The Eighty-first Annual Meeting of the American Catholic Historical Association

Report of the Chairman of the Committee on Program

The eighty-first annual meeting of the American Catholic Historical Association was held from Thursday to Sunday, January 4-7, 2001, at the Boston Marriott Coply Plaza Hotel and the Sheraton Boston Hotel and Towers, beginning with registration on Thursday afternoon. In the course of the meeting eighty-six persons registered their attendance. The Executive Council met on Thursday evening.

Three sessions were held on Friday morning, January 5. One was a joint session with the American Society of Church History entitled "Late Medieval and Early Modern Parish Life." The chairman and commentator was Katherine L. French of the State University of New York at New Paltz. The following read papers: Gary G. Gibbs of Roanoke College, "The English Parish at the Center and Periphery: Comparisons of Mid-Tudor Parish Life"; Marjorie E. Plummer of the University of Maryland, University College at Schwäbisch-Gmünd, "'Devilish Concubines' and 'Whorish Wives': Clergy between Margraval Policy and Local Resistance in the Parish of Feuchtwangen, 1525-1545"; and Janice M. Gibbs of Hope College, "The Parish as Urban Nexus in Sixteenth-Century Cologne."

Another session was entitled "Rare Roads to Rome: The Response of Lydia Longley (1674-1758), Jerusha Barber (1789-1860), and Jean Nealis (1842-1910)." Mary J. Oates of Regis College was the chairman and commentator. The following read papers: William Wolkovich-Valkavicius of St. George Catholic Church, Norwood, Massachusetts, "Puritan Daughter--Indian Captive--Catholic Nun: Lydia Longley of Groton, Massachusetts"; Dolores Liptak, R.S.M., of the Archives of the Sisters of Mercy and Holy Apostles Seminary, "Married Vows, Religious Vows: The Dilemma of Virgil and Jerusha Booth Barber"; and Elizabeth W. McGahan of the University of New Brunswick, St. John's Campus, "Jean Elizabeth Ursula Nealis: Anglican Daughter, Catholic Mother, Franciscan Tertiary."

Concurrently another session was devoted to "Ecclesiastical Architecture." Keith Morgan of Boston University was chairman and commentator. The following read papers: K. Paul Zygas of Arizona State University, "Baroque Architecture in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, 1600-1700"; Milda B. Richardson of Boston University, "The Architecture of Charles Donagh Maginnis, 1867-1955"; and Victoria Young of the University of St. Thomas, St. Paul, "The Search for Sacred Space: Marcel Breuer and the Benedictine Abbey Church of St. John the Baptist."

Three sessions were also held on Friday afternoon. One was entitled "The Church in Modern Latin American Society: Chile and Guatemala." The chairman was Stafford Poole, C.M., of the Vincentian Studies Institute, and the commentator was Jeffrey Klaiber, S.J., of the Catholic University of Peru. The following read papers: Lisa Edwards of Tulane University, "The Romanization of the Latin American Church: The Colegio Pío Latino Americano, 1858-1934"; Gertrude Yeagher of Tulane University, "The Making of a Catholic Activist: Teresa Ossandón and the 'White Berets,' Chile, 1921-1934"; Douglas Sullivan-Gonzáles of the University of Mississippi, "How Black Is Jesus? The Study of Race and Ethnicity in Guatemala"; and Bruce Calder of the University of Illinois at Chicago, "The Catholic Response to Guatemalan Social and Political Violence, 1970's to 1990's."

Concurrently a joint session with the American Society of Church History was held on the theme "American Catholic Culture in the 1960's." The chairman was Colleen Doody of DePaul University, and the commentator was Peter D'Agostino of Stonehill College. The following read papers: Scott Appleby of the University of Notre Dame, "Catholicism in American Culture: The Impact of the Second Vatican Council"; Leslie Tentler of the Catholic University of America, "Sexual Politics: Contraception and Authority in the Catholic 1960's"; and Patrick N. Allitt of Emory University, "Catholic Children in the 1960's."

In a third room a session was devoted to "Pope Pius XII and the Holocaust." John Pawlikowski of the Catholic Theological Union, Chicago, was chairman and commentator. The following read papers: Jacques Kornberg of the University of...