Honors Theses, Ohio Dominican University, 2023, Honors Theses

American Catholics were once a voting block which favored the Democratic party. However, Catholics now vote nearly the same as the general population, a contradiction when compared to other Christian denominations in the United States. This essay works to explore the political, historical, and theological elements of this division which caused the Church to fracture in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Philosophically, the core political ideals of the Catholic Church and the modern United States stand in stark contrast with one another. Presently, the foundational political theory of the United States as formulated by John Locke has become warped into a sort of hyper-individualism. This hyper-individualism emphasizes a personalization of moral truths, and thus stands against the natural law theory of the Church developed from the works of St. Thomas Aquinas. This hyper-individualism would eventually seep into the American Catholic Church, and events throughout the twentieth century would work to further this permeation. Historical events such as the Americanism controversy, the Second Vatican Council, the election of John F. Kennedy, the widespread rejection of Humanae Vitae, and the political actions before and after Roe v. Wade, would work to further divide the Church. Finally, the essay concludes with an examination of various topics prevalent in American political discourse and determines how a Catholic could respond to those issues while remaining faithful to the teachings of the Church. This examination includes consideration of teachings from the Magisterium and determines the level of authority each teaching has by utilizing the concluding paragraphs of the Profession of Faith. The conclusions of this examination show that many politicians who claim to be Catholic take up positions contrary to the faith and risk placing themselves outside of full communion with the Catholic Church. Finally, this essay raises the question as to whether American Cathol (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Ronald Carstens PhD (Advisor); Matthew Ponesse PhD (Committee Member); Leo Madden S.T.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: American History; Political Science; Religious History; Theology

Master of Arts (M.A.), University of Dayton, 2020, Theological Studies

The objective of this thesis is to outline the path of the American Church's current polarization. Those represented by Father James Martin are not as engaged in the Traditional aspects of the Church, which loses credibility among those on the other side. On the other hand, those represented by R.R. Reno have embraced Tradition, but have the risk of falling into extremism that ignores Catholic Social Teaching as it is most widely interpreted. At the same time these sides are disputing, young adults are leaving the Church altogether at a drastic rate, which might make all this scholarship for naught. Through examining these sides from the viewpoint of migration into the United States, a common thread emerges that will bring the two sides together rather than further cleave them apart. However, as the American political stage shows in our current times, there appears to be no simple solution.

Committee: William Portier (Advisor); Timothy Gabrielli (Other); Angela Ann Zukowski (Other) Subjects: American History; American Studies; Ethics; History; Political Science; Religion; Religious Congregations; Religious History; Social Structure; Theology

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), University of Dayton, 2014, Theology

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, SJ, visionary priest, paleontologist, and writer, is an important landmark figure in twentieth-century French Catholicism. Especially from 1950 onward, Teilhard also significantly impacted the Catholicism of the United States. The period of 1959–1972 was the crucial age during which Teilhard's writing and thought were first available in North America; over five hundred primary and secondary works concerning him were published in the US during these years. This period was also the decade of the counterculture, the Second Vatican Council, and the dissolution of the immigrant subculture of the church in the United States. A full-scale study of the U.S. reception of Teilhard de Chardin in this early period contributes not only to an awareness of the thought of this important figure and the impact of his work, but also further develops an understanding of U.S. Catholicism in its religious and cultural dimensions during these years, and provides clues as to how it has further unfolded over the past several decades. The manner in which this reception occurred, including the intensity of this phenomenon, happened as it did at this particular point in the history of both the United States and the Catholic Church because of the confluence of the then developing social milieu, the disintegration of the immigrant Catholic subculture, and the opening of the church to the world through Vatican II. Additionally, as these social and historical events unfolded within U.S. culture during these dozen years, the manner in which Teilhard was read, and the contributions which his thought provided changed. At various points his work became a carrier for an almost Americanist emphasis upon progress, energy and hope; at other times his teleological understanding of the value of suffering moved to center stage. Most importantly, Teilhard wrote concerning humanity's desire for the divine, and strove to place that desire for unity within the context of both (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: William Portier PhD (Committee Co-Chair); Dennis Doyle PhD (Committee Co-Chair); Kathleen Duffy PhD (Committee Member); Anthony Smith PhD (Committee Member); Cecilia Moore PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: American History; Religious History; Spirituality; Theology

