The Church Confronts Modernity: Catholic Intellectuals and the Progressive Era (review)

In this study, begun as a doctoral dissertation at Columbia University, the author intends to demonstrate the vigor of American Catholic intellectual life at the turn of the twentieth century. Three priest scholars: Thomas Shields, William Kerby, and Edward Pace, faculty members of the fledgling Catholic University, are the study's principal focus. Their challenge lay in the threats of Progressivism and Pragmatism abroad in America. The chief philosophical issue was a general dismissal of "a priori" reasoning foundational to Catholic philosophy. Within this context, Woods offers a detailed analysis of his subjects' writings against the philosophical currents of the day. He argues that they accepted what was of value in the new systems, adopted what could be used, and challenged the rest.

Thomas Shields is a case in point. He appreciated John Dewey's "progressive" system which aimed at educating "the whole child." It suggested a method of presenting religion as a dynamic reality, encompassing music, even the arts, rather than as a static set of questions and answers. But Shields was no "progressive," Woods reminds the reader—his aim was a child completely formed in the faith, not Dewey's "non-denominational citizen." William Kirby, pioneer professor of sociology, never let his enthusiasm for the nescient social sciences blur the distinction between the Church as a "perfect society from God," and sociology, the work of mere humans. In the area of capital and labor, American bishops with their rather remarkable Plan for Social Reconstruction (1919), could make common cause with secular progressives, though they had arrived by a very different philosophical route. The Natural Law theory was basic to the Catholic enterprise. In Woods's retelling, the theory assumes the aura of divine revelation.

For all his research, this reviewer found Woods's study disappointing. When he narrowly focuses on a subject's writing, he is thorough, even exhaustive. Where he wants to project the broad vital attractiveness of the Catholic Church, he is vague, even disingenuous. He calls this a period of great Church growth but neglects to mention the waves of Catholic immigrants who swelled the ranks. He claims that a number of notable literary converts entered the Church—but he fails to include the name of a single American. Yet, when Woods wants to argue that the Church's intellectual richness extended even to the "little people," he cites by name an obscure teaching Sister, quoting a child instructed in Shields's method. More, Woods leaves one with the impression that this holistic method became the norm for religious education when, in fact, it was rote memorization of the catechism that carried the day.

Finally, there is no mention of the New York Review, foremost Catholic scholarly journal of the era. Published by the learned faculty of Dunwoodie Seminary, it was creative and cutting-edge, though short-lived (1905–1908). It was pressured out of existence in the wake of Pascendi Dominici Gregis (1907) Pius X's condemnation of Modernism. The Review's demise suggests Pascendi's deleterious effect upon the intellectual vitality of American Catholic scholars. Woods would have us believe otherwise; he presents the period prior to Vatican Council II as a quasi-golden age of intellectual ferment. In fact, it was a time of uniformity by fiat, complete with a mandated philosophy and slate of Catholic academic societies. In this author's experience, it was a church both restricted and restricting. What Woods has left unsaid was the general failure of his study's subjects to influence, in any significant way, the intellectual currents of the day.

Beginning to end, Woods's rejection of Vatican Council II is clear, albeit less strident than in The Great Façade: Vatican II and the Regime of Novelty in the Roman Catholic Church, an earlier coauthored work. Whether or not one accepts Woods's position, The Church Confronts Modernity is provocative, well-written, and deserves to be read.