American Catholics Through the Twentieth Century: Spirituality, Lay Experience, and Public Life

Lay Catholics are expected to live out their primary calling in the secular world, while simultaneously being faithful to Catholic teaching and participating in the inner life of their faith communities. This set of priorities has to be balanced, and a lot of ink has been spent on this "theology of the laity." Wolfteich offers a fascinating new approach to the issues, by examining how some Catholic public figures have balanced the private and public selves--notably, John F. Kennedy, Mario Cuomo and Cesar Chavez. Wolfteich concludes that the easy division between a private religious self and a pluralistic public self, made famous by Kennedy, is not theologically satisfactory. Chavez is a better example of someone who successfully blended social commitments and religious faith. Wolfteich also offers a lot of food for thought on more narrowly theological questions about the place of the laity in the Catholic church today. Her book shows once again the value of "hybrid" scholarship, as opposed to the narrowly enclosed vision that often afflicts both Catholic and Protestant theology. Theology, ethics, and social and political thought are beautifully blended here.