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), University of Dayton, 2013, Theology

This dissertation examines Catholic devotionalism's positive impact on the novelist Jack Kerouac's work. It examines how Kerouac's engagement with devotionalism fostered his sacramentality and his sensibility of the imminent presence of the sacred, and the dissertation examines how Kerouac's sacramentality/sensibility moved him to attempt to convey the same sensibility to his readers. After the introduction, the dissertation examines how the Catholic subculture of Lowell, Massachusetts cultivated and fostered Kerouac's sacramentality. Then, it explores the interaction between Kerouac's devotionalism and sacramentality with mid-twentieth century/postwar America while it explores how his sacramentality offered him a way to critique the increased commodification of American life. Finally, it explores Kerouac's travels in Mexico and seeks to understand why that was the place where he achieved his greatest vision - a vision of God's face.

Committee: Sandra Yocum Dr. (Committee Chair) Subjects: American History; American Literature; American Studies; Canadian Literature; Canadian Studies; French Canadian Culture; French Canadian Literature; History; Latin American Studies; Literature; Religion; Theology

Master of Arts, John Carroll University, 2009, History

This thesis examines the early American Catholic Church and how its first bishop, John Carroll, guided it through the first years of the American republic. The struggles Carroll faced were the legacy of the English heritage of the colonies. English Catholics who shaped colonial Catholic life made the community private and personal in response to the religious atmosphere in the English world. The American Revolution brought toleration for Catholics and they struggled to adapt their hierarchal religion to new republican language. Some congregations went as far as to deny episcopal power, a theory known as trusteeism. Different interpretations struggled to gain prominence and the issue was not resolved until decades after Carroll's death in 1815. Yet the Church he left behind provided a strong base for later immigrants who nonetheless dramatically changed the face of the American Catholic Church.

Committee: David Robson Ph.D. (Advisor); Anne Kugler Ph.D. (Committee Member); Daniel Kilbride Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: American History; Religious History

Doctor of Philosophy, University of Akron, 2024, History

For the first century of its existence, colonial Puritanism in New England embraced anti-Catholicism. It first emerged out of anti-Catholic efforts to continue the Reformation in England, by removing Catholic rituals, symbols, ideas, and people from the English church, state, and society. Through the processes of migration and settlement-building in the unique contexts of the New England borderlands, their once “English” anti-Catholicism evolved and became “Americanized.” Puritans felt this new “Americanized” anti-Catholicism on an everyday basis, making colonial Puritan anti-Catholicism more intense than its English counterpart. Embracing an anti-Catholic “errand” into the New England borderlands, a region filled with new people and geography that was far from the reaches of the English state, colonial Puritans experimented with and crafted their religious, political, and social institutions, practices, and identities on anti-Catholicism. Catholics became “the Other,” imagined as violent and oppressive tyrants, plotters, murderers, and even the anti-Christ, from which colonial Puritans defined their community in opposition. Constant conflict with Indigenous peoples, New France, and “popery” raised anxieties and fears over the very survival of Puritan communities. As a result, New Englanders passed stranger laws—regulations, oaths, and other means to control the presence of alien peoples—to restrict Catholic “strangers” within their colonies. By exploring the relationship between the colonies of New England and Ireland, it becomes clear that the English language of civility and violence, which was employed in New England against both Indigenous peoples and Catholics, originated within the process of Irish colonization. This language was thus tied to that colonization's virulent anti-Catholicism, which was then transported to New England.

