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"This collection informs, entertains, and challenges--with no apparent ideological axe to grind. "Catholic Lives, Contemporary America" is lively reading for those looking for a deeper take on the recent Catholic past and present."--James W. Arnold, "St. Anthony Messenger"
List of contents
Acknowledgments ix
Not-Just-Cultural Catholics / Thomas J. Ferraro 1
"Mildred, is it fun to be a cripple?": The Culture of Suffering in Mid-Twentieth-Century American Catholicism / Robert A. Orsi 19
Father Chuck: A Reading of
Going My Way and
The Bells of St. Mary's, or Why Priests Made Us Crazy / Mary Gordon 65
Clearing the Streets of the Catholic Lost Generation / James T. Fisher 76
Making It to Mepkin Abbey / Frank Lentricchia 104
The Intertextual Politics of Cultural Catholicism: Tiepolo, Madonna, Scorsese / Paul Giles 120
The Bitter Victory: Catholic Conservative Intellectuals in America, 1988–1993 / Patrick Allitt 141
Virtually Normal / Andrew Sullivan 171
Feminists and Patriarchs at the Catholic Church: Orthodoxy and Its Discontents / Mary Jo Weaver 187
The Double-Effect/Proportionalist Debate / Kathy Rudy 205
My Parents, My Religion, and My Writing / David Plante 222
A Homage to Mart and to the University Called Notre Dame / Stanley Hauerwas 227
A Pornographic Nun: An Interview with Camille Paglia / Thomas J. Ferraro 238
An Ancient Catholic: An Interview with Richard Rodriguez / Paul Crowley, S.J. 259
Contributors 267
Index 271
About the author
Thomas J. Ferraro, ed.
Summary
A collection of essays that focuses on Catholic lay practices not commonly recognised or, at times, officially sanctioned. It includes essays by novelist Mary Gordon on the sexual appeal of Bing Crosby's Father Chuck O'Malley character, and Robert A Orsi on the "sanctified cripple," Andrew Sullivan on homosexuality and piety.
