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Defending the Nation Under God: Global Catholicism, the Supreme Court, and the Secularist Specter (1946–1963)
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 19 December 2022
Absract
This essay relies on American and newly available Vatican archival sources to reconstruct the ins and outs of the U.S. Catholic Church's involvement in First Amendment litigation between the 1940s and the 1960s. These reveal how Catholic leaders, far from urging the demise of the de facto Protestant establishment, cooperated with Protestants to protect it from legal challenges. They did so not because gaining the acceptance of their non-Catholic neighbors was their paramount concern, nor because American Catholics were more “liberal” than their Roman counterparts. Rather, they saw the “Nation under God” as effectively addressing traditional Catholic critiques of the liberal principle of church-state separation—and therefore a project worthy of their commitment. Ironically, while pursuing goals fully compatible with Roman orthodoxy, they found themselves allied with evangelist Billy Graham and Gideons International long before the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965) and Roe v. Wade (1973).
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References
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1 Graham, Robert A. SI, “La Corte Suprema degli Stati Uniti interdice le preghiere ufficiali nelle scuole pubbliche,” Civiltà Cattolica 113, no. 3 (1962): 144–46Google Scholar. This and the following translations from the Italian are my own. Civiltà Cattolica had played a central role in popularizing Pope Pius IX's project of a Catholic civilization alternative to liberalism. See Dante, Francesco, Storia della “Civiltà Cattolica” (1850–1891): Il labortorio del Papa (Roma: Studium, 1990)Google Scholar. Since the Vatican Secretariat of State usually prevetted its issues, the journal is considered a reliable source on the papacy's stance on contemporary affairs.
2 Graham, “La Corte Suprema,” 145. “Under God” was explicitly rendered in Italian with “dependent on God.”
3 For example, Civiltà Cattolica had gladly taken note of Truman's decision to designate the Sunday of May 13 and the Sunday of August 19, 1945, as “days of prayer” to thank God for the victory begotten, “leading by example from the White House.” Oddone, Andrea SI, “Funzione sociale della religione,” Civiltà Cattolica 96, no. 3 (1945): 336Google Scholar. In 1948, the journal editors thought it “well to report a few passages from the March 11 speech of State Secretary Marshall to a meeting of the ‘Federal Council of Churches,’ with explicit reference to supernatural values.” “Cronaca Contemporanea,” Civiltà Cattolica 99, no. 2 (1948): 111.
4 “Cronaca contemporanea—6. Stati Uniti,” Civiltà Cattolica 100, no. 4 (1949): 548.
5 “Cronaca contemporanea—6. Stati Uniti,” 549. For text of Truman's radio address, see Harry S. Truman, “Radio Address as Part of the Program ‘Religion in American Life,’” The American Presidency Project, https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/230275.
6 On the spiritual mobilization, see Herzog, Jonathan P., The Spiritual-Industrial Complex: America's Religious Battle against Communism in the Early Cold War (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011)Google Scholar.
7 For example, Kevin M. Kruse's recent One Nation Under God misses the opportunity to investigate how and why “the ‘under-God’ campaign had moved well beyond the original intent of Christian libertarians” to elicit the support of Catholics—even as the author acknowledges that, for example, the very Congressman who championed the adding of “under God” to the Pledge of Allegiance, Louis C. Rabaut, was a Catholic. Kruse, Kevin M., One Nation Under God: How Corporate America Invented Christian America (New York: Basic, 2015), 23Google Scholar.
8 For a more thorough account of this perspective and its genesis, see Menozzi, Daniele, La Chiesa cattolica e la secolarizzazione (Torino: Einaudi, 1993), 15–71Google Scholar.
9 Menozzi, La Chiesa cattolica, 1993, 136–44; Menozzi, Daniele, Chiesa e diritti umani (Bologna: il Mulino, 2012), 57–70Google Scholar. On the “Americanist” controversy, see Fogarty, Gerald P. SI, The Vatican and the American Hierarchy From 1870 to 1965 (Stuttgart: Anton Hiersemann, 1982), 130–80Google Scholar.
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14 See McGreevy, John T., Catholicism and American Freedom: A History (New York: Norton, 2003), 166–70Google Scholar.
