Patrick W. Carey - Böcker

Confession is a history of penance as a virtue and a sacrament in the United States from about 1634, when Catholicism arrived in Maryland, to 2015, fifty years after the major theological and disciplinary changes initiated by the Second Vatican Council. Patrick W. Carey argues that the Catholic theology and practice of penance, so much opposed by the inheritors of the Protestant Reformation, kept alive the biblical penitential language in the United States at least until the mid-1960s when Catholic penitential discipline changed.During the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, American Catholics created institutions that emphasized, in opposition to Protestant culture, confession to a priest as the normal and almost exclusive means of obtaining forgiveness. Preaching, teaching, catechesis, and parish revival-type missions stressed sacramental confession and the practice became a widespread routine in American Catholic life. After the Second Vatican Council, the practice of sacramental confession declined suddenly. The post-Vatican II history of penance, influenced by the Council's reforms and by changing American moral and cultural values, reveals a major shift in penitential theology; moving from an emphasis on confession to emphasis on reconciliation.Catholics make up about a quarter of the American population, and thus changes in the practice of penance had an impact on the wider society. In the fifty years since the Council, penitential language has been overshadowed increasingly by the language of conflict and controversy. In today's social and political climate, Confession may help Americans understand how far their society has departed from the penitential language of the earlier American tradition, and consider the advantages and disadvantages of such a departure.

This text provides the student with an historical overview of the people and events that have shaped Roman Catholicism in the United States. It begins with a look at the roots of the American Catholic tradition during the time of Columbus and the arrival of missionaries to the New World. The chapters that follow trace the history of Catholicism from the colonial period to the present day. Fair minded and informative, this book will be useful to anyone teaching a course on Roman Catholicism or American Religion.

The Roman Catholics have a long and storied history in the United States. From colonial times to the present, this group has seen its share of ups and downs, and has recently come under heated and extensive scrutiny. There is, however, a richer and more interesting history to this important denomination, and Carey details it here. Beginning with an overview of the transplanting of this faith into the New World, the author then details the extensive involvement this community has had in civil and political affairs, social and cultural milieus, and family and everyday life. Focusing on the people and events that have shaped Roman Catholicism in the United States, this broad history introduces readers to a vital American community.Beginning with a narrative history of Catholics and Catholicism in America, Carey brings the discussion through to current times, addressing the recent problems in the Church, women's roles, and responses to terrorism and war. He then goes on to include brief biographical sketches of important figures in the Church, and offers a chronology of key events. The result is one of the most comprehensive histories of Catholics in America available.

The last 20 centuries of Christian history have witnessed the emergence of numerous theological traditions. Many of these traditions today have relatively minor significance, while others remain a vibrant part of contemporary religious culture. And while some theologians, such as Martin Luther, Thomas Aquinas, and John Calvin, are relatively well known, others have become more obscure. This reference provides alphabetically arranged entries for more than 450 Christian theologians from antiquity to the close of the twentieth century. Entries are restricted to theologians who died before 1994, when this project was begun. Included are profiles for the most important and representative theologians from the Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant traditions, with special attention to theologians of the English-speaking world.The volume covers those individuals whose work was primarily in systematic and spiritual theology, or church historians whose work was chiefly theological. Whenever possible, each entry provides basic biographical information, a brief account of the person's education and career, and a summary of the individual's most important contributions to theology. The entries range in length from 250 to 2,000 words, depending on the significance of the theologian's work. Each entry closes with a bibliography of primary and secondary sources, while the volume concludes with a selected, general bibliography.

From colonial missions to the Iraq war, Patrick W. Carey details the rich and varied involvement Roman Catholics have had in American political, cultural, and family life. Comprehensive and up-to-date, the paperback edition of Catholics in America: A History includes a new chapter covering the election of Pope Benedict XVI, ongoing investigation of abuse scandals, and increasing tension between traditional Catholic values and the beliefs of modern lay people. Brief biographical sketches of important Church figures and a chronology of key events make this an accessible and invaluable resource for anyone seeking insight into the history and current status of the Catholic Church in America.

An Immigrant Bishop is a revised examination of the Irish intellectual roots of Bishop John England's American pastoral works in the diocese of Charleston, South Carolina (1820-1842). The text focuses on his political philosophy and his theology of the Church, both of which were influenced by the Enlightenment and a theological, not a political, Gallicanism. As the study demonstrates, we now know more about England's intellectual life prior to his immigration than we do about any other Catholic immigrant from Ireland. Neither Peter Guilday's monumental two-volume biography (1927) of England nor any subsequent scholarly study of England has uncovered and analyzed, as this book does, England's many unpublished and published writings in Ireland—his explicitly authored texts, his published speeches before the Cork Aggregate meetings, and his pseudonymous articles in the Cork Mercantile Chronicle between 1808, when he was ordained, and 1820, when he emigrated to the United States.John England (1786-1842), the first Catholic bishop of Charleston, was the foremost national spokesman for Catholicism in the United States during the years of his episcopacy and the primary apologist for the compatibility of Catholicism and American republicanism. He was also the first Catholic bishop to speak before the United States Congress and the first American to receive a papal appointment as an Apostolic Delegate to a foreign country (in this case to negotiate a concordat with President Jean Pierre Boyer of Haiti). He is considered the father of the Baltimore Provincial Councils and the nineteenth-century American Catholic conciliar tradition. He was also the only bishop in American history to develop a constitutional form of diocesan government and administration. Among other things he was the first cleric to establish a diocesan newspaper that had something of a national distribution. England's contribution to the early formation of an American Catholicism has been told many times before, but he has the kind of creative mind and episcopal leadership that demands repeated re-considerations.