The Missionary Movement in American Catholic History by Angelyn Dries, O.S.F. (review)

book reviews327 all primary source materials were either lost or destroyed. As a result, he had to depend largely upon a vast array of American Polish newspapers, journals, articles , pamphlets, and books. His treatment of even the most sensitive of topics has been unbiased. His portrayal of Bishop Hodur's life has been objective throughout. Neither friend nor foe has been given preferential status. As a result , he has made a significant contribution to the understanding of a very controversial prelate. If there are any reservations, it would be that the author's eleven essays are simply individuaUy pubUshed articles. In turn, they offer only glimpses into the Ufe of a prominent reUgious figure. While many gaps have been fiUed in and a new foundation has been laid, it is to be hoped that Wieczerzak will continue his task until a final portrait has been produced. John R Gallagher Scranton, Pennsylvania The Missionary Movement in American Catholic History. By Angelyn Dries, O.S.F. [American Society of Missiology Series, No. 26.] (MaryknoU, New York: Orbis Books. 1998. Pp. xvüi, 398. $20.00 paperback.) Missionaries are foreign no more! Angelyn Dries moves them from anciUary status in American Catholic history to their rightful position as gospel evangelizers possessing their own story and purpose. Drawing upon archival sources, secondary literature, and interviews, Dries establishes a narrative which successfully "outlines the main contours of the mission movement" (p. 1). Dries correctly argues that foUowing the colonial period (1492-1775), immigrant , frontier, and overseas evangeUcal zeal predated American Catholicism 's own 1908 independence as a mission land. Thus the nineteenth century "is not a bleak picture in terms of overseas missions as is popularly believed" (p. 58). From the Spanish-American War (1898) through World War I (1918) American missionaries moved onto the international stage. Missionaries' relationship to the Modernist controversy in the United States, German anthropology and grace, and the romance of the martyr-hero myth receives Dries's attention, as does the significance of Mission Congresses and the Society for the Propagation of the Faith of the late nineteenth century, and the founding of MaryknoU (1911) and the American Board of Catholic Missions (1919). The CathoUc Student Mission Crusade, the Bishops' Committee on Latin America, and the influence of women in medical missions help shape the 1920's. A skillful narrative which uses weU dates, facts, statistics, biographical sketches of missionaries, analysis of missionary meetings and organizations,and examination of varied cultures invites a larger polemic. Who are the animators 328BOOK REVIEWS of twentieth-century American Catholic missionary impulse—individuals (men and women), reUgious orders or lay missioners, bishops, or sponsoring organizations ? Likewise, what inspires missionary impulse—gospel, political realities, evangelical competition, finances, education, or theology? Though specificaUy unstated or unresolved by Dries, these issues serve as her invitation to historians and scholars to integrate missionaries within American Catholic history, missiology, and world history. Twentieth-century China missions reveal questions of missionaries' cultural accommodation, relief work, service of men and women in mission, death, internment and expulsion of missionaries throughout the NationaUst, Japanese, and Communist periods. Missionaries of the post-WorldWar II era (1946-1959) faced a world of freedom vs. communism. Opinions of Bishop Fulton J. Sheen and Father John J. Considine, M.M., shaped the period. The genesis of the mission impulse to Latin and South America and the conflictual dynamics surrounding liberation theology and the re-emergence of the martyr myth in 1980 is weU done. The conclusion is a synthetic summary of the "themes and threads" in the book. Helpful would have been Dries's addressing the attraction of the missionary vocation itself. Why were some interested in the missions never sent whUe those having no interest were? Enriching as well would have been comparing the American Catholic missionary movement in relationship to other regional impulses such as that described in Edmund H. Hogan's The Irish Missionary Movement (1990). Noteworthy are valuable appendices, excellent footnotes, listing of mission periodicals and archival and Ubrary deposits, a rich bibliography, and a thorough index. This book wiU serve as a standard work on the American Catholic missionary experience. Robert E. Carbonneau, CR Passionist Community, Catholic Theological Union Chicago The...