NATIONALISM AND AMERICAN CATHOLICISM

by Dorothy Dohen ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 22, 1967

The trend toward the secularization of Christianity--i.e., toward the recognition of the validity of purely secular aspirations--is usually regarded, quite justly, as an essential element in establishing the relevance of Christianity to the modern world. Even the most laudable of trends, however, sometimes result in unintended monstrosities, and the thesis of Miss Dohen's book is that such a deformity has obtained in this country. The book is a critical examination of the public statements of six members of the Catholic hierarchy, and it demonstrates that the attempt to relate the sacred to the secular in a nation where the two are constitutionally separate has--at least in this instance--resulted in a fusion of Catholicism and nationalism rather than of Catholicism and humanism. Miss Dohen's work is stimulating, and sometimes frightening in its implications in a red-flag sort of way. One might have wished that the author had developed at greater length some of the questions she raises--e.g., whether religion is becoming (once again) a disguised nationalism, or whether nationalism is being up-graded from its status of a rather low-brow political philosophy to that of a religion. Nonetheless, Nationalism and American Catholicism is a large step forward in the investigation of a phenomenon as appalling to the Catholic as it is to the humanist.

Pub Date: Feb. 22, 1967

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Sheed & Ward

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1967

Categories: NONFICTION