As the twentieth century opened, American intellectuals grew
increasingly sympathetic to Pragmatism and empirical methods in the
social sciences. The Progressive program as a whole -- in the form
of Pragmatism, education, modern sociology, and nationalism --
seemed to be in agreement on one thing: everything was in flux. The
dogma and "absolute truth" of the Church were archaisms, unsuited
to modern American citizenship and at odds with the new public
philosophy being forged by such intellectuals as John Dewey,
William James, and the "New Republic" magazine. Catholics saw this
new public philosophy as at least partly an attack on them.
Focusing on the Catholic intellectual critique of modernity
during the period immediately before and after the turn of the
twentieth century, this provocative and original book examines how
the Catholic Church attempted to retain its identity in an age of
pluralism. It shows a Church fundamentally united on major issues
-- quite unlike the present-day Catholic Church, which has been the
site of a low-intensity civil war since the close of the Second
Vatican Council in 1965. Defenders of the faith opposed James,
Dewey, and other representatives of Pragmatism as it played out in
ethics, education, and nationalism. Their goals were to found an
economic and political philosophy based on natural law, to
appropriate what good they could find in Progressivism to the
benefit of the Church, and to make America a Catholic country.
"The Church Confronts Modernity" explores how the decidedly
nonpluralistic institution of Christianity responded to an
increasingly pluralistic intellectual environment. In a culture
whose chief value was pluralism, they insisted on the uniqueness of
the Church and the need for making value judgments based on what
they considered a sound philosophy of humanity. In neither
capitulating to the new creed nor retreating into a self-righteous
isolation, American Catholic intellectuals thus laid the groundwork
for a half-century of intellectual vitality.
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