Committee: Gina Martino (Advisor); Michael Graham (Committee Member); Hilary Nunn (Committee Member); Janet Klein (Committee Member); Kevin Kern (Committee Member) Subjects: American History; American Literature; European History; History; Law; Religion; Religious History

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), University of Dayton, 2024, Theology

Katherine Burton (1887-1969) is a forgotten, yet prolific US Catholic writer who wrote for average, middle-class, white women in the mid-twentieth century. From her conversion to Catholicism in 1930 to her death in 1969, Katherine wrote a monthly “Woman to Woman” column in The Sign for thirty-six years, over forty-four biographies and histories of Catholic men, women, and religious communities, and countless articles for other Catholic periodicals. Her books, as well as the Catholic periodicals in which her writing regularly appeared, had a large, nationwide readership. Katherine's words hold significance for religious scholars today seeking to further understand the faith lives of middle-class women in the pews during one of the most turbulent time periods in US history. Examining Katherine's writing provides scholars with a view into how Catholicism and Catholic womanhood were understood and presented by a laywoman to her mid-twentieth century laywomen audience. Katherine's writing is also a compelling example of how intricately an author's personal life is often entwined with their work and how studying the two side by side enriches the narratives they both tell.

Committee: Bill Portier (Committee Chair); Sandra Yocum (Committee Member); Mary Henold (Committee Member); Jana Bennett (Committee Member); William Trollinger (Committee Member) Subjects: American History; Religious History; Theology

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2023, History

This dissertation seeks to unearth the inherent complexity of relations among evangelical missionaries, their filial churches, Catholics, and secular actors in the context of Protestantism's precipitous rise in Brazil between the 1910s and 1960s. It argues that American Protestant missionaries proved to be crucial agents of cultural change who successfully imparted to their Brazilian believers facets of their anti-Communist, paternalistic, and intermittently apolitical ideologies over the course of several systems of government, including two dictatorships. Crucially, this dissertation situates missionaries as intersectional, transnational, and non-state actors within the larger framework of U.S.-Brazilian religiopolitics, cultural transfusion, and the construction of gender, economic, and racial norms. Although far from passive recipients of American evangelical ideas, Brazil's newly-converted Protestants embraced U.S. missionaries' thought to a considerable extent, thereby cementing the incisive cultural change that American missionaries had sought to foster in Brazil. In doing so, Brazilian church workers and leaders refashioned U.S. norms of evangelicalism while also increasingly advocating for the nationalization (indigenization) of evangelical denominations. Basing itself on four case studies of U.S.-founded or influenced evangelical churches, this dissertation unravels the many contradictions and complications inherent to U.S. missionary work in Brazil. These factors include Brazilian evangelicals' wavering between apoliticism and political activism, a vying for influence with the Catholic Church, the legacy of Jim Crow and its consequences to mission work in Brazil, as well as a series of intra-church disputes that ultimately resulted in the nationalization (indigenization) of each church. At the core of the evangelical experience between the 1910s and 1960s stood an identitarian quest to gain legitimacy among Brazil's secular and religious authoritie (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Peter Hahn (Committee Chair); James N. Green (Other); Jennifer Eaglin (Committee Member); Joseph Parrott (Committee Member) Subjects: Comparative; History; International Relations; Latin American History; Religious History; World History

PHD, Kent State University, 2018, College of Arts and Sciences / Department of Political Science