15 See Purcell, Edward, The Crisis of Democratic Theory: Scientific Naturalism and the Problem of Value (Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 1973), 159–78Google Scholar.
16 See D'Agostino, Peter R., Rome in America: Transnational Catholic Ideology from the Risorgimento to Fascism (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2004)Google Scholar.
17 Bishops are largely absent, for example, from the work of Gaston, K. Healan, Imagining Judeo-Christian America: Religion, Secularism, and the Redefinition of Democracy (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2019)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Gaston picks as representative voices for the Catholic “camp” John Courtney Murray, SI, and a few prominent laymen such as Carlton Hayes and Emmet Hughes. Yet an analysis of the bishops’ public discourse would have revealed that they were most ardent champions of what Gaston terms “Judeo-Christian exceptionalism.”
18 The role played by Catholics in the erasure of all vestiges of established Protestantism is central to many classic accounts of twentieth-century American religion. See, e.g., Hutchison, William R., Between the Times: The Travail of the Protestant Establishment in America, 1900–1960 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989)Google Scholar. However, this narrative still enjoys much traction to this day. Kevin Schultz, for example, argues that midcentury Catholics and Jews found common cause in “seeking to eliminate Protestant favoritism.” Schultz, Kevin M., Tri-Faith America: How Catholics and Jews Held Postwar America to Its Protestant Promise (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), 121Google Scholar.
19 My argument thus follows Gaston's insight that not all midcentury ecumenical efforts were born of a theologically liberal commitment to widening the circle of tolerance and inclusion. Gaston, Imagining Judeo Christian America, 2–3. Yet I take issue with the author's contention that theologically conservative, “exceptionalist” interconfessional ventures were the business of “liberal” Catholics.
20 Schultz, Tri-Faith America, 136. The same idea is expressed in Young, Neil J., We Gather Together: The Religious Right and the Problem of Interfaith Politics (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015), 70CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Sarah Gordon has likewise argued that “Catholics, in a shift from long-standing opposition, attacked the prayer decision. For the first time, they openly welcomed the attempt to battle secularism and materialism in the schools.” Gordon, Sarah B., The Spirit of the Law: Religious Voices and the Constitution in Modern America (Cambridge, MA: Belknap, 2010), 86Google Scholar.
21 Bruce J. Dierenfield, The Battle over School Prayer: How Engel v. Vitale Changed America (Lawrence, KS: University of Kansas Press, 2007), 49. On the metaphor, see Dreisbach, Daniel L., Thomas Jefferson and the Wall of Separation between Church and State (New York University Press, 2002), esp. 116–25Google Scholar.
22 Gordon, Sarah B., “‘Free Religion and Captive Schools’: Protestants, Catholics, and Education, 1945–1965,” DePaul Law Review 56, no. 4 (2007): 1188Google Scholar.
23 Chandler to Spellman, February 13, 1947, p. 1, box 15, folder 11, Records of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops Office of the General Secretary at the American Catholic History Research Center and University Archives, Catholic University of America in Washington, DC (ACUA).
24 Chandler to Spellman, February 13, 1947, p. 2. Dismay at the Everson decision was not confined to legal counsels, however. Ahead of a civic reception, John W. Babcock, president of the National Council of Catholic Men, sought the advice of the NCWC, the organization of U.S. bishops, on whether to “insert three or four paragraphs of comment regarding the fundamental errors in the New Jersey School Bus Decision.” When the head of NCWC legal department expressed his perplexity at Babcock's intentions, Assistant General Secretary Paul Tanner specified that, by “fundamental errors,” Babcock was clearly referring not to the verdict itself but rather to “the erroneous definition of the relationship between Church and State—the high and impregnable wall, etc. from the Madison memorial.” Still, Tanner argued that it would have been “unwise to criticize the Everson decision” and Babcock acquiesced. Tanner to William F. Montavon, April 14, 1947; Tanner to Montavon, April 17, 1947; Tanner to Babcock, April 17, 1947; Babcock to Tanner, April 19, 1947, b. 15, f. 11, Office of the General Secretary, ACUA.
