This lavishly illustrated book chronicles the history, growth, and extraordinary legacy of New York's largest Christian denomination. Co-published with the Museum of the City of New York as a companion to its exhibition on the occasion of the 200th anniversary of the establishment of the Archdiocese of New York, this book brings together rare images and original essays to explore the key dimensions of the Catholic experience in New York. Here is a fascinating pictorial record of Catholic struggles and triumphs, and thirteen insightful essays that trace the story of Catholic New York--from people, parishes, and traditions to the schools, hospitals, and other institutions that helped shape the metropolis. The struggles of generations of immigrants and their descendents against prejudice bear fruit in the remarkable ascendance of Catholics in the city's politics. From the emblematic account of one Manhattan parish's life across generations of neighborhood change to fresh perspectives on the extraordinary impact of Catholic institutional life on the making of the city, the essays range widely. There's a personal refl ection by Pete Hamill on growing up Catholic as well as revealing explorations of the Catholic presence in all corners of New York's social, political, cultural, and educational worlds. Catholic leaders such as Dorothy Day, Al Smith, and Mother Cabrini come to life in other essays. An afterword offers a look at Catholic New York facing new realities of race, ethnic change, and suburbanization after World War II. Blending memorable images with insightful commentary, Catholics in New York tells not just the story of the city's largest community of faith, but offers a new telling of what is for everyone a classic New York story.

Historians of postwar American politics often identify race as a driving force in the dynamically shifting political culture. Joshua Zeitz instead places religion and ethnicity at the fore, arguing that ethnic conflict among Irish Catholics, Italian Catholics, and Jews in New York City had a decisive impact on the shape of liberal politics long before black-white racial identity politics entered the political lexicon. Understanding ethnicity as an intersection of class, national origins, and religion, Zeitz demonstrates that the white ethnic populations of New York had significantly diverging views on authority and dissent, community and individuality, secularism and spirituality, and obligation and entitlement. New York Jews came from Eastern European traditions that valued dissent and encouraged political agitation; their Irish and Italian Catholic neighbors tended to value commitment to order, deference to authority, and allegiance to church and community. Zeitz argues that these distinctions ultimately helped fracture the liberal coalition of the Roosevelt era, as many Catholics bolted a Democratic Party increasingly focused on individual liberties, and many dissent-minded Jews moved on to the antiliberal New Left.

This remarkable history of a beloved Upper West Side church is in many respects a microcosm of the history of the Catholic Church in New York City. Here is a captivating study of a distinctive Catholic community on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, an area long noted for its liberal Catholic sympathies in contrast to the generally conservative attitude that has pervaded the archdiocese of New York. The author traces this liberal Catholic dimension of Upper West Side Catholics to a long if slender line of progressive priests that stretches back to the Civil War era, casting renewed light on their legacy: liturgical reform, concern for social justice, and a preferential option for the poor long before this phrase found its way into official church documents. In recent years this progressivism has demonstrated itself in a willingness to extend a warm welcome to LGBT Catholics, most notably at the Church of the Ascension on West 107th Street. Ascension was one of the first diocesan parishes in the archdiocese to offer a spiritual home to LGBT Catholics and continues to sponsor the Ascension Gay Fellowship Group. Exploring the dynamic history of the Catholic Church of the Ascension, this engaging and accessible book illustrates the unusual characteristics that have defined Catholicism on the Upper West Side for the better part of the last century and sheds light on similar congregations within the greater metropolis. In many respects, the history of Ascension parish exemplifies the history of Catholicism in New York City over the past two centuries because of the powerful presence of two defining characteristics: immigration and neighborhood change. The Church of the Ascension, in fact, is a showcase of the success of urban ethnic Catholicism. It was founded as a small German parish, developed into a large Irish parish, suffered a precipitous decline during the crime wave that devastated the Upper West Side from the 1960s to the 1980s, and was rescued from near-extinction by the influx of Puerto Rican and Dominican Catholics. It has emerged during the last several decades as a flourishing multi-ethnic, bilingual parish that is now experiencing the restored prosperity and prominence of the Upper West Side as one of Manhattan’s most integrated and popular residential neighborhoods.

"Sons of Saint Patrick tells the story of America's premier Catholic see, the Archdiocese of New York--from the coming of French Jesuit priests in the seventeenth century to the early years of Cardinal Timothy Dolan."--Page 2 of cover.

The historical and spiritual legacy of New York City's largest denomination comes alive in these biographies of 76 women and men whose character and qualities are utterly New York and uniquely Catholic. (back cover).

To be a Christian today, to follow Our Lord and accept His call to discipleship, demands heroic courage. It takes deep faith to live the particular - special, unique - vocation that's yours alone. Heaven knows it isn't easy. St. Peter knows it, too. He's well aware that even the most enthusiastic and committed Christian can become frightened and unsure, can make mistakes and betray a loved one, can seek and receive forgiveness, can begin again and - with an even stronger faith - can go on to face life's most difficult challenges. To Whom Shall We Go? presents the words and actions of St. Peter as it clearly shows how his life - his strengths, weaknesses, joys, and sorrows - offers an example for all of us. How it offers hope for each of us.

