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Until the close of the Second Vatican Council in 1965, the stance of the Roman Catholic Church toward the social, cultural, economic, and political developments of the twentieth century was largely antagonistic. Naturally opposed to secularization, skeptical of capitalist markets indifferent to questions of justice, confused and appalled by new forms of high and low culture, and resistant to the social and economic freedom of women—in all of these ways the Catholic Church set itself up as a thoroughly anti-modern institution. Yet, in and through the period from World War I to Vatican II, the Church did engage with, react to, and even accommodate various aspects of modernity. In All Good Books Are Catholic Books, Una M. Cadegan shows how the Church’s official position on literary culture developed over this crucial period.The Catholic Church in the United States maintained an Index of Prohibited Books and the National Legion of Decency (founded in 1933) lobbied Hollywood to edit or ban movies, pulp magazines, and comic books that were morally suspect. These regulations posed an obstacle for the self-understanding of Catholic American readers, writers, and scholars. But as Cadegan finds, Catholics developed a rationale by which they could both respect the laws of the Church as it sought to protect the integrity of doctrine and also engage the culture of artistic and commercial freedom in which they operated as Americans. Catholic literary figures including Flannery O’Connor and Thomas Merton are important to Cadegan’s argument, particularly as their careers and the reception of their work demonstrate shifts in the relationship between Catholicism and literary culture. Cadegan trains her attention on American critics, editors, and university professors and administrators who mediated the relationship among the Church, parishioners, and the culture at large.
Una Cadegan is Associate Professor of History at the University of Dayton.
"All Good Books Are Catholic Books is the go-to source for readers who wish to better understand the Catholic literary world between 1917 and 1966. Una M. Cadegan argues that twentieth-century U.S. Catholic literary culture both pushed the definition of literature toward the theological and moved beyond topics and texts considered explicitly Catholic. As the field of Catholic Studies continues to emerge and develop, Cadegan demonstrates the importance of including 'Catholic Books' in discussions related to the Catholic Intellectual Tradition."—Margaret McGuinness, Executive Director of the Office of Mission Integration and Professor of Religion, La Salle University, author of Neighbors and Missionaries: A History of the Sisters of Our Lady of Christian Doctrine and Called to Serve: A History of Nuns in America
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