The relationship between religious belief and affiliation, and political behavior has been well studied. Scholars have utilized surveys to establish correlations regarding how religious affiliation affects political attitudes and behavior. Other scholars have examined correlations between what is happening within congregations and how that affects the political attitudes and behavior of congregants. Scholars have also attempted to establish more precise causal mechanisms regarding how religious leaders attempt to influence their congregants through interviews, observations, and survey experiments. However, research focusing on political cues made by leaders of various religious organizations is rare. To address lingering questions regarding potential political cues made by religious leaders, this dissertation examines, first, whether religious leaders engage in delivering political messages, and whether they are explicit or coded cues. Second, it tests how organizational differences among various religious organizations affects whether rank-and-file members support or oppose policy stances made by their respective religious organizations. Finally, it seeks to determine whether political cues are effective in changing political attitudes. To test the frequency and content of those political cues, I examined sermons, articles, resolutions, and statements made by religious elites from the Roman Catholic Church, Southern Baptist Convention, and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Based on the content analysis of those statements, I find religious elites engage in a pattern of delivering coded political cues, which I define as “reverse God talk,” that are not perceptible to those who are not members of that religious group. Using General Social Survey data, I find differences in organizational structure among religious organizations and the political polarization of one's community and state matter in whether members of these organizations support or oppose (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Ryan L. Claassen Ph.D. (Committee Chair); Michael J. Ensley Ph.D. (Committee Member); Anthony D. Molina Ph.D. (Committee Member); J. Quin Monson Ph.D. (Committee Member); Manfred H. M. van Dulmen Ph.D. (Other) Subjects: Political Science

PHD, Kent State University, 2018, College of Education, Health and Human Services / School of Foundations, Leadership and Administration

Dozens of academic studies over the course of the past four or five decades have shown empirically that Catholic schools, according to a wide array of standards and measures, are the best schools at producing good American citizens. This dissertation proposes that this is so is partly because the schools are infused with the Catholic ethos (also called the Catholic Imagination or the Analogical Imagination) and its approach to the world in general. A large part of this ethos is based upon Catholic Anthropology, the Church's teaching about the nature of the human person and his or her relationship to other people, to Society, to the State, and to God. The ideas that make up Catholic Anthropology are also deeply foundational to the set of ideas known collectively as Western Civilization and, through them, to the ideas that together I call the American Covenant. This study takes a foundational approach. While the empirical studies have measured the effects of Catholic schools in making good American citizens, I explore the reasons for this outcome. In doing so, I draw from many disciplines to examine the historical events, significant persons, and philosophical and theological arguments that together have created the American Catholic school. I conclude that if present trends in Catholic schooling continue, there is potentially a great loss to both American Catholicism and to the American republic.

Committee: Natasha Levinson (Advisor); Averil McClelland (Committee Member); Catherine Hackney (Committee Member) Subjects: Education; Education History; Education Philosophy; Education Policy; Educational Theory

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2018, English

“Coexistent Ethos: The Rhetorical Practices and Situated Business Writing of American Catholic Laywomen” examines the business writing produced by three lay Catholic women's organizations in Columbus, OH during the late nineteenth- to mid-twentieth centuries: The Catholic Ladies of Columbia (CLC) – a fraternal benefits society incorporated in Ohio in 1897; The Catholic Women's League of Columbus (CWL) – a diocesan-level women's group organized in January 1919 as a descendant of the Catholic Women's War Relief Council; and The Immaculate Conception Women's Club (ICWC) – a parish-level women's group founded in 1945. Despite differences in their organizational structures, mission statements and organizational goals, these groups shared an overarching similarity: the use of business writing to construct, cultivate, and preserve a business ethos that was simultaneously highly professional and deeply Catholic. This coexistent ethos allowed these women to navigate diverse business spheres, domains, and discourses while also carrying out their outreach work that was fundamental to their identity as Catholic laywomen. Drawing on feminist theorizations of ethos from scholars such as Nedra Reynolds, Julie Nelson Christoph, Risa Applegarth, Carolyn Skinner and the contributors to the 2015 edited collection Rethinking Ethos: A Feminist Ecological Approach to Rhetoric (Ed. Ryan, Meyers, Jones), I examine the ways that these women deploy a coexistent ethos in their diverse business writing that is, at every turn, fundamentally grounded in business principles and conventions and Catholic fidelity and charity. To illustrate the dexterity with which the Catholic Ladies of Columbia (founded 1897), the Catholic Women's League of Columbus (founded 1919), and the Immaculate Conception Women's Club (founded 1945) deploy coexistent ethos through their business writing, I provide in-depth framing that situates these women and their work within their contemporary eras. This contextual fr (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Nancy Johnson (Advisor); Jonathan Buehl (Committee Member); James Fredal (Committee Member) Subjects: Composition; Rhetoric

