Book Review

In this excellent book, Gerald P. Fogarty gives us the definitive history of Roman Catholicism in Virginia and West Virginia from the colonial period to the mid-1970s. He explores in twenty-eight compelling chapters the evolution of Virginia Catholics from a few scattered and unwanted outsiders in a heavily Protestant state to a substantial community, well integrated into the region's religious, socioeconomic, and political life. While essentially a history of the diocese of Richmond, established in 1820, the study considers also developments in the diocese of Wheeling, formed in 1850.

1

It is not surprising that the careers of Virginia's first ten bishops and their top clerical associates dominate Fogarty's narrative. He draws expertly upon rich primary materials held in United States diocesan archives and in Belgian, Irish, and Italian church depositories to reveal how, under the pastoral direction of those men, generations of Virginia Catholics responded as a church to such urgent national and international problems as slavery, nativism, immigration, economic depression, and war. Especially revealing of episcopal personalities and managerial styles are Fogarty's vivid accounts of the ways individual leaders chose to cope with challenges to their authority that arose over time from within the church. His analyses of disputes of bishops with clergy and laity over such matters as church finances, lay trusteeism, clerical insubordination, and racial and ethnic divisions shed valuable light on the diversity and vitality of Virginia's Catholic community.

. . .