About This Issue
Please plan to spend a few hours on a hot summer day with volume 118, number 2 of American Catholic Studies. We think you will find it time well spent.
"Drifting Toward Irrelevance? The Laity, Sexual Ethics, and the Future of the Church," by Leslie Woodcock Tentler, examines the impact the promulgation of Humanae Vitae had on the moral decision-making process of American Catholics. Dr. Tentler notes the papal encyclical on birth control ". . . brought to an end a messy, contentious, but necessary conversation among Catholics about the meaning and purpose of sexuality, love, and marriage." We think you will come away from essay with new ideas about the future of the Catholic Church in the United States. Special thanks to Villanova University's Theology Institute for allowing us to publish Dr. Tentler's essay.
Jennifer Cote provides readers with the story of Boston's League of Catholic Women and the restriction of its activities by Cardinal William O'Connell in 1918. "There is No Gospel of True Womanhood: Progressive-Era Activism in the Boston League of Catholic Women" offers another look at the way women of the Progressive Era attempted to Americanize immigrant Catholics while providing them with necessary educational and social services. After its activities were curtailed by O'Connell, the LCW transformed into a very different organization.
"The Jesuits at Boston College in the Late Nineteenth Century" by Marianne Gallagher examines the place of Boston Jesuits who were conducting a school and administering a parish composed primarily of Irish immigrants. Gallagher notes their decision to conduct Boston College within the context of an Ultramontane worldview led to questions about both their intellectual competence and the quality of a Boston College education.
Tricia Pyne provides those readers interested in research and archives with an overview of the Associated Archives at St. Mary's Seminary and University. The archives are indeed "a new model for Catholic archives," and we think you will find Dr. Pyne's narrative very informative.
Our cover essay, by Timothy Matovina, focuses on La Capilla de Nuestro Señor de los Milagros, a chapel very important in the devotional lives of San Antonio Catholics.
We are delighted to welcome James M. O'Toole (Boston College) and Kathleen Sprows Cummings (University of Notre Dame) to the Committee on Publications. These two distinguished scholars have graciously agreed to contribute their talents to the journal, and we look forward to working with them in the months to come.
As we go to press, we have received word that American Catholic Studies is the recipient of six awards from the Catholic Press Association, including first place for General Excellence in the category of scholarly journals. More information will follow in a future issue, but we congratulate Joseph P. Chinnici, O.F.M., Angelyn Dries, O.S.F., Patrick J. Hayes, James J. Kenneally, and Fernanda H. Perrone for their fine work.
As always, we are grateful to our readers for their support and encouragement. We wish you a happy and restful summer, and do enjoy this issue of American Catholic Studies.
Margaret M. McGuinness, Co-editor