Catholic Politics in the United States: Challenges in the Past, Present, and Future
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
12-2013
Publication Title
The Forum
Volume
11
Issue
4
First page number:
589
Last page number:
602
Abstract
Throughout the history of the US, the Catholic Church has occupied a variety of political roles. This essay identifies three distinctive periods of Catholic politics: An era in which US Catholicism represented a primarily “immigrant” church (approximately from the mid-19th century to World War II), a period of assimilation and acculturation (roughly 1945–1980), and a period of integration into the dominant partisan and ideological cleavages of American politics (approximately 1980 to the present). Each of these eras was characterized by a distinctive pattern of interaction among the American Catholic laity, the organized Roman Catholic hierarchy in the US, and the Vatican.
Keywords
Catholic Church; Catholic Church and world politics; United States
Disciplines
American Politics | Catholic Studies | History | Political Science | Religion | United States History
File Format
File Size
504.57 KB
Language
English
Repository Citation
Jelen, T. G.
(2013).
Catholic Politics in the United States: Challenges in the Past, Present, and Future.
The Forum, 11(4),
589-602.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/for-2014-0008
