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.

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.

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.

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).

Sons of Saint Patrick tells the story of America's premiere 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. It includes many intriguing facets of the history of Catholicism in New York, including: the early persecution of and legal discrimination against Catholics the waves of catholic immigrants, most notably from Ireland the Church's rise to power under New York's first archbishop, "Dagger" John Hughes the emerging awareness in the Vatican of New York's preeminence the clashes between America and Rome over the "Americanist" heresy the role New York's archbishops have played in the life of America's greatest city—and in the world The book focuses on the ten archbishops of New York and shows how they became the indispensable partners of governors and presidents, especially during the war-torn twentieth century. Also discussed are the struggles of the most recent archbishops in the face of demographic changes, financial crises, and clerical sex-abuse cases. Sons of Saint Patrick is an objective but colorful portrait of ten extraordinary men—men who were saints and sinners, politicians and pastors, and movers and shakers who as much as any other citizens have made New York one of the greatest cities in the world. All ten archbishops have been Irish, either by birth or heritage, but given New York's changing ethnic profile, Cardinal Timothy Dolan may be the last son of Saint Patrick to serve as its archbishop.

Every December 12th, thousands of Mexican immigrants gather for the mass at New York City’s St. Patrick’s Cathedral in honor of Our Lady of Guadalupe’s feast day. They kiss images of the Virgin, wait for a bishop’s blessing—and they also carry signs asking for immigration reform, much like political protestors. It is this juxtaposition of religion and politics that Alyshia Gálvez investigates in Guadalupe in New York. The Virgin of Guadalupe is a profound symbol for Mexican and Mexican-American Catholics and the patron saint of their country. Her name has been invoked in war and in peace, and her image has been painted on walls, printed on T-shirts, and worshipped at countless shrines. For undocumented Mexicans in New York, Guadalupe continues to be a powerful presence as they struggle to gain citizenship in a new country. Through rich ethnographic research that illuminates Catholicism as practiced by Mexicans in New York, Gálvez shows that it is through Guadalupan devotion that many undocumented immigrants are finding the will and vocabulary to demand rights, immigration reform, and respect. She also reveals how such devotion supports and emboldens immigrants in their struggle to provide for their families and create their lives in the city with dignity.

First published in 1905 and written as an official chronology of the Diocese of New Yorkthen one of the powerhouse regions of the Catholic Church in America, as the Archdiocese of New York is todaythis two-volume work remains an important document of the Church. Useful in both the historical and cultural dimensions, this highly readable but powerfully biased account reveals the prejudices and partialities of the time as filtered through the viewpoint of one of its most influential institutions. Volume II explores: [ the Churchs education and charity systems [ religious communities including the Jesuits [ Church legislation [ relations with the Holy See [ the progress of the clergy [ the character of the laity [ the Catholic press [ and much more. American clergyman and author REV. JOHN TALBOT SMITH (18551923) also wrote The Training of a Priest, The Chaplain Sermons, and other religious works, as well as the novels Woman of Culture (1882) and Solitary Island (1888).