On an otherwise ordinary Sunday morning in 1964, millions of Roman Catholics around the world experienced history. For the first time in centuries, they attended masses that were conducted mostly in their native tongues. This occasion marked only the first of many profound changes to emanate from the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965). Known popularly as Vatican II, it would soon give rise to the most far-reaching religious transformation since the Reformation.

In this groundbreaking work of cultural and historical sociology, Melissa Wilde offers a new explanation for this revolutionary transformation of the Church. Drawing on newly available sources--including a collection of interviews with the Council's key bishops and cardinals, and primary documents from the Vatican Secret Archive that have never before been seen by researchers--Wilde demonstrates that the pronouncements of the Council were not merely reflections of papal will, but the product of a dramatic confrontation between progressives and conservatives that began during the first days of the Council. The outcome of this confrontation was determined by a number of factors: the Church's decline in Latin America; its competition and dialogue with other faiths, particularly Protestantism, in northern Europe and North America; and progressive clerics' deep belief in the holiness of compromise and their penchant for consensus building.

Wilde's account will fascinate not only those interested in Vatican II but anyone who wants to understand the social underpinnings of religious change.

Conservative and progressive religious groups fiercely disagree about issues of sex and gender. But how did we get here? Melissa J. Wilde shows how today's modern divisions began in the 1930s in the public battles over birth control and not for the reasons we might expect. By examining thirty of America's most prominent religious groups-from Mormons to Methodists, Southern Baptists to Seventh Day Adventists, and many others-Wilde contends that fights over birth control had little do with sex, women's rights, or privacy. Using a veritable treasure trove of data, including census and archival materials and more than 10,000 articles, statements, and sermons from religious and secular periodicals, Wilde demonstrates that the push to liberalize positions on contraception was tied to complex views of race, immigration, and manifest destiny among America's most prominent religious groups. Taking us from the Depression era, when support for the eugenics movement saw birth control as an act of duty for less desirable groups, to the 1960s, by which time most groups had forgotten the reasons behind their stances on contraception (but not the concerns driving them), Birth Control Battles explains how reproductive politics divided American religion. In doing so, this book shows the enduring importance of race and class for American religion as it rewrites our understanding of what it has meant to be progressive or conservative in America.

Conservative and progressive religious groups fiercely disagree about issues of sex and gender. But how did we get here? Melissa J. Wilde shows how today's modern divisions began in the 1930s in the public battles over birth control and not for the reasons we might expect. By examining thirty of America's most prominent religious groups-from Mormons to Methodists, Southern Baptists to Seventh Day Adventists, and many others-Wilde contends that fights over birth control had little do with sex, women's rights, or privacy. Using a veritable treasure trove of data, including census and archival materials and more than 10,000 articles, statements, and sermons from religious and secular periodicals, Wilde demonstrates that the push to liberalize positions on contraception was tied to complex views of race, immigration, and manifest destiny among America's most prominent religious groups. Taking us from the Depression era, when support for the eugenics movement saw birth control as an act of duty for less desirable groups, to the 1960s, by which time most groups had forgotten the reasons behind their stances on contraception (but not the concerns driving them), Birth Control Battles explains how reproductive politics divided American religion. In doing so, this book shows the enduring importance of race and class for American religion as it rewrites our understanding of what it has meant to be progressive or conservative in America.

"Wilde has written the first serious sociological study of the dynamics of the Second Vatican Council. The men who organized the 'progressive' faction were not, as is often claimed, theologians who were manipulating bishops, but bishops from the countries where the church was engaged with modernity, especially from South America. Nor did they view their efforts as anything less than a dramatic change from the past. They were great men who accomplished great deeds. After this book, no one will be able to dismiss them."--Andrew Greeley, author of "The Catholic Revolution"

"Wilde's big-picture analysis of huge institutional religious change exemplifies a kind of scholarship that is so valuable yet all too rare in contemporary sociology of religion. Ambitious, creative, careful, and fascinating, Vatican II makes a major contribution."--Christian Smith, University of Notre Dame

"Using a fascinating array of archival materials, Melissa Wilde here presents an innovative, behind-the-scenes, and groundbreaking analysis of the deliberations of Vatican II. And, importantly, she employs vital concepts from diverse areas of sociology to make sense of the rich empirical data at her disposal."--Michele Dillon, author of "Catholic Identity: Balancing Reason, Faith, and Power"

"This exciting book is poised to make a big splash in scholarly circles and beyond. Advancing a clear conceptual framework, it is unique in looking at Catholicism through the lens of the diverse national environments that affect the interests and organizational behavior of religious leaders."--Peter McDonough, author of "Men Astutely Trained: A History of the Jesuits in the American Century"