The Catholic Church in Southwest Iowa by Steven M. Avella (review)

If you have never been to Iowa, Steven Avella can take you there, through the lens of the Catholic Church in the twentieth century. His first chapter begins with Jacques Marquette in 1673 and extends with nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century developments in Catholic life and institutions in Southwest Iowa up to the establishment of the diocese of Des Moines in 1911. The book’s focus is the history of the diocese, primarily from the point of view of the development of its institutions—the office of bishop, leading parishes and pastors, educational facilities, and other Catholic institutions (hospitals, academies, orphanages, charitable organizations, etc.). Except for the first, each chapter is organized chronologically on the episcopacy of each successive Des Moines bishop—Austin Dowling (1912–1919), Thomas W. Drumm (1919–1933), Gerald T. Bergen 1934–1948, Edward C. Daly, O.P. (1948–1964), Maurice J. Dingman (1968–1992). Only one bishop does not rate a separate chapter, viz., George J. Biskup (1965–1967). He was bishop for only two years, before being whisked away to Indianapolis to be the coadjutor archbishop there. Dingman rates three chapters because of the length and the tumultuous times of his episcopacy—the implementation of Vatican Council II, the massive social changes that affected America and the American Church, and the effects of the Papal Visit of Pope John Paul II in October of 1979. Avella closes the book in 1992 with the end of Dingman’s episcopacy. The next three bishops’ terms require the passage of time to have some perspective on their tenures. Avella also feels that new cultural and social realities set in around the late 1980s, with American society and the American Church becoming polarized on a series of issues, a phenomenon also called the “culture wars.” For example, Avella admits that clerical sexual abuse of minors existed during part of the period of his study; however, knowledge of this scandal did not become widely known until after 1992 (only one case was made public in 1988 when some of the first Des Moines diocesan policies were put in place regarding the issue).

Doing the history of a diocese is a very difficult task. There is the passage of time, numerous persons interacting with one another (often as complicated as a Russian novel), the establishment of institutions and their growth or diminishment, various social groups, the effects of civil society and of transnational ecclesiastical regulations on the local community. It is challenging to keep all these moving parts co-ordinated and to make sense of it all. This complex task is often given to well-meaning non-professional historians or by a “committee” of amateur writers. What often results is the reader becoming lost in an endless mishmash of facts, names, and dates. On the contrary, Avella shows his professional expertise by building a narrative of growth and development from one episcopal leader to the next. He is also keen on giving the reader context—for example, how the great Depression had a deleterious effect on Church life. He follows the theme of the urban ecclesiastical experience versus the rural one from one period to another, adding the development of the suburban parish and the decline of the urban parish in the post-World War II period. But his great strength is his ability to succinctly read the personality of bishops and priests especially. He summarizes Bishop Daly as “a capable, if sometime colorless, church bureaucrat . . . he knew how to make the machinery of church life work. . . . Daly’s introverted and staid personality was a contrast with the gregarious Bergan (Daly’s predecessor).” Avella’s assessments are always balanced and fair, but there is no hagiography here.

At the outset, Avella introduces a thesis he interjects throughout the book, namely, that the Catholic Church in Southwest Iowa had an influence on its general environment, the engagement of the sacred and the secular. But Catholics in the region...