Acclaimed biographer John Loughery tells the story of John Hughes, son of Ireland, friend of William Seward and James Buchanan, founder of St. John’s College (now Fordham University), builder of Saint Patrick’s Cathedral on Fifth Avenue, pioneer of parochial-school education, and American diplomat. As archbishop of the Archdiocese of New York in the 1840 and 1850s and the most famous Roman Catholic in America, Hughes defended Catholic institutions in a time of nativist bigotry and church burnings and worked tirelessly to help Irish Catholic immigrants find acceptance in their new homeland. His galvanizing and protecting work and pugnacious style earned him the epithet Dagger John. When the interests of his church and ethnic community were at stake, Hughes acted with purpose and clarity. In Dagger John, Loughery reveals Hughes’s life as it unfolded amid turbulent times for the religious and ethnic minority he represented. Hughes the public figure comes to the fore, illuminated by Loughery’s retelling of his interactions with, and responses to, every major figure of his era, including his critics (Walt Whitman, James Gordon Bennett, and Horace Greeley) and his admirers (Henry Clay, Stephen Douglas, and Abraham Lincoln). Loughery peels back the layers of the public life of this complicated man, showing how he reveled in the controversies he provoked and believed he had lived to see many of his goals achieved until his dreams came crashing down during the Draft Riots of 1863 when violence set Manhattan ablaze. To know "Dagger" John Hughes is to understand the United States during a painful period of growth as the nation headed toward civil war. Dagger John’s successes and failures, his public relationships and private trials, and his legacy in the Irish Catholic community and beyond provide context and layers of detail for the larger history of a modern culture unfolding in his wake.

Is New York a post-secular city? Massive immigration and cultural changes have created an increasingly complex social landscape in which religious life plays a dynamic role. Yet the magnitude of religion's impact on New York's social life has gone unacknowledged. New York Glory gathers together for the first time the best research on religion in contemporary New York City. It includes contributors from every major research project on religion in New York to provide a comprehensive look at the current state of religion in the city. Moving beyond broad surveys into specific case studies of communities and institutions, it provides a window onto the diversity of religious life in New York. From Italian Catholics, Mormons, Muslims, and Russian Jews to Zen Buddhists, Rastafarians, and Pentecostal Latinas, New York Glory both captures the richness of religious life in New York City and provides an important foundation for our understanding of the current and future shape of religion in America.

The New York Times Bestseller - Revised and Expanded "[An] earth-shaking exposé of clerical corruption" - National Catholic Reporter The arrival of Frédéric Martel's In the Closet of the Vatican, published worldwide in eight languages, sent shockwaves through the religious and secular world. The book's revelations of clericalism, hypocrisy, cover-ups and widespread homosexuality in the highest echelons of the Vatican provoked questions that the most senior Vatican officials--and the Pope himself--were forced to act upon; it would go on to become a New York Times bestseller. Now, almost a year after the book's first publication, Frédéric Martel reflects in a new foreword on the effect the book has had and the events that have come to light since it was first released. In the Closet of the Vatican describes the double lives of priests--including the cardinals living with their young "assistants" in luxurious apartments whilst professing humility and chastity--the cover-up of numerous cases of sexual abuse; sinister scheming in the Vatican; political conspiracy overseas in Argentina and Chile, and the resignation of Benedict XVI. From his unique position as a respected journalist with uninhibited access to some of the Vatican's most influential people and private spaces, Martel presents a shattering account of a system rotten to its very core.

The Sisters of Our Lady of Christian Doctrine community was founded in 1910 by marion gurney, who adopted the religious name Mother Marianne of Jesus. A graduate of Wellesley College and a convert to Catholicism, Gurney had served as head resident at St. Rose’s Settlement, the first Catholic settlement house in New York City. She founded the Sisters of Christian Doctrine when other communities of women religious appeared uninterested in a ministry of settlement work combined with religious education programs for children attending public schools. The community established two settlement houses in New York City—Madonna House on the Lower East Side in 1910, followed by Ave Maria House in the Bronx in 1930. Alongside their classes in religious education and preparing children and adults to receive the sacraments, the Sisters distributed food and clothing, operated a bread line, and helped their neighbors in emergencies. In 1940 Mother Marianne and the Sisters began their first major mission outside New York when they adapted the model of the urban Catholic social settlement to rural South Carolina. They also served at a number of parishes, including several in South Carolina and Florida, where they ministered to both black and white Catholics. In Neighbors and Missionaries, Margaret M. McGuinness, who was given full access to the archives of the Sisters of Christian Doctrine, traces in fascinating detail the history of the congregation, from the inspiring story of its founder and the community’s mission to provide material and spiritual support to their Catholic neighbors, to the changes and challenges of the latter half of the twentieth century. By 1960, settlement houses had been replaced by other forms of social welfare, and the lives and work of American women religious were undergoing a dramatic change. McGuinness explores how the Sisters of Christian Doctrine were affected and how they adapted their own lives and work to reflect the transformations taking place in the Church and society. Neighbors and Missionaries examines a distinctive community of women religious whose primary focus was neither teaching nor nursing/hospital administration. The choice of the Sisters of Christian Doctrine to live among the poor and to serve where other communities were either unwilling or unable demonstrates that women religious in the United States served in many different capacities as they contributed to the life and work of the American Catholic Church.