The Papacy and the Church in the United States

"Bernard Cooke's The Papacy and the Church in the United States takes up the occasion of the bicentennial of the United States Catholic hierarchy to raise important, indeed pressing, questions about the theological meaning of local church, collegiality and the role of national episcopal conferences in the world church. This symposium-both deeply learned yet popularly written at the same time is a goldmine of American Catholic history and American Catholic contributions to the world church. Frederick McManus, one of the contributors to this symposium, reminds us that careful study of history shows that the so-called traditionalists in many instances know so little of our Christian and

Catholic traditions." -John A. Coleman, S.J., Jesuit School of Theology, Berkeley, Calif., author of An American Strategic Theology.

"Good history produces good theology. This collection places the role of the papacy in the matrix of history in general and American history in particular. Theologians, religious educators, and interested observers will find rich reward in these essays. They illumine not only our past but some of the more pressing church issues of today. These essays exhibit deep scholarship, lightly worn, and,

as such, can be recommended to a wide audience." -Lawrence S. Cunningham, The University of Notre Dame,

author of The Catholic Faith.

"Scholars generally recognize that the Catholic Church became more central-ized and more authoritarian in the middle part of the twentieth century than ever before in its history. The impressive and scholarly historical and canonical studies in this volume prove beyond doubt that this overly centralized structure has not been the norm historically and should be changed today. This is a most but especially for what it tells us about the present. Anyone interested in church

reform needs to read this significant volume." -Charles E. Curran, University of Southern California.