Abstract: Catholics have struggled to reconcile two sets of values, those as Americans and those as Catholics, for more than 200 years, and in this book, Jay Dolan explores how Catholics have met these challenges as New World followers of an Old World faith. He argues that the ideals of democracy – and American culture in general – have deeply shaped Catholicism in the U.S.A., even as far back as 1789, when the nation's first bishop was elected by the clergy (and the pope accepted their choice). Dolan follows the tension between American democratic values and the Catholic doctrine, from the conservative reaction after the fall of Napoleon, to the modernist movement of the late nineteenth century, to the impact of the Second Vatican Council. He explores several issues: grassroots devotional life; the struggle against successive waves of nativism, from nineteenth-century “Know Nothings” to the Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s; the impact – and often collision – of different immigrant groups and their traditions; and the disputed issue of gender. He shows throughout that influences have flowed in both directions; belief and church traditions have shaped the Catholic sense of citizenship, community, and public advocacy. The tensions remain in contemporary America, as signs are seen of both a resurgent traditionalism in the church in response to the liberalizing trend launched by John XXIII, and a resistance to the conservatism of John Paul II.

Keywords: American Catholicism, American culture, Catholicism, culture, democracy, history, U.S.A