Abstract
Kathleen Sprows Cummings, University of Notre Dame Professor of American Studies and History, and Director of the Cushwa Center for the Study of American Catholicism, provides a fascinating account of American Catholics’ persistent efforts to secure a national saint. Organized chronologically, the book begins with a petition to Leo XIII from the 1884 Third Plenary Council (Baltimore) for consideration of the causes of Kateri Tekawitha, Isaac Jogues, and René Goupil. It concludes with Pope Francis’s 2015 unexpected and controversial canonization of Junípero Serra. In addition to Tekakwitha and the Jesuit martyrs, the first chapter introduces a heavenly host of other candidates, including Philippine Duchesne, RSCJ, Mother Théodore Guérin, SP, John Nepomucene Neumann, CSSR, and Elizabeth Seton. These holy men and women make regular appearances in subsequent chapters and eventually receive the official moniker of saint.
Catholics’ changing perceptions of their role in American life serves as a framework for each chapter’s discussion of the waxing and waning of particular causes. In the first three chapters, “North American Saints,” “Nation Saints,” and “Citizen Saint,” the promotion of causes reflects American Catholics’ ardent desire to gain formal recognition of their “holy heroes” both at home and in Rome to sanction the thoroughly American character of Catholic holiness. Success finally comes with the 1944 canonization of Italian-born and enterprising American “citizen saint,” Mother Francis Cabrini, a cause introduced in 1928, eleven years after her death. The subsequent three chapters, “Superpower Saints,” “Aggiornamento Saints,” and “Papal Saints” trace the effects of American postwar confidence and postconciliar Catholic soul searching in framing new American causes like Katharine Drexel, and reframing those of long-favored contenders, especially Seton and Neumann. America’s holy exemplars become prophets of racial equality, standard-bearers against communism, and alternately resisters and proponents of feminism.
C. deftly weaves her transnational story of American Catholic saint-seeking using a phenomenal range of sources, including archival collections located in the USA and Rome. Her engaging narrative draws the reader into the complexities of the process, the importance of Vatican connections and papal prerogative, the vagaries of individuals assigned to causes, and the evolving understanding of sanctity in the twentieth century. C. accomplishes this thoroughly historical account without reducing the “afterlives” of these holy men and women to their political, social, or cultural context.
A recurring theme concerns the exclusion of women in the formal canonization process. Until the 1983 revision of canon law, women had no right to participate, even when the cause involved their female religious founder. Despite the revision, few women have chosen to engage in the clerically dominated process. A patriarchal church-sanctioned holiness appeals far less to contemporary women religious formed with a feminist consciousness and commitment to social justice.
In showing how “hagiography and historiography are entwined,” C. invites her reader to consider the remarkable changes in Catholic conceptions of holiness during the twentieth century. Among American Catholics, these changes reflect the interplay between the changes in their nation and their church and the fractures that have resulted in both locales. Most notable were Vatican II’s two disparate effects on saint-seeking. On the one hand, the universal call to holiness diminished the importance of singling out specific persons for canonization. On the other hand, the universal call to holiness justified John Paul II’s record-setting rate of beatification and canonization as part of his inculturated efforts to bring about a new evangelization. As C. observes, the results are mixed. Many of America’s holy women religious received John Paul II’s accolades as a way of reaffirming traditional women’s roles even as their communities viewed them as forerunners of their own changing roles. New “holy heroes” continue to awaken ardor within a wide range of American Catholic communities, from LGBT Catholics’ devotion to Father Mychal Judge to black Catholics’ promotion of Father Augustus Tolton. As C. rightly notes near the end of her book, whatever the limits of canonization, the official recognition of a person’s sanctity memorializes more than that individual’s sanctity. It is emblematic of the sanctity of the local community from which the person came as well as the community that the person served.
This book has a rightful place in both history and theology library collections. It serves as an invaluable resource to historians and theologians interested in twentieth- and twenty-first-century saint making, as well as those scholars with more general interests in American Catholic religious thought and practice. It is appropriate for upper-division undergraduate courses in religious history, historical theology, and women and gender studies. Graduate students in history, theology, and women and gender studies would also benefit from studying not only the content but also C.s use of wide-ranging sources to fashion a compelling argument employing a beautifully written narrative.