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2017, History

This dissertation examines the relationship between faith and reason in the nineteenth-century United States by analyzing the lives and educational philosophies of six educators of different religious backgrounds: Frederick Packard, evangelical Protestant; Horace Mann, non-evangelical Protestant; Rebecca Gratz and Isaac Leeser, Jews; and Mother Angela and Orestes Brownson, Catholics. To varying degrees in their writings, each of these educators explored the relationship between faith and reason while expressing their hopes for how children should be taught to think in the context of their faiths. In general, they saw no conflict between faith and reason. Rather than calling for young people to obey authority slavishly, they advocated for them to develop independent reasoning skills. They also promoted the idea that young people should develop internal moral compasses, which would lead them to truthful conclusions and encourage them to act morally, even when no authority directed them. Although all of the educators demonstrated advocacy of independent thought to some degree, the Jewish and Catholic educators showed more restraint. Their position as minorities in American society may account for this reluctance. Given the pressure to convert to Protestantism, they likely feared giving their young people too much license to think for themselves. Yet they still advocated the idea that faith and reason supported each other and that both would vindicate their chosen religions. This dissertation primarily analyzes the writings of these six individuals, including their letters, lectures, newspaper and journal articles, and educational texts for children and adults. The analysis is set in the context of the history of the Enlightenment, especially Scottish common sense philosophy, as well as the histories of childhood, antebellum reform, and education. This dissertation contributes to nineteenth-century American educational history by providing a much-nee (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: John Brooke Ph.D. (Advisor); Joan Cashin Ph.D. (Committee Member); Harvey Graff Ph.D. (Committee Member); Margaret Sumner Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: American History; Education History; History; Religious Education; Religious History

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), University of Dayton, 2014, Theology

This dissertation describes and analyzes lay association with vowed religious as an underappreciated model of Christian community and discipleship with layered correlations to the local and universal church. It seeks to identify who lay associates are and what their new way of life means within the life of the church. Reflection on the meaning of associate life, which peaked in the early 1990's, largely falls short of taking into account associates' viewpoint. In response, I draw from original research including oral history interviews and archival studies to investigate two representative samples of this way of life, both Catholic lay associations in the archdiocese of Dubuque, Iowa: the Associates of Iowa Cistercians and the Presentation Partners. As a historical-theological portrait develops, I critically analyze each group's common practices and ecclesial perceptions, arguing associates engage the church by means of their unique contribution to, and reception, expression, and propagation of their respective spiritual traditions. I explore their relationship to parish, ministries, other Christian traditions, religious congregations, religious experiences, and perceptions of church and culture. Both the shared interpretive work and the bond with religious distinguish associates from comparable groups and develop in them a nascent ecclesiological self-understanding. This study concludes that it is the inner life of each group—understood as including but transcending the inner life of each individual and expressed in their living out of a vision arising from the teaching of Vatican II and with a sense of their larger interconnections—that best encapsulates who they are and why. By spotlighting associates' experiences in their own words, this study significantly advances reflection on associate life by constructing a practical ecclesiology on the ground. The study: 1) highlights the experiences of a neglected ecclesial movement, 2) proposes an inte (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Dennis Doyle Ph.D. (Advisor); William Portier Ph.D. (Committee Member); Sandra Yocum Ph.D. (Committee Member); Kelly Johnson Ph.D. (Committee Member); William Trollinger Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: History; Religious History; Theology

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), University of Dayton, 2013, Theology

