Shaping American Catholicism ─ Maryland and New York, 1805-1915

Distinguished historian Robert Emmett Curran presents an informed
and balanced study of the American Catholic Church's experience in its
two most important regions in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
Spanning the years 1805 to 1915, Curran highlights the rivalry and tension
between the northeast and southeast, specifically New York and
Maryland, in assuming leadership of the church in America and the Society
of Jesus.
Slavery, polity, religious culture, education, the intellectual life, and
social justice -- all were integral to the American Church's formation and
development, and each is explored in this book. The essays provide a
unique vantage point to the American Catholic experience by their focus
on two communities that played such an incomparable role in shaping
the character of the church in America. Though Baltimore was half
the size of New York in population, until the 1900s it held a significant
edge in the number of churches, priests, and religious orders serving the
needs of its own immigrant community. By 1900 the place that Maryland
had occupied as the premier see of the Church in America was won by
New York in actuality if not in title.
Based on exemplary archival research and scholarship, the book offers
an engaging history of the northward shift in power and influence
in the nineteenth century.

Robert Emmett Curran is professor emeritus of history at Georgetown University. He is the author of several books including John Dooley's Civil War, Georgetown University: A History, and American Jesuit Spirituality: The Maryland Tradition.