The Look of Catholics

"Smith's ambitious and exemplary work demonstrates decisively for all time not only that Catholics were integral players in the formation of modern American popular culture but that the role of Catholicism itself in the national popular culture was a major issue in the production of that same culture...A wonderfully exciting book that will be widely hailed as a landmark achievement, confirm the author's stature as the leading scholar of Catholic popular culture, and be consulted by scholars and their students for decades to come." James T. Fisher, author of Communion of Immigrants: A History of Catholics in America

"Smith brilliantly connects Bing Crosby's Father O'Malley to President John F. Kennedy and Bishop Fulton J. Sheen to Pope John Paul II. More important, he goes beyond Catholic studies to show how all of these Catholic celebrities and leaders also led the larger cultural and political history of the United States. His chapter on images of Catholics in American photojournalism, particularly during the great decades of Life magazine, casts a new light on the whole `American Century' that the founder of Time-Life, Henry R. Luce, proclaimed in 1941. And his accounts of Catholic themes in the work of film directors John Ford and Leo McCarey trace the movement of Catholic and American religion from the critical and progressive stances of the 1930s to the consensus of the 1950s and early 1960s...A compelling read that provides a new perspective on how Catholicism and American popular culture have interacted, and often merged, over the last seventy years." Peter Gardella, author of American Angles: Useful Spirits in the Material World

When John Kennedy ran for president, some Americans thought a Catholic couldn't---or shouldn't ---win the White House. Credit Bing Crosby, among others, that he did.

For much of American history, Catholics' perceived allegiance to an international church centered in Rome excluded them from full membership in society. Now Anthony Burke Smith shows how the intersection of the mass media and the visually rich culture of Catholicism changed that Protestant perception and, in the process, changed American culture. Smith examines depictions of and by Catholics in American popular culture during the critical period between the Great Depression and the height of the Cold War. He surveys the popular films, television, and photojournalism of the era that reimagined Catholicism as an important, even attractive, element of American life to reveal the deeply political and social meanings of the Catholic presence in popular culture.

Hollywood played a big part in this midcentury Catholicization of the American imagination, and Smith showcases the talents of Catholics who made major contributions to cinema. Leo McCarey's Oscar-winning film Going My Way, starring the soothing (and Catholic) Bing Crosby, turned the Catholic parish into a vehicle for Ameican dreams, while Pat O'Brien and Spencer Tracy portrayed heroic priests who championed the underclass in some of the era's biggest hits. And while even a Catholic Filmmaker like John Ford rarely focused on clerics and the Church, Smith reveals how Ford's films gave a distinctly ethnic Catholic accent to his cinematic depictions of American community.

Smith also looks at the efforts of Henry Luce's influential life magazine to harness Catholicism to a postwar vision of middle-class prosperity and cultural consensus. And he considers the unexpected success of Bishop Fulton J. Sheen's prime-time television show Life is Worth Living in the 1950s, which offered a Catholic message that spoke to the anxieties of Cold War audiences.

Revealing images of orthodox belief whose sharpest edges had been softened to suggest tolerance and goodwill, Smith shows how such representations overturned stereotypes of Catholics as un-American. Spanning a time when hot and cold wars challenged Americans' traditional assumptions about national identity and purpose, his book conveys the visual style, moral confidence, and international character of Catholicism that gave it the cultural authority to represent America.

Anthony Burke Smith is associate professor and Director of the Graduate Programs in Religious Studies at the University of Dayton.