Catholics in America
by Russell Shaw, Ignatius Press, £12.99
Russell Shaw invites US Catholics to “rethink the old project of unconditional assimilation into American secular culture”. If a society insists on promoting values that leave most Catholics feeling alienated then an obvious question arises: “Can we still be fully Catholic while being fully American in American secular terms?”
Shaw is not proposing any kind of retreat from patriotism. Far from it: he simply wants the opportunity for Catholics to be “fully American” on their own terms, which may involve fostering a “viable US Catholic subculture”. The goal, presumably, is to find your place in the country you love, and rest secure in the knowledge that occasionally criticising a nation because you want to improve it can, in its own way, be a profoundly patriotic act.
