THE CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF AMERICA Texts and Contexts: A History of Religious Education in American Catholic High Schools, 1929-1969 A DISSERTATION Submitted to the Faculty of the School of Theology and Religious Studies Of The Catholic University of America In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree Doctor of Philosophy © Copyright All Rights Reserved By Susan White Baumert Washington, D.C. 2013 Texts and Contexts: A History of Religious Education in American Catholic High Schools, 1929-1969 Susan White Baumert, Ph.D. Director: Christopher J. Kauffman, Ph.D. Religious education in Catholic high schools underwent dramatic changes in the United States over the course of the twentieth century. Between 1929 and 1969, Catholic priests, women religious, and lay leaders affiliated with various movements wrote significant religion textbooks that were widely circulated and often departed from the traditional question-and-answer structure common to the Baltimore Catechism. Each chapter of this dissertation highlights a thematic context and its influence on religion textbooks. This study contributes to the history of American Catholic life by examining this highly transformative period of religious education in the United States. In the late 1920s, religion books, which were precursors to religion textbooks, were popular in Catholic high schools. They sought to make the catechism more applicable to students’ lives by de-emphasizing memorization and stressing character development. However, textbooks inspired by popular Church movements soon replaced them. Catholic Action leaders wrote textbooks in the 1930s and 40s that sought to restore the Kingdom of Christ through the theology of personalism and the Mystical Body of Christ. At the same time, leaders of the Liturgical Movement wrote textbooks that encouraged students to participate actively in the liturgy. In the 1950s and early 1960s, leaders of the Kerygmatic Movement brought an integrated message of divine grace based on salvation history, the liturgy, Scripture, and the proclamation of the Gospel. Finally, religion textbooks in the mid- and late 1960s were influenced by the anthropological and political stages of the Catechetical Movement, as well as Liberation Theology and the reinterpretation of Divine Revelation. Hence, this dissertation reflects the changing texts and contexts of religious education in the mid-twentieth century. This dissertation by Susan White Baumert fulfills the dissertation requirement for the doctoral degree in Church History approved by Christopher J. Kauffman, Ph.D., as Director, and by William D. Dinges, Ph.D., and Sandra Yocum, Ph.D., as Readers. __________________________________________ Christopher J. Kauffman, Ph.D., Director __________________________________________ William D. Dinges, Ph.D., Reader __________________________________________ Sandra Yocum, Ph.D., Reader ii In gratitude to my husband, Stephen, Whose love brought me closer to Christ That our lives might bear much fruit together. (John 15:5) iii CONTENTS LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS vi INTRODUCTION 1 Chapter 1. From “Catechism Alone” to “Religion Books”: 6 Early Twentieth-century Advances in Catholic Religious Education (1929-1934) Chapter 2. The Restoration of the Kingdom of Christ: 41 Catholic Action and the Mystical Body of Christ (1929-1936) Chapter 3. Full and Active Participation: The Liturgical Movement 103 and the Christ-Life in Religious Education (1929-1946) Chapter 4. The Core of the Christian Message: The Catechetical Movement, 157 the Kerygma and Proclaiming the Good News (1936-1961) Chapter 5. Beyond the Kerygma: Vatican II, Revelation, 208 and the International Catechetical Study Weeks (1962-1969) CONCLUSION 283 APPENDIX 293 BIBLIOGRAPHY 294 iv LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ACUA American Catholic History Research Center and University Archives, Catholic University of America CCD Confraternity of Christian Doctrine CEA (National) Catholic Educational Association NCEA National Catholic Education Association NCWC National Catholic War Council (later) National Catholic Welfare Council Specialized Catholic Action: JEC or YCS Young Christian Students JAC Young Christian Farmers JIC Young Christian Independents JOC or YCW Young Christian Workers JUC Young Christian University students SLU St. Louis University UND University of Notre Dame v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I wish to acknowledge the assistance, encouragement, and guidance of many friends, colleagues, and family members who supported me in the present study, particularly Stephen Baumert, PhD, my beloved husband, to whom this work is dedicated. Thank you for watching the boys all those nights and weekends, for sharing in the journey of writing