This dissertation examines the conception of sin and the practice of penance among Catholics in the United States from 1955 to 1975. It begins with a brief historical account of sin and penance in Christian history, indicating the long tradition of performing penitential acts in response to the identification of one's self as a sinner. The dissertation then considers the Thomistic account of sin and the response of penance, which is understood both as a sacrament (which destroys the sin) and as a virtue (the acts of which constitute the matter of the sacrament but also extend to include non-sacramental acts). This serves to provide a framework for understanding the way Catholics in the United States identified sin and sought to amend for it by use of the sacrament of penance as well as non-sacramental penitential acts of the virtue of penance. The dissertation argues that there was a change in the conception of sin both at popular and academic levels, and that this coincided with the decline of practices of the virtue of penance, including, but not limited to the sacrament of penance. With the change in the concept of sin, American Catholics became less likely to identify their actions in terms of sin or themselves primarily as sinners. Given this change in self-understanding, Catholics perceived the need to do penance in a different light. Both sacramental and non-sacramental penances were criticized for being too routine and unreflective, and there were numerous approaches to counter these perceived problems and to revitalize penitential practices among American Catholics in the 1960s. One particular response was the National Catholic Conference of Bishops' Pastoral Statement that changed non-sacramental penitential practices in the U.S. in its implementation of Paul VI's Paenitemini. The language of this document reflects the change in academic moral theology toward an emphasis on individual freedom and responsibility and the willing acceptance to live out one's (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Sandra Yocum Ph.D. (Advisor); William Portier Ph.D. (Committee Member); Kelly Johnson Ph.D. (Committee Member); Jana Bennett Ph.D. (Committee Member); William Mattison Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Ethics; History; Theology

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 2009, History

Recent scholarship on the seventeenth-century Jesuit-Amerindian encounter in New France has emphasized the cultural disruptiveness and loss of the various native groups as a result of the missionary project. Crucial to understanding this loss of traditional Amerindian culture, however, is a parallel understanding of the cultural and intellectual forces coming from Europe which shaped and often restricted the Jesuits' attitudes toward native customs. Examining the first fifty years of the cross-cultural encounter through the lens of dream interpretation, this paper argues that the Jesuits made several adjustments to their initial assumptions and responses toward native dreams. Although the Jesuits originally denounced all native dreams as superstitious, the advent of native convert dreams forced the Jesuits to recognize the placement of at least some native dreams within traditional Christian categories of visions and miracles, even though some of these dreams retained characteristics which they condemned in traditional native dreams. Over time, however, the Jesuits' accommodating policy drew criticisms from competing missionaries. Because the dispute centered on events in China rather than Canada, the acceptability of convert dreams was resolved first by a silence on the issue in public records and later by a retraction of the papal condemnation of the Chinese Rites ruling and certain accomodationist practices. Ultimately, the issue of dreams reveals the deep tensions faced by the Jesuits in evaluating and accepting practices, even in part, that did not fit precisely into orthodox categories during a period when the Catholic Church, an institution that, like many other European centers of power, strove to buttress their institutional authority and to reduce the varieties of acceptable worship and belief in the face of enormous expansion in intellectual ideas and varieties of cultural practices around the world.

Committee: Dale K. Van Kley (Advisor); Matt Goldish (Committee Member); Alice Conklin (Committee Member) Subjects: European History; History; Native Americans; Religion; Religious History

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), University of Dayton, 2011, Theology

This dissertation examines the theological work of John Hugo by looking at its roots within the history of Ignatian spirituality, as well as within various nature-grace debates in Christian history. It also attempts to situate Hugo within the historical context of early twentieth-century Catholicism and America, particularly the period surrounding the Second World War. John Hugo (1911-1985) was a priest from Pittsburgh who is perhaps best known as Dorothy Day's spiritual director and leader of “the retreat” she memorialized in The Long Loneliness. Throughout much of American Catholic scholarship, Hugo's theology has been depicted as rigorist and even labeled as Jansenist, yet it was embraced by and had a great influence upon Day and many others. Hugo was also significant beyond his association with Day and the Catholic Worker, in that he represented a unique theological impulse within American Catholicism. This inquiry reveals that not only is the Jansenist caricature of Hugo's theology false, but also that that caricature itself is rooted in the particular theological perspective of late nineteenth and early twentieth-century neo-Thomism. Hugo offered a critique of this once dominant theological perspective, and indeed his theology shared many similarities with the work done by Henri de Lubac, S.J. during the same period. This project ultimately intends to show that Hugo's theology of nature and grace remains relevant to contemporary American Catholic discourse, as it provides a corrective and an alternative to the somewhat intransigent debates between thinkers who tend toward a “Thomistic” stance and those who take a more “Augustinian” approach.

