Book description
American religious histories have often focused on the poisoned
relations between Catholics and Protestants during the colonial period
or on the virulent anti-Catholicism and nativism of the mid- to late
nineteenth century. Between these periods, however, lies an important
era of close, peaceable, and significant interaction between these
discordant factions. Frontiers of Faith: Bringing Catholicism to the
West in the Early Republic examines how Catholics in the early
nineteenth-century Ohio Valley expanded their church and strengthened
their connections to Rome alongside the rapid development of the
Protestant Second Great Awakening. In competition with clergy of
evangelical Protestant denominations, priests and bishops aggressively
established congregations, constructed church buildings, ministered to
the faithful, and sought converts. Catholic clergy also displayed the
distinctive features of Catholicism that would inspire Catholics and,
hopefully, impress others. The clerics' optimism grew from the
opportunities presented by the western frontier and the presence of
non-Catholic neighbors. The fruit of these efforts was a European
church translated to the American West. In spite of the relative
harmony with Protestants and pressures to Americanize, Catholics
relied on standard techniques of establishing the authority,
institutions, and activities of their faith. By the time Protestant
denominations began to resent the Catholic presence in the 1830s, they
also had reason to resent Catholic successes -- and the many
manifestations of that success -- in conveying the faith to others.
Using extensive correspondence, reports, diaries, court documents,
apologetical works, and other records of the Catholic clergy, John R.
Dichtl shows how Catholic leadership successfully pursued strategies
of growth in frontier regions while continually weighing major
decisions against what it perceived to be Protestant opinion.
Frontiers of Faith helps restore Catholicism to the story of religious
development in the early republic and emphasizes the importance of
clerical and lay efforts to make sacred the landscape of the New West.
""Dichtl's work is thoroughly researched and
meticulously documented, but he employs enough anecdotes of fiery
priests, recalcitrant laymen, and saintly (and not-so-saintly) bishops
to give his narrative a lively pace. Dichtl's story is an important
one for understanding half a century of history, both of Catholicism
in America and of the early West." --Andrew Stern, Ohio Valley
History" --
John R. Dichtl is executive director of the National Council on
Public History and former deputy executive director of the
Organization of American Historians.
