Roman Catholics in America

Utah Phillips laments the grouping of history in decades (i.e. 80s, 90s, 50s, 60s), because time doesn’t fit that well into neat ten year packages. Patrick Carey avoids the grouping of decades in his book Roman Catholics in America – the recent book that I read. Instead, Carey groups the time by the movements that occurred over the dates through which they occurred. For example, 1776-1815 is “A Free Church in the Republic,” and 1866-1899 is “Towards Americanism.” It is a good way of looking at time that tends to the story of Catholicism rather than the bland meta-narrative of America that tries to force things into decades.
With that said, Carey’s book is good… very good. He is through, organized and focused. What I am trying to figure out is what is Carey’s agenda. What was Carey trying to push, or argue with his book? I would first suppose that Carey is arguing that there IS an American Catholic history. Carey is suggesting that there is a story to tell, but we’ve heard that before. I think Carey is arguing that Catholicism was always a reaction to Protestantism. For example, the Trustee controversies was partially caused by the republican context of the culture. Constantly, Catholics are reacting to American culture. Along with that, I think Carey is pushing a more “progressive” understanding of Catholicism. While Carey goes to great lengths to be fair, there seem to be more emphasis on the left side of Catholicism than the right.
Overall, it was an excellent book that give a great look at the history of the Roman Catholics in America.