25 See John C. Murray, SI, George R. Flood, et al., Memorandum, October 17, 1946. “Apparently no case has ever arisen in which the Court has been called upon to define either the scope or the limit allowable to the exercise of state police and welfare power when alleged to clash with the imprescriptible rights guaranteed by the First Amendment. This is the question, in my judgment, which will be uppermost in the minds of the Justices.” George R. Flood to Chandler, October 28, 1946, b. 15, f. 10, Office of the General Secretary, ACUA.
26 Minutes of NCWC Meeting, p. 4, October 31, 1946, b. 15, f. 10, Office of the General Secretary, ACUA.
27 Chandler to Stritch, November 4, 1946, b. 15, f. 10, Office of the General Secretary, ACUA.
28 Full text of article “Church-State Question,” from The Catholic War Veteran (October 1946), p. 2, b. 9, f. 23, Office of the General Secretary, ACUA.
29 See Chappel, James, “The Catholic Origins of Totalitarianism Theory in Interwar Europe,” Modern Intellectual History 8, no. 3 (2011): 561–90CrossRefGoogle Scholar. While noting that the Catholic argument for the filiation of totalitarianism from secularism via statist liberalism had started to win the sympathies of some Protestant quarters and shape the national conversation since the 1930s, Gaston confines this argument to “liberal Catholics” despite its overwhelming presence in papal teaching and, most crucially, despite its antiliberal roots. Gaston, Imagining Judeo-Christian America, 64–65.
30 “Church-State Question,” The Catholic War Veteran (October 1946), 2–3, b. 9, f. 23, Office of the General Secretary, ACUA.
31 The U.S. bishops officially declared themselves “not adverse” to released-time programs at the 1923 General Meeting of the National Catholic Welfare Conference. See James H. Ryan to George L. Leech, May 8, 1924, f. 5, Position 228, Series II. Stati Uniti, Collection Archivio Nunziatura Stati Uniti, Vatican Apostolic Archive (AAV). While some bishops thought that released time distracted precious resources from the further development of the parochial school network, the Vatican's representative in the United States, Apostolic Delegate Pietro Fumasoni-Biondi, gave released time his blessing and expressed confidence in its effectiveness. See Joseph J. Mereto to Pietro Fumasoni-Biondi, September 2, 1929, ff. 18–20; John F. Noll to Fumasoni-Biondi, September 12, 1929, ff. 25–28; Fumasoni-Biondi to Noll, September 18, 1929, f. 29, Pos. 77, IX. Diocesi, Arch. Nunz. Stati Uniti, AAV.
32 Dierenfield, The Battle over School Prayer, 56.
33 See, e.g., James F. McIntyre to Amleto G. Cicognani, July 7, 1943, Pos. SU 416, X. Diverse, Arch. Nunz. Stati Uniti, AAV; John T. McNicholas to Amleto G. Cicognani, February 16, 1945, Pos. 2212, X. Diverse, Arch. Nunz. Stati Uniti, AAV.
34 McManus to Hochwalt, May 5, 1948, p. 1, b. 9, f. 24, Office of the General Secretary, ACUA.
35 McManus to Hochwalt, May 5, 1948, p. 2. The meeting is also covered in Gaston, Imagining Judeo-Christian America, 145–48.
36 Gaston, Imagining Judeo-Christian America, 104–109.
37 McManus to Hochwalt, May 5, 1948, pp. 4–5.
38 Niebuhr's reference went to an essay authored by San Antonio Archbishop Robert E. Lucey at the request of Everett R. Clinchy of the NCCJ and published in Niebuhr's periodical as “The Catholic Position on Church and State.” There, Lucey refused to rule out the possibility that Catholics might urge a form of “union” of Church and State “if five thousand years from now the Protestant sects declined to the point where our country would be almost exclusively Catholic.” Lucey, Robert E., “The Catholic Position on Church and State,” Christianity and Crisis 8, no. 7 (1948): 54Google Scholar. When the article appeared, however, Lucey claimed that a previous statement made by NCWC Chairman archbishop John T. McNicholas ought to be held as the authoritative one. See McManus to Carroll, May 7, 1948, p. 2; Clinchy to Niebuhr, June 11, 1948, b. 9, f. 24, Office of the General Secretary, ACUA.
39 See John T. McNicholas, “The Catholic Church in American Democracy,” January 26, 1948, b. 9, f. 24, Office of the General Secretary, ACUA.
