Catholic Fundamentalism in America

by Massa, S.J., Mark S.

• ISBN13: 9780197759998
• ISBN10: 0197759998
• eBook ISBN(s): 9780197760017
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2025-03-03
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• More Book Details

Summary

The term "fundamentalism" has its roots in specific forms of American Protestantism that arose around the turn of the twentieth century in reaction to liberalizing and modernizing trends within the church. In this book, Mark Massa argues that an analogously reactive, militant, and sectarian "fundamentalist" movement emerged within American Catholicism in the decades after World War II, for a similarly complex mix of theological and cultural reasons. In Catholic Fundamentalism in America Massa gives the first account of the Catholic form of the anti-modernist impulse.

Massa recounts how Catholic fundamentalism has reacted both to the teachings of the Second Vatican Council and to the tensions of America's pluralist, secular culture. Like their Protestant cousins, Catholic fundamentalists combine a sectarian understanding of religion with an aggressive anti-progressive stance. Their main enemies were not Protestants or secular Americans, but other Catholics who didn't share their extreme views. Also like the Protestant fundamentalists, Catholic devotees of the fundamentalist impulse have sought (and found) political conservatives with whom to make common cause on a range of issues, such as the place of women in American culture, the value of pluralism within the Church and the larger culture, and the importance of cooperation with non-Catholics. Contemporary Catholic conservatives merge theological and political impulses into movements that "punch above their weight" within the community through their clever use of social media.

Through seven portraits of individuals and movements that embody the Catholic fundamentalist impulse, Massa demonstrates how the Catholic Right, like its evangelical Protestant counterpart, has reacted to--and fought against--modern American culture.

Author Biography

Mark S. Massa is Professor of Theology and Director of the Boisi Center for Religion and American Public Life at Boston College. He is the author of The Structure of Theological Revolutions: How the Fight Over Birth Control Transformed American Catholicism and The American Catholic Revolution: How the Sixties Changed the Church Forever.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Part I: Catholic Fundamentalism and the Feeney Case
1. What is Catholic Fundamentalism?
2. The Comic Opera Heresy at Harvard: The Birth of Catholic Fundamentalism

Part II: "Christ Against Culture"
3. Gommer DePauw and the Schismatical Worship of the Novus Ordo
4. The Old Time Religion in Alabama: Mother Angelica and the "Authentic Magisterium"
5. The "Benedict Option" in Kansas

Part III: "Christ the Transformer of Culture"
6. Dreaming of Christendom in the Blue Ridge Mountains
7. "The Violent Bear It Away": ChurchMilitant.com
8. On the Dangers of Swimming the Tiber: Crisis Magazine and the Evangelical Protestant Embrace of Catholicism

Conclusion: "Even so, in Christ"

Index