About This Issue
Karen Mary Davalos, Associate Professor of Chicana/o Studies at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, is the photographer for our striking cover photos. Sheis also the author of our cover essay, “The Via Crucis in Chicago: a Reflection on/of Grace,” which gracefully shares description, background and personal meaning for those cover images.
Many readers of American Catholic Studies have read some of the publications of the late Monsignor John Tracy Ellis, quite rightly called “the preeminent historian of American Catholicism” for much of the second half of the twentieth century. All readers, however, will profit from Thomas J. Shelley’s “Not Whispering in the Footnotes: John Tracy Ellis and American Catholic History.” They will also understand the appropriateness of that intriguing title.
Robert Carbonneau’s article deals with coal mine spirituality and the fact that St. Ann’s Monastery was built over mine shafts. You don’t have to be from Scranton to appreciate the contributions of this article.
Did you know that children were once required to wait until their early teens to receive the Eucharist? The change came in 1920 with Quam Singulari and Carrie T. Schultz’s review of First Communion customs in the twentieth century will both instruct and delight.
James T. Fisher (Fordham) inaugurated in these pages (Vol. 112)What we hope will be a regular feature, namely, writing about the teaching of American Catholic experience and history. We are pleased to share in this issue the approach of James M. O’Toole (Boston College) where he makes good use of the popular devotional materials of the Liturgy and Life Collection of BC’s Burns Library.
A rich collection of book reviews adds its important presence. We are grateful to all out contributors to this issue. We are also pleased to welcome our new Business Editors, Darren Poley and John J. Mawhinney, S.J who are now helping the further growth and development of American Catholic Studies. Finally, we extend our thanks to you, our readers, for your presence, your feedback, and for passing the word about American Catholic Studies.
Rodger Van Allen, Co-editor