40 On POAU, see Gordon, The Spirit of the Law, 69–95.
41 Romolo Carboni, typewritten notes for the use of Mgr. Tardini, January 20, 1948, and January 27, 1948, ff. 60, and 62, Position 300, Series America, Part I, Pontificate Pius XII, Collection Congregazione degli Affari Ecclesiastici Straordinari (AA.EE.SS.), Historical Archive of the Secretariat of State—Section for Relations with States and International Organizations, Vatican City (ASRS).
42 Roman objections focused on the risk of portraying church-state separation as a universally defensible idea as a “doctrinal system,” not on its desirability in the United States. Still, Tardini merely requested that the papal representative to the United States, Apostolic Delegate Amleto G. Cicognani, inform McNicholas of the issue “with the tact that so characterizes you.” An obsequious reply from Cicognani, yet resolutely defensive of McNicholas's rhetorical choices, proved enough to lay the matter to rest. Tardini to Cicognani, February 20, 1948, f. 117; Cicognani to Tardini, March 4, 1948, f. 118, Pos. 300, America, Part I, Pius XII, AA.EE.SS., ASRS.
43 “L'Arcivescovo di Cincinnati difende la Chiesa contro alcuni gruppi protestanti,” Osservatore Romano, February 19, 1948, ff. 119–122, Pos. 300, America, Part I, Pius XII, AA.EE.SS., ASRS.
44 McManus to Hochwalt, May 5, 1948, p. 6, b. 9, f. 24, Office of the General Secretary, ACUA.
45 “Statement on Church and State.” Enclosed in Ashworth to McManus, June 23, 1948, b. 9, f. 24, Office of the General Secretary, ACUA.
46 McManus to Hochwalt, May 5, 1948, p. 7.
47 See McGreevy, Catholicism and American Freedom, 204–205.
48 McNicholas to Spellman, December 8, 1946, b. 14, f. 19, Office of the General Secretary, ACUA.
49 McCarthy to Carroll, December 6, 1949, p. 1, b. 10, f. 1, Office of the General Secretary, ACUA.
50 McCarthy to Carroll, December 6, 1949, p. 2. On Dawson's embrace of a “liberal, secular” concept of separation and its clash with traditional Baptist fears “that the nation and its government might be freed [due to church-state separation] from moral and social accountability,” see Hamburger, Philip, Separation of Church and State (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002), 387–90CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
51 Chandler to Spellman, April 7, 1949, p. 2, box C-42, f. 12, Francis Cardinal Spellman Collection (S), Archives of the Archdiocese of New York (AANY).
52 Wornom to Tuttle, April 5, 1949, p. 1, S/C-42, f. 12, AANY.
53 Wornom to Tuttle, April 5, 1949, p. 2.
54 Chandler to Spellman, June 19, 1950, S/C-42, f. 12, AANY.
55 Supreme Court—County of Kings. Matter of Zorach et al. (Clauson Jr. et al.). Opinion by Mr. Justice Di Giovanna, June 19, 1950, p. 2, b. 14, f. 19, Office of the General Secretary, ACUA.
56 Opinion by Mr. Justice Di Giovanna, p. 1.
57 Carroll to Spellman, August 6, 1951, S/C-42, f. 13, AANY.
58 Pius XI, Divini Illius Magistri. Encyclical Letter, December 31, 1929, secs. 11, 37–38, https://www.vatican.va/content/pius-xi/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xi_enc_31121929_divini-illius-magistri.html.
