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The Catholic Historical Review 93.4 (2007) 992-993

Reviewed by
Andrew Greeley
The University of Chicago
The University of Arizona
The Catholic Experience in America. By Joseph A. Varacalli. (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press. 2006. pp. xxii, 314.)

Part of a larger series "The American Religious Experience," the present volume is designed as a text book for senior high school students, presumably in Catholic high schools. The first half of the volume is about the past history of Catholicism in America. Professor Varacalli, of Nassau Community College, covers the basic facts and controversies of the past. His narrative is unexceptionable, though it does tend to celebrate the Catholicism of the decades after the end of World War II as an apogee.

In more recent history, however, the book displays a traditionalist approach to Catholicism and a more conservative political stance—disapproving of what the author calls the "Kennedy-Cuomo" political orientation. True to the vision of his mentor Monsignor George A. Kelly, Varacalli laments the impact of [End Page 992] the Second Vatican Council on the religious behavior of American Catholics and advocates as desirable the return to stricter Catholicism of the pre-councilior days. He expresses the hope that Pope Benedict will restore discipline to the Church in this country. The book, therefore, will be very useful in those high schools which wish to emphasize the deterioration of Catholicism in the United States and the lack of political courage of Catholic politicians. High schools with a different orientation will probably find it offensive. Thus he mentions the statement Dignitatis Humanae (On Religious Freedom) only to caution on the risks of interpretation which will weaken the uniqueness of Catholicism. His young readers are not told that this statement was written in part by the American Father John Courtney Murray S.J. and is considered the major contribution of the American bishops at the Council, a reversal of the teaching that error has no rights (Murray, as the reader of this review doubtless knows, argued that erring people do have rights). It would be better if the book, if it were to say anything about the Council, would present a more nuanced perspective, especially on this all-important document. Students should understand at least that Professor Varacalli's "orthodox" ideology is not the only useful model for considering contemporary Catholicism.

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