civil rights protestors, or LBJ and the “credibility gap,” or Cardinal McIntyre, who refused to play by the rules of the institution he supposedly upheld (as Massa points out, “There was no basis in canon law for the kind of threats McIntyre now issued.”) (94). Authority was repeatedly undercut by leaders who failed to live up to the demands of good and wise authority. Reestablishing credible authority remains a challenge today.

Nonetheless, Massa has written an important and thought provoking book that sheds important insights into the Catholic Revolution.

Jeffrey M. Burns
Academy of American Franciscan History
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