BEING AMERICAN AND CATHOLIC - #11

	I wrote last week about our memories of Catholicism.  Each 
Catholic is a rich resource for the living history of our church in 
America.  Each Catholic tells her or his story.  In fact, small faith 
communities are often forums for shared stories of faith.  Many 
professional historians are now collecting histories.  We informally 
speak oral history without realizing it – when mothers and fathers 
tell stories about their own childhood, neighborhood, or family 
heritage to their children, when grandparents reminisce about the 
old country, and when Holocaust survivors visit a school or another 
religious community.  Sometimes autobiographies or biographies 
give us a feel that we could not get from a history textbook. (I 
recently got a feel for African experience as I read the 
autobiographical reflections of Achibe Chinua, the Nigerian 
novelist).
	Some Catholic Church historians have looked at Irish and 
German immigration to the United States in the 19th century.  Others 
have written about Italian and Polish Catholics at the dawn of the 
20th century.  These histories, like the histories of Colonial America, 
have become normative sources for us.  However, I am 
also aware that these are incomplete stories.
The story of U.S. Catholicism is rich, fascinating and 
diverse.  Here are some examples I have studied recently.  First there 
is a long and rich history of African Americans Catholics.  Cyprian 
Davis, the Benedictine scholar from Indiana, has written the best 
history of Black Catholics in the U.S.  We also have histories of 
congresses, newspapers, and lay leadership developed by African 
American Catholics in the late 19th century.  Second, recent books 
and essays on Cuban and Haitian American Catholics and their 
shrines have helped me understand popular devotion and spiritual 
practices.  I am now aware that, before the Irish, German, Italian, and 
eastern European migrations, there were French and Spanish 
Catholic missions in Canada, New England, California, Texas and the 
southwest.  Third, a recent three volume work on Native American 
Catholics has alerted me to the distinctive Catholic experience of 
tribal peoples and reservations in the U.S.  (Oral history is told at the 
annual Tekakwitha conference gatherings each summer.  The 
conference is named after Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha, the Mohawk 
Catholic martyr).  Fourth, the story of eastern Catholics in Ukrainian, 
Melkite, Maronite, and Byzantine Catholic communities is now being 
told and written about.  This is important since Roman Catholics 
have sometimes been uniformed about eastern Catholic people and 
parishes in our neighborhoods.  (Pope John Paul II has reminded the 
church that it breathes with two lungs: east and west.  Recently a 
Ukrainian cardinal reminded the U.S. Bishops that both lungs beat 
with the same heart.
		I mentioned these developments in U.S.
Catholic Church history for three reasons.  First, I want to alert you 
to the rich and diverse stories that make up or religious presence in 
America.  We need to cherish this richness in a nation of diversity.  
We can choose to reverence the diversity that exists in our nation 
and in our church.  Second, we need to respect the gift that we 
receive when we build bridges among Catholics of diverse racial, 
ethnic and language backgrounds.  This enables our church to be 
universal and magnanimous.  Third, we need to appreciate our 
history as we work to overcome bigotry, xenophobia and a narrow 
nationalism.

			John J. O'Brien. C.P.






Note to Press: This document printed at: 11/26/02 1:51 PM