with me, and for your unconditional love and support. I thank my sons, Jonah and Benjamin, for their smiles and laughter, and for reminding mommy of the more important things in life. I also thank my parents, Steve and Jane White, for their love and financial support over my many years of education, and my brothers, Steve Jr., Chandler, and Marc, with their families, for their encouragement in all my endeavors. To the many close friends who are too numerous to name: thank you for lifting my spirits and encouraging me along the way. I wish to recognize the assistance of my advisor and mentor, Christopher J. Kauffman, PhD, for editing and guiding the work in its form and content; Rev. Jacques Gres-Gayer, for his direction of the Church History program at The Catholic University of America throughout my coursework; and the Catholic Daughters of the Americas, for providing a research assistantship for three years of my graduate studies, which helped to make this degree possible. I thank my readers for their time and service: Sandra Yocum, PhD, of the University of Dayton, for her advice in the crucial early stages of this project and for providing perspective throughout, and William Dinges, PhD, for his keen eye and encouragement in writing. I thank Geraldine Laird, for the countless hours she spent vi reading and proofreading the entire manuscript, and Rev. Frederick Miller, of Mount St. Mary’s Seminary, for sharing his ideas and experiences. I am grateful to all of my professors who guided my appreciation of the history of the Catholic Church. I thank the archivists of the religious orders too numerous to mention, whose willingness to share their hidden treasures helped to bring my research to life. Finally, I thank Rev. Anthony V. DeCandia of the Diocese of Raleigh, North Carolina. You were my first interpreter of the Catholic faith. Thank you for teaching me about the beauty of the Church’s teachings as an undergraduate student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Your willingness to follow God’s call for your life changed the path of my own. vii INTRODUCTION Religion textbooks are a unique resource for historical analysis. They reflect contemporary trends in pedagogy, theology, and religious education. They represent the efforts of individuals, or the collaboration of a few individuals, committed to improving religious education for young people. Although earlier studies have explored elementary religion textbooks,1 the present analysis focuses principally on the more advanced theology behind Catholic high-school religion textbooks.2 This study consists of five chapters that examine a selection of prominent Catholic high-school religion textbooks published between 1929 and 1969 and the underlying movements that influenced them. It is important to stress some of the contents of these books because they have never received scholarly study. The first chapter assesses how the Munich Method brought improvements to religious education, which resulted in the development of religion books in the 1920s. In this early phase of the Catechetical Movement, Rev. Wilhelm Pichler, a German religious educator, suggested the writing of religion books. These books followed the outline of the catechism, but they also included stories and psychological adaptations for the various elementary grades. They stressed the importance of understanding the “Creed, Cult, and Code.” While high-school religion books lacked integration (each grade studied one 1Mary Charles Bryce, “The Influence of the Catechism of the Third Plenary Council of Baltimore on Widely Used Elementary Religion Text Books from its Composition in 1885 to its 1941 Revision,” (PhD diss., The Catholic University of America, 1970). 2A limited number of elementary textbooks are analyzed for contrast and depth in chapters 1 and 3. 1 2 aspect of Catholicism) and stressed the deductive reasoning of Neo-Scholasticism, they responded to the psychological approach of the Munich Method by emphasizing character development. Chapter two focuses on the work of Catholic Action in the 1920s and 30s, a movement originally from Belgium that was first based on the work of Canon Joseph Cardign, founder of the Jeunesse Ouvriere Chretienne (JOC). Cardign responded to papal wishes for the development of an apostolic youth movement. The result was Specialized Catholic Action, which stressed like-to-like forms of identity and influence, encouraging students to connect with other students and to seek new ways to overcome problems in society and to evangelize the world for Christ. This movement was based upon three principles: personalism, the Mystical Body of Christ, and the spirituality of the Liturgical Movement. The Catholic Action series of textbooks written by Rev. Raymond J. Campion and Ellamay Horan, PhD, sought to teach students