59 Chandler to Spellman, February 11, 1952, S/C-42, f. 13, AANY.
60 Dierenfield, The Battle over School Prayer, 59. On the divergence between the American Jewish Congress and the American Jewish Committee in the approach to church-state litigation, see Ivers, Gregg, To Build a Wall: American Jews and the Separation of Church and State (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1995)Google Scholar. Indeed, in November 1952, another prominent Jew, renowned sociologist Will Herberg, wrote in Commentary, the monthly magazine of the American Jewish Committee, an article critical of Protestant and Jewish opponents of released time, arguing that their stance had a “marked authoritarian, even totalitarian, potential.” Quoted in “Protestants Scored for Support of Secularism in Public Schools by Article in Jewish Periodical,” NCWC News Service, October 24, 1952, p. 11, b. 10, f. 2, Office of the General Secretary, ACUA. Protestants, too, were increasingly defecting from the strict separationist position espoused by Pfeffer and POAU. For example, the day after Zorach's first court victory, the Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod, also went on record as favoring released time, recommending that it be “continued and ‘encouraged’ wherever ‘legally possible.’” George Dugan, “Lutherans Uphold ‘Time-Off’ Program: ‘Encouragement’ of Classes in Religion Wins Unanimous Missouri Synod Vote,” New York Times, June 27, 1950, b. 14, f. 19, Office of the General Secretary, ACUA.
61 Edward S. Greenbaum, “The Parent's Right to Choose,” The Nation, February 9, 1952, p. 129, S/C-42, f. 13, AANY.
62 V. T. Thayer, “A Crutch for Churches,” The Nation, February 9, 1952, p. 130.
63 “Parental rights in education—a long standing American tradition—receive new vindication. . . . The Supreme Court previously stated: ‘This is a religious nation.’ (1892) [sic] ‘The child is not the mere creature of the state.’ (1925) The present decision reaffirms these truly human and American principles, and also proclaims ‘we are a religious people whose institutions presuppose a Supreme Being.’” Untitled press release by Francis Cardinal Spellman, April 28, 1952, S/C-42, f. 13, AANY. Indeed, the bishops maintained that, even in Pierce v. Society of Sisters, parental rights had triumphed because the litigator, William D. Guthrie, had been able to make the case that the Oregon law of compulsory public education was not merely “against any wording of our constitution, but . . . against the natural law proclaiming the relationship of parent and child, a law which supercedes even the constitution.” Carroll to George E. Reed, August 23, 1946, b. 15, f. 9, Office of the General Secretary, ACUA.
64 Gaston, Imagining Judeo-Christian America, 11.
65 Whereas, in the nineteenth century, Catholic leaders had admittedly benefited from the secularization of public schools to spur enrollment in parochial schools, they never maintained that it was sound policy according to Catholic doctrine. See, e.g.: “Let it be thoroughly understood, that we fully appreciate the desire of our Protestant fellow-citizens, to hallow secular instruction. But the reading of the Scriptures as a public ceremony is as distinctive to them, as the celebration of Mass would be to Catholics. No one can evade the argument which forces this conclusion. . . . If it must come to this; if no arrangement can be made, by which religion and morality can be taught in the public schools, then, leave the matter to the family altar and the church, and allow it to be done by private contributions.” Editors, “The President's Speech at Des Moines,” Catholic World 22, no. 130 (1876): 438–40, Pos. 202, II. Stati Uniti, Arch. Nunz. Stati Uniti, AAV.
66 Chandler to Spellman, March 13, 1951, S/C-10, f. 16, AANY.
67 Chandler to Spellman, March 22, 1951, S/C-10, f. 16, AANY.
68 Memorandum from Butler to Walsh, November 13, 1950, p. 1, b. 10, f. 1, Office of the General Secretary, ACUA.
69 Butler to Spellman, March 29, 1951, p. 1, S/C-10, f. 16, AANY.
70 Rafael Merry del Val to Pietro Fumasoni-Biondi, April 11, 1924, S/C-10, f. 16, AANY.
71 Butler to Walsh, November 8, 1949, p. 2, b. 10, f. 1, Office of the General Secretary, ACUA.
72 Butler to Spellman, March 29, 1951, pp. 1–2, S/C-10, f. 16, AANY.
73 Reed to John J. Rafferty, December 10, 1953, S/C-10, f. 16, AANY.
74 Reed to Rafferty, December 10, 1953. On Leo Pfeffer's instrumental role in this case, see Preville, Joseph R., “Leo Pfeffer and the American Church-State Debate: A Confrontation with Catholicism,” Journal of Church and State 33, no. 1 (1991): 37–53CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
75 Schultz, Tri-Faith America, 129. The characterization of the Lecoque case as a “high point of Catholic and Jewish unity” appears, from this perspective, disputable. Schultz, Tri-Faith America, 136.
