The Road to Renewal: Victor Joseph Reed and Oklahoma Catholicism, 1905–1971 (review)

Jeremy Bonner's study of Oklahoma Catholicism provides a wonderful overview of Catholic life in a state known traditionally as the "Buckle of the Bible Belt." Rather than focus on the unique challenges of being Catholic in this heavily evangelical part of the country, Bonner instead provides an internal view of the workings of the Oklahoma church prior to and especially in the aftermath of the Second Vatican Council. The life and career of Bishop Victor Joseph Reed (1905–71) provides the narrative thread that holds together this sometimes quite complex narrative.

Reed, the son of a prosperous oil industry worker, was a native of Indiana, but reared in Oklahoma. He began studies for the priesthood for the Diocese of Oklahoma City (the state's only diocese at the time) and persuaded Bishop Francis Clement Kelley to send him to Rome, where he was ordained in December 1929. Two months before his ordination, the stock market collapsed, and America's Great Depression had begun. Reed wanted to stay an extra year for a Roman doctorate, but Kelley summoned him home and put him to work as a parish priest. In 1936, he and two other Oklahoma priests, Don Kanaly and Raymond Harkin, were sent to the American University at Louvain, where a fellow Oklahoman, Father Stephen Leven, was vice-rector. Reed studied philosophy, and his dissertation compared the thought of John Stuart Mill and August Comte. However, Reed may have taken more practical lessons from his observations of the Specialized Catholic Action movements that were taking root in Belgium under the direction of Canon Joseph Cardijn. Imported to the United States, Cardijn's groups, the Young Christian Workers and the Young Christian Students, became popular in various parts of the United States—including Oklahoma—where Kanaly became their leader. Reed returned to the United States in 1939 and resumed his pastoral duties, serving a variety of parishes throughout the diocese. Oklahoma City had been renamed the Diocese of Oklahoma-Tulsa in 1930; and in 1947, he became pastor of Tulsa's Holy Family Cathedral. Relying on sometimes amusing oral history, Bonner depicts Reed as a pleasant and sincere man, with a penchant for the finer things in life.

Reed's career was affected by Bishop Eugene McGuinness, who had been made coadjutor to Kelley in 1944 and ascended to the See in 1948. McGuinness, a Type-A personality, was a tireless worker who caught the crest of the wave of postwar Catholic growth in the Sooner State. During his nine-year episcopate the numbers of Catholics and the institutional visibility of the Oklahoma church increased. McGuinness and Reed were about as temperamentally different as two men could be, but the Ordinary chose the cathedral rector as his auxiliary in 1957. Fate intervened, and prior to Reed's consecration, McGuinness died. The Holy See then chose Reed as McGuinness's successor.

Reed was consecrated by the apostolic delegate, Cardinal Amleto Cicognani, on March 5, 1958, and took over a prosperous and bustling diocese. It was also a see on the verge of major changes. Less than a year after Reed's consecration, Pope John XXIII announced plans to convene an ecumenical council, and in 1962 Reed was among the 2400 bishops who marched into the Vatican basilica for the opening ceremonies of this momentous event. Although the demands of the Oklahoma City See were pressing, Reed spent the earliest years of his episcopate preparing for and attending the Second Vatican Council, as well as implementing its directives and dealing with some of its consequences. Fortunately for him, his generally accommodating personality helped negotiate some of the more difficult aspects of the postconciliar era. Unwilling and unable to micro-manage local affairs as had his predecessor, Reed called upon several capable clerics and laypersons to assist in the governance of the diocese and help him implement Vatican...