The Moment of Grace: One Hundred Years of Salvatorian Life and Ministry in the United States ed. by Daniel Pekarske, S.D.S. (review)

314 BOOK REVIEWS Second, DiGiovanni claims that "only the padroni [Italian labor bosses] and the priest had any lasting effect on the lives of the Italians in America" (p. 58) and concludes that "no other institution" (p. 206) besides the Church cared about Italians' welfare. DiGiovanni gives no evidence to support this assertion. He has not investigated the role oflabor bosses,labor organizers, newspaper editors , ethnic politicians, settlement house workers, Protestant missionaries, the Italian state, or the American state. Third, DiGiovanni concludes that "the traditional parochial structures affected only a small portion ofthe Italian community, . . . [and that] means other than those traditionally employed by the church in America at that time were necessary to assist the Italian immigrants" (p. 171). Archbishop Corrigan also came to this conclusion as he confronted intractable problems in his effort to establish national parishes for Italians. Thus, DiGiovanni provides a counterpoint to the consensus that national parishes best met the social and religious needs of immigrants. Indeed, in the NewYork Italian case the local parish was not sponsored by Italian resources, was rarely self-sustaining, was not free of provincial rivalries and dialects that undermined the very idea of a "national" parish, and was not the most common means Italians sought to educate their children. Unfortunately, DiGiovanni does not place his work within any scholarly contexts that would help the reader understand its relative significance. What does this study imply for our understanding ofthe Immigrant Church analyzed byJay P. Dolan and Dolores Liptak, or the divergent portraits of Italians and American Catholicism painted by RudolphVecoli and Silvano Tomasi? Furthermore, references to Gerald Fogarty's work on the American hierarchy and the Vatican, Henry Browne's classic on the "Italian Problem," Robert A. Orsi's work on Our Lady of Mount Carmel, and general studies of Italian ethnicity are mentioned in neither text nor notes. Notwithstanding these reservations, DiGiovanni's work provides an important contribution to the study of American-Vatican relations, the American Church, and Italian American history. Peter R. D'Agostino Rome The Moment ofGrace:One HundredYears ofSalvatorian Life andMinistry in the United States. Edited by Daniel Pekarske, S.D.S. 2 vols. Part I: 1892-1947, byJerome Schommer,S.D.S.;Part II: 1947-1992,by Steven M. Avella. (Milwaukee,Wisconsin: Society of the Divine Savior. 1994. Pp. xviii, 246;xxii, 412. Paperback.) In each of the two volumes of this centennial history of the Society ofthe Divine Savior (Salvatorians) the reader is urged by the editor to consider them BOOK REVIEWS 315 with "purity of heart," "humility," "patience," and "diligence." One soon recognizes these virtues in the study itself. "Purity of heart" is seen as the authors tell their story without pretension or preconceived agenda."Humility"is evidenced in the honesty with which they speak of the foibles as well as the gifts of the community—as a group and as individual members. "Patience" is shown in the methodologies used so as to allow the reader to benefit from the telling of the story from the "top down"and from the "ground up.""Diligence"is exhibited in the scholarly use of archival sources, including a significant number of photographs (the work might be called an"illustrated history"),as well as maps,charts, informational asides and notes within the text, and supplemental documents and demographic lists which fill out the image presented in the narrative. InVolume I,Jerome Schommer aims to show how Salvatorians worked "to inform a new culture with a vision of faith," while "being transformed in the process." He reflects on three moments within the first fifty-five years, that is: the somewhat rocky involvements in the Pacific Northwest; the foundation of a core community in St. Nazianz, Wisconsin; and the establishment of an independent North American Province in 1927. Schommer makes clear the challenges facing the community in the United States while the international society was still striving to solidify its identity within the Church. InVolume II, Steven M. Avella seeks to shed light on the remaining years as a time of expansion, financial collapse, and internal renewal. He presents a "top down" overview of the society's "Administrative Life," with a focus on calamitous financial decisions and their...