76 Chandler to Walter P. Kellenberg, February 5, 1954, S/C-10, f. 16, AANY.
77 Chandler to Butler, February 5, 1954, p. 1, S/C-10, f. 16, AANY.
78 “Religious Instruction of Spanish Protestants,” Information Service 28, no. 25 (Saturday, June 18, 1949), b. 10, f. 1, Office of the General Secretary, ACUA.
79 Tellingly, within a few years, the Vatican would include a clause in its 1953 concordat with Franco's Spain granting non-Catholic parents the right to excuse their children from (Catholic) religious instruction in the public schools. Cf. Art. 28, § 1, Inter Sanctam Sedem et Hispaniam Sollemnes Conventiones, October 27, 1953, https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/secretariat_state/archivio/documents/rc_seg-st_19530827_concordato-spagna_it.html#_edn*. While contemporary historiography has, perhaps understandably, neglected this provision considering the broader framework of the concordat, refusing non-Catholics the right to public worship on continental Spain, Vatican officials heralded it proudly. Cf. Chamedes, A Twentieth-Century Crusade, 268–69; contra, Robert Leiber, SI, to Murray, [Draft Letter – Fall 1953], folder “Murray, John Courtney,” box 7, Collection Fondo Robert Leiber SJ, Archives of the Pontifical Gregorian University, Rome (APUG).
80 Schultz, Tri-Faith America, 130.
81 See Romanato, Gianpaolo, Pio X: Alle origini del cattolicesimo contemporaneo (Torino: Lindau, 2014)Google Scholar.
82 Martial Massiani, “French Bishops Define True and False Notions of the ‘Secular State.’” NCWC News Service, January 14, 1946, p. 1, b. 62, f. 2, Records of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops General Counsel/Legal Department, ACUA.
83 Massiani, “French Bishops Define True and False Notions of the ‘Secular State.’” p. 2.
84 Unsigned review of L’éducation à la croisée des chemins by Jacques Maritain, Civiltà Cattolica 99, no. 3 (1948): 302–303. A critique of “neutrality” in the schools also appeared in a commentary to the new educational law of republican Italy: Giuseppe Giampietro, SI, “Le premesse della nuova legislazione scolastica italiana (3),” Civiltà Cattolica 99, no. 3 (1948): 475–91. On the comparable struggles of the Church in Germany over religion in education, see Mitchell, Maria D., The Origins of Christian Democracy: Politics and Confession in Modern Germany (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2012)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
85 Chandler to Butler, February 5, 1954, p. 2, S/C-10 f. 16, AANY.
86 Butler to Chandler, January 28, 1954, S/C-10, f. 16, AANY.
87 Chandler to Spellman, October 15, 1954, p. 1, S/C-10, f. 16, AANY.
88 Chandler to Spellman, October 15, 1954, p. 2.
89 An Edward L. Hobart from Middletown, Ohio, for example, wrote to NCWC General Secretary Carroll to denounce that he had been approached by a New Jersey–based group called “The United Secularists” asking “for donations and sympathizers to draft a Law prohibiting the teaching of the Bible in the public schools; to affect the separation of Church and State and a few more coups.” Hobart to Carroll, June 14, 1949, b. 62, f. 5, Legal Department, ACUA.
90 “In the game of postwar power politics, some Catholics were evidently willing to sacrifice Jews at the altar of ‘Christian nationhood,’ even if it meant aligning themselves with the Protestants who had oppressed them for the past 150 years.” The author explains this in light of the sociological differences between the two faith groups (basically, Catholics being a larger and increasingly more “Americanized” minority). Schultz, Tri-Faith America, 127.
91 On McIntyre and his role in the interconfessional fight against California state taxation of religious schools, see Dochuk, Darren, From Bible Belt to Sunbelt: Plain-Folk Religion, Grassroots Politics, and the Rise of Evangelical Conservatism (New York: Norton, 2010), 345–53Google Scholar. Meanwhile, the standard historiographical portrayal of Francis Connell, John Courtney Murray's famed critic and delator to Rome, presents him “as among the last representatives of a Catholic subculture straining not to give way to the ‘progress’ of once-immigrant Catholicism into the American mainstream,” R. Scott Appleby and Haas, John H., “The Last Supernaturalists: Fenton, Connell, and the Threat of Catholic Indifferentism,” U.S. Catholic Historian 13 (1995), 2, 23–24Google Scholar.
