Habits of Devotion: Catholic Religious Practice in Twentieth-Century America

by James M. O'Toole (Editor)

Overview

"For generations, American Catholics... lived out their faith through countless unremarkable routines. Deep questions of theology usually meant little to them, but parishioners clung to deeply ingrained habits of devotion, both public and private. Particular devotions changed over time, waxing or waning in popularity, but the habits endured: going to mass on Sunday, saying prayers privately and teaching their children to do the same, filling their homes with crucifixes and other religious images, participating in special services, blending the church's calendar of feast and fast days with the secular cycles of work and citizenship, negotiating their conformity (or not) to the church's demands regarding sexual behavior and even diet.... It was religious practice, carried out in daily and weekly observance, that embodied their faith, more than any abstract set of dogmas."—from the Introduction

In Habits of Devotion, four senior scholars take the measure of the central religious practices and devotions that by the middle of the twentieth century defined the "ordinary, week-to-week religion" of the majority of American Catholics. Their essays investigate prayer, devotion to Mary, confession, and the Eucharist as practiced by Catholics in the United States before and shortly after the Second Vatican Council.

Contributors: Joseph P. Chinnic, O.F.M., Franciscan School of Theology; Paula M. Kane, University of Pittsburgh; Margaret M. McGuinness, Cabrini College; James M. O'Toole, Boston College

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780801442568
Publisher:	Cornell University Press
Publication date:	08/04/2004
Series:	Cushwa Center Studies of Catholicism in Twentieth-Century America
Pages:	298
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.25(h) x 0.94(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

James M. O'Toole is Professor of History at Boston College. He is the author of Passing for White: Race, Religion, and the Healy Family, 1820-1920 and Militant and Triumphant: William Henry O'Connell and the Catholic Church in Boston, 1859-1944. He is also coeditor of Boston's Histories: Essays in Honor of Thomas H. O'Connor.

What People are Saying About This

Patrick Allitt

In this informative and persuasive collection, James M. O' Toole and his collaborators describe and explain how American Catholics lived out their faith in the twentieth century. Few of them grappled with theological questions but millions prayed, went to confession, took communion, and participated in devotions to the Virgin Mary. Habits of Devotion illuminates the way in which Catholic rituals were woven into the fabric of everyday life, and it shows how these rituals changed over the course of the century. This is a very fine book and an important addition to the growing literature on twentieth-century American Catholicism.

Mark S. Massa

All four essays in this fine collection focus on the great historical divide in twentieth century Catholicism: pre-Vatican II Catholicism as one tectonic plate of religious experience, and the half century since as another.

Editorial Reviews

This important book focuses on religious practice in the mid-20th century (mid-1920s to mid-1970s), the decades before and after the pivotal Second Vatican Council. The essays in the book look at religious historical periods in terms of before-and-after, and do it very well. Catholic historians want to claim a usable past so that contemporary believers may ground their religious identity in living traditions. Confession is one of four practices of ordinary Catholics explored in Habits of Devotion, the others being prayer, Communion, and Marian devotion. The book is a long-view historical study written by four leading Catholic scholars and drawn from a rich array of private diaries and archival records kept by priests in New York, Boston, Milwaukee, and other major Catholic strongholds where the Irish, German, and Italians practiced their faith.... Habits of Devotion is a most readable and interesting book.

Claire H. Badaracco

"For those who think they remember what it meant to practice the Catholic faith on a day-to-day (or week-to-week) basis in the middle of the 20th century, Habits of Devotion provides a bracingly detailed jog (or challenge) to the memory. For those too young to remember, it offers ready access to the world of pre-Vatican II Catholicism."

Choice

"In this informative and persuasive collection, James M. O' Toole and his collaborators describe and explain how American Catholics lived out their faith in the twentieth century. Few of them grappled with theological questions but millions prayed, went to confession, took communion, and participated in devotions to the Virgin Mary. Habits of Devotion illuminates the way in which Catholic rituals were woven into the fabric of everyday life, and it shows how these rituals changed over the course of the century. This is a very fine book and an important addition to the growing literature on twentieth-century American Catholicism."

Patrick Allitt

"All four essays in this fine collection focus on the great historical divide in twentieth century Catholicism: pre-Vatican II Catholicism as one tectonic plate of religious experience, and the half century since as another."

Mark S. Massa

Everyday American Catholicism in the last century centered on ritual prayers, devotion to Mary, frequent confession, and regular reception of the Eucharist. This pattern changed drastically after Vatican II. Edited by O'Toole (history, Boston Coll.), this volume deals with the practice of private devotion in a series of related essays by relying on letters, newspapers, memoirs, and church publications. Strongly encouraged in America during the first half of the century as a form of Catholic identity in a largely non-Catholic country, private devotion reached its peak during the 1940s and 1950s and declined rapidly thereafter. At that time, the post-Vatican II church emphasized lay participation, social involvement, and openness to other faiths, even as American Catholics became better educated and less ethnically centered. The reasons for this dramatic shift are complex, and the contributors pass no judgments, seeking only to present evidence, but they do offer a fascinating glimpse into Catholicism as it once was and some speculations about where it may be going. For all libraries.-C. Robert Nixon, M.L.S., Lafayette, IN Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

Habits of Devotion is a significant contribution to the historiography of lay Roman Catholics in the United States.

H-Net Reviews, H-Catholic - John Thomas McGuire

Habits of Devotion is a significant contribution to the historiography of lay Roman Catholics in the United States.

--John Thomas McGuire "H-Net Reviews, H-Catholic"

Everyday American Catholicism in the last century centered on ritual prayers, devotion to Mary, frequent confession, and regular reception of the Eucharist. This pattern changed drastically after Vatican II.... This volume deals with the practice of private devotion in a series of related essays by relying on letters, newspapers, memoirs, and church publications. Strongly encouraged in America during the first half of the century as a form of Catholic identity in a largely non-Catholic country, private devotion reached its peak during the 1940s and 1950s and declined rapidly thereafter.... The reasons for this dramatic shift are complex, and the contributors pass no judgments, seeking only to present evidence, but they do offer a fascinating glimpse into Catholicism as it once was and some speculations about where it may be going. For all libraries.

-- "Library Journal"

For those who think they remember what it meant to practice the Catholic faith on a day-to-day (or week-to-week) basis in the middle of the 20th century, Habits of Devotion provides a bracingly detailed jog (or challenge) to the memory. For those too young to remember, it offers ready access to the world of pre-Vatican II Catholicism.

-- "Choice"

This important book focuses on religious practice in the mid-20th century (mid-1920s to mid-1970s), the decades before and after the pivotal Second Vatican Council. The essays in the book look at religious historical periods in terms of before-and-after, and do it very well. Catholic historians want to claim a usable past so that contemporary believers may ground their religious identity in living traditions. Confession is one of four practices of ordinary Catholics explored in Habits of Devotion, the others being prayer, Communion, and Marian devotion. The book is a long-view historical study written by four leading Catholic scholars and drawn from a rich array of private diaries and archival records kept by priests in New York, Boston, Milwaukee, and other major Catholic strongholds where the Irish, German, and Italians practiced their faith.... Habits of Devotion is a most readable and interesting book.

--Claire H. Badaracco "America"

From the Publisher