|
|
Article: Catholic pioneers in the suburban landscape: scholar examines how exodus from cities changed the church. (Word Made Fresh).
- Article from:
- National Catholic Reporter
- Article date:
- November 2, 2001
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2001 National Catholic Reporter. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
|
Ask not, said scholar Anthony Smith, what Catholics did to the surburbs. Ask, rather, what the suburbs have done to Catholicism.
Could it be that the 1960s migration to the suburbs was what caused so many American Catholics to so wholeheartedly embrace the reforms of the Second Vatican Council (1962-65)?
Smith, professor of religious studies at the University of Dayton, Ohio, wonders.
Smith also wonders whether one of the primary characteristics of Vatican II -- its openness to a changing modern world -- was in fact already being practiced by American Catholics who moved from urban ghettos to the suburbs, where they found themselves with ...