Negotiating their Place: Two
Perspectives on American Catholics
in the Progressive Era

Jeanne Petit
Hope College

MOLONEY, DEIRDRE M.  American Catholic Lay Groups and Transatlantic Social Reform in the Progressive Era. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002.  276 pp.  Introduction, illustrations, notes, bibliography and index, $49.95 (cloth), ISBN 0-8078-2660-X; $19.95 (paper), ISBN 0-8078-4986-3.

WINGERD, MARY LETHERT.  Claiming the City: Politics, Faith and the Power of Place in St. Paul.  Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2001. xiii + 326 pp. Introduction, illustrations, notes and index, $29.95 (cloth), ISBN 0-8014-3936-1.

Throughout United States history, American Catholics had to manage the contradiction implicit in being part of a nation that preached liberty and a Church that demanded obedience. In the 1890s, the pressures arising from that contradiction came into sharp relief. The American Protective Association reached the height of its influence by blaming Catholics for political corruption and accusing them of plotting insurrection.1 American Catholics also received mixed messages from their own Church. In 1891, Pope Leo XIII issued a papal encyclical, Rerum Novarum, urging Catholics to work for social justice, but in 1899, he condemned what he called "Americanism" and established the firm hand of Church authority.2 American Catholics had to both defend themselves from hostile Protestant Americans and prove themselves to a suspicious hierarchy. The Progressive era served as a transition period for American Catholics, who sought to make a case for their value to the United States even as they maintained allegiance to their Roman-centered Church.	1
Two recent books, Mary Lethert Wingerd's Claiming the City: Politics, Faith and the Power of Place in St. Paul and Deidre M. Moloney's American Catholic Lay Groups and Transatlantic Social Reform in the Progressive Era, explore the ways in which American Catholics navigated social, political and religious pressures during this formative period. Wingerd's examination of St. Paul, Minnesota, delineates how the Catholics wove themselves into the community fabric by taking advantage of the specific geography, civic culture and social structure of the city. In contrast, Maloney's comparative study of Catholic reform movements in the United States provides a national view of how Catholics articulated their American citizenship through their charitable work. Together, these books offer compelling social histories of a Church in transition, its members trying to have a significant place in their community and nation while still remaining true to their faith.	2
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