Empowering the People of God: Catholic Action before and after Vatican II (Catholic Practice in North America)

The early 1960s were a heady time for Catholic laypeople. Pope Pius XII's assurance "You do not belong to the Church. You are the Church" emboldened the laity to challenge Church authority in ways previously considered unthinkable. Empowering the People of God offers a fresh look at the Catholic laity and its relationship with the hierarchy in the period immediately preceding the Second Vatican Council and in the turbulent era that followed. This collection of essays explores a diverse assortment of manifestations of Catholic action, ranging from genteel reform to radical activism, and an equally wide variety of locales, apostolates, and movements. In the decades that separated the Roaring Twenties from Vatican II, Catholic Action inspired laypeople to participate in the work of the Church’s hierarchy. In endeavors that ranged from religious education and liturgical renewal to labor activism and immigrant outreach, this movement permitted the Church to maintain its distinctiveness while simultaneously engaging with the wider American culture. In the aftermath of the Second World War, however, a new generation of Catholics increasingly chafed against the hierarchical ideal of Catholic Action and found in the Second Vatican Council’s definition of the Church as the “People of God” a blueprint for more autonomous lay apostolates. For laypeople - and laywomen especially - the call to democratize church structures at parochial, diocesan, and national levels in the years immediately following Vatican II, led to an increasing detachment from the structures of hierarchy and authority. The resulting apostolates were all too often defined as much by their defiance of authority as by their supposed commitment to the “Spirit of Vatican II.” This book provides readers with an appreciation of how American Catholics at the grassroots experienced the evolving pattern of social and religious activism. In its profiles of Catholic apostolates in New York City, Boston, Washington DC, Chicago, Detroit, Pittsburgh, Atlanta, and San Francisco, this collection of essays explores the fate of a diverse array of groups, including recent immigrants and middle-class college women. Empowering the People of God demonstrates the pattern both of historical continuity and transformation within the contemporary Catholic Church in America Bolstered by a wave of immigration in the early 20th century, a polyglot American Catholic Church struggled to forge a secure subculture in a society that regarded Catholics with suspicion. In the decades that separated the Roaring Twenties from Vatican II, Catholic Action inspired laypeople to participate in the work of the Church's hierarchy. This study examines how American Catholics at the grassroots experienced the evolving pattern of social and religious activism. It demonstrates the pattern both of historical continuity and transformation within the Catholic Church in America A collection of essays tracing the development of selected Catholic lay apostolates in the decades before and after the Second Vatican Council. Contributors demonstrate how Catholic Action that functioned as an auxiliary of the American bishops gave way to groups more inclined to challenge episcopal authority during the 1960s and 1970s.