92 James F. A. McIntyre to A. J. Willinger, C.SS.R., July 25, 1952, MC2-236 MC-1952, Cardinal J. Francis A. McIntyre Collection, Archives of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. San Fernando Mission, Los Angeles, California (AALA).
93 For example, Alfredo Cardinal Ottaviani, a staunch champion of the confessional state, authorized U.S. Catholics’ involvement in the Foundation for Religious Action in the Social and Civil Order (FRASCO). This once again underscores how antisecularist ecumenical ventures were not the prerogative of “liberal” Catholics. Gaston, Imagining Judeo-Christian America, 180–82. Ottaviani to Montini, October 23, 1954, f. 73, Pos. 1156, Enti Profani e Commerciali, Anni 1950-sgg., Titoli (1936–2005), Segreteria di Stato, AAV. Cf. Komonchak, “The Silencing of John Courtney Murray,” 667–77.
94 Report on Released Time by Vincent Allred, p. 10, b. 14, f. 19, Office of the General Secretary, ACUA.
95 “Reference to bible reading may be an unfortunate illustration as Catholics cannot accept the King James version, usually used in bible reading classes, and there is at least [one] decision, Weiss v. District Board, 76 Wis. 177, N.W. 967, holding that the bible, as evidenced by the King James version[,] is a sectarian book. However, the point which it is desired to make is that the same logic should hold in each situation.” Report on Released Time by Vincent Allred, p. 11.
96 Report on Released Time by Vincent Allred, p. 12.
97 Montavon to Carroll, June 23, 1947, b. 14, f. 19, Office of the General Secretary, ACUA. Carroll also appeared concerned: Carroll to Montavon, June 30, 1947, b. 14, f. 19, Office of the General Secretary, ACUA.
98 Carroll to Cicognani, June 30, 1947, b. 14, f. 19, Office of the General Secretary, ACUA.
99 “Prayer in All Schools Urged by State's Regents,” New York Times, November 30, 1952, b. 10, f. 2, Office of the General Secretary, ACUA.
100 Floris L. Ammannati to Montini, June 8, 1953, f. 2, Pos. 98,3, Associazioni Cattoliche, Anni 1950-sgg., Titoli (1936–2005), Segr. Stato, AAV.
101 Statement by Cardinal McIntyre, n.d., S/C-64, f. 15, AANY.
102 “Statement of Lawrence X. Cusack, Attorney, Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York,” p. 1. S/C-64, f. 15, AANY.
103 “Statement of Lawrence X. Cusack,” p. 2.
104 “Statement of Lawrence X. Cusack,” p. 4.
105 “Statement of Lawrence X. Cusack,” pp. 4–5.
106 “Statement of Lawrence X. Cusack,” p. 5.
107 “Statement of Lawrence X. Cusack,” p. 6.
108 Joseph F. Costanzo, SI, Sermon at the Annual Mass of the Holy Ghost at St. Charles Borromeo Church in Brooklyn, September 20, 1962, Congressional Record: Proceedings and Debates of the 87th Congress, Second Session, p. 1, S/C-64, f. 15, AANY.
109 Costanzo, Sermon, p. 3.
110 Costanzo, Sermon, p. 2.
111 Costanzo, Sermon, p. 3.
112 Costanzo, Sermon, p. 4.
113 Reed to Considine, January 31, 1963, p. 3, b. 20, f. 10, Legal Department, ACUA.
114 The Republican congressman who would lead the fight for the amendment, Frank J. Becker, was himself a Catholic. Scholarship on the Becker Amendment holds that it failed in light of a massive grassroots mobilization effort by “civil libertarians, Jews, and many Protestants,” but little is known of the Catholic Church's stance. Dierenfield, The Battle over School Prayer, 182.
115 John F. Kennedy, The President's News Conference—June 27, 1962. The American Presidency Project, https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/235987.
116 Mooney to Montini, March 19, 1954, Segr. Stato, Titoli (1936–2005), Anni 1950-sgg., Associazioni Cattoliche, Posiz. 72,2 (5), AAV. Emphasis mine.