Committee: William Portier PhD (Advisor); Michael Baxter PhD (Committee Member); Dennis Doyle PhD (Committee Member); Kelly Johnson PhD (Committee Member); Sandra Yocum PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Theology

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), University of Dayton, 2008, Theology

In his seminal work, The History of Black Catholics in the United States, Dom Cyprian Davis O.S.B. attempted to set a broader framework within which “future historical research” at the local level might occur. This dissertation is one such academic endeavor. Building on the historical work of both Davis and Joseph H. Lackner S.M., this dissertation examines the nature of the “cry for justice” as it was communicated in the American Catholic Tribune, a weekly, nineteenth century, black newspaper printed by Daniel A. Rudd, an influential African American Catholic publisher, educator and civil rights leader. During the years of this newspaper's publication, 1886-1897, Rudd promoted an ecclesiologically-centered vision of justice which presumed for the Catholic Church an essential role in the establishment of race justice in America. An examination of Rudd's life and work reveals that though Rudd agitated for full equality for African Americans throughout his life, three distinct approaches can be discerned which roughly correspond to three periods in his life. During the Springfield Period, 1881-1886, Rudd promoted a “Fredrick Douglass-like” political/judicial activist approach. During the Cincinnati/Detroit Period, 1887-1897, he championed an ecclesiologically-centered approach. Finally, throughout the Southern Period, from 1900 onward, the Catholic laymen advocated a “Booker T. Washington-like” economic, self-help approach for achieving full equality for blacks.

Committee: William Portier Ph.D. (Committee Chair); Sandra Yocum-Mize Ph.D. (Committee Member); Cecilia Moore Ph.D. (Committee Member); Una Cadegan Ph.D. (Committee Member); William Trollinger Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: History; Religion; Religious History

Doctor of Philosophy, Case Western Reserve University, 2013, History

This study illuminates labor education by the American Catholic Church. Through a Church vetted program of specialized labor education, the laity became an integral component in the growth and development of American organized labor in the Twentieth Century. Utilizing the social encyclicals, the laity and clergy educated workers about their rights and created a cadre of labor leaders and an activist Catholic laity. The development of the labor schools reflect a unique American interpretation of Church doctrine tailored specifically to conditions in the United States. The Vatican's concern about Americanism caused some of the American Church hierarchy, in the late nineteenth century, to become ambivalent about overt social action on behalf of labor. The laity searched for a way to implement social reform programs like those of the Progressive or Social Gospel movements. Consequently, after the pronouncement of Quadragesimo Anno, the formation of labor education was implemented by committed members of the laity and activist parish priests who chose to interpret the social encyclicals with an American perspective. During the period of the Great Depression, the New Deal and Quadragesimo Anno, Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker Movement catalyzed the formation of the Association of Catholic Trade Unionists which in turn led to the establishment of labor schools throughout the nation. As the Cold War developed, Catholic lay labor education became a bulwark against communist infiltration of organized labor. Two of the most prominent schools were located in Buffalo, New York and Cleveland, Ohio. By concentrating on Catholic labor education in Buffalo and Cleveland, this study demonstrates how vital the labor schools were to these communities. The labor schools in Buffalo and Cleveland present examples of the curriculums and policies developed mutually by the laity and clergy to educate workers (both Catholic and non-Catholic) about their rights and (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: John Grabowski (Committee Chair); David Hammack (Committee Member); John Flores (Committee Member); Paul Gerhart (Committee Member) Subjects: American History; Clergy; European History; Labor Relations; Religious History