DOLAN, Jay P(atrick) 1936-

PERSONAL:

Born March 17, 1936, in Bridgeport, CT; son of Joseph T. (in business) and Margaret (Reardon) Dolan; married Patricia McNeal (a professor), May 25, 1973; children: Patrick Joseph, Mark McNeal. Education: Gregorian University, S.T.L., 1962; University of Chicago, Ph.D., 1970. Religion: Roman Catholic.

ADDRESSES:

Home—16130 Brockton Ct., Granger, IN 46530. Office—Department of History, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN 46556. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Catholic scholar, historian. University of San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, assistant professor of history, 1970-71; University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN, assistant professor, 1971-77, associate professor, 1977-86, professor of history, 1986-93; professor emeritus, 1993—, founder and director of the Cushwa Center for the Study of American Catholicism, 1977-93. Fulbright professor, University College, Cork, Ireland, 1986; visiting professor at Boston College, 1991, University of Chicago, 2000.

MEMBER:

Organization of American Historians, American Church History Society, American Catholic Historical Association.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Rockefeller fellow, University of Chicago, 1969-70; Shelby Cullom Davis Center fellow, Princeton University, 1973-74; John Gilmary Shea Award, American Catholic Historical Association, 1975, for The Immigrant Church; American Council of Learned Societies fellow, 1978-79; named Alumnus of the Year, University of Chicago Divinity School, 1987; Lilly endowment, 1991-92.

WRITINGS:

The Immigrant Church: New York's Irish and German Catholics, 1815-1865, Johns Hopkins Press (Baltimore, MD), 1975, University of Notre Dame Press (Notre Dame, IN), 1983.

(Editor) Heritage of '76, University of Notre Dame Press (Notre Dame, IN), 1976.

(Editor) The American Catholic Tradition, Arno, 1978.

Catholic Revivalism: The American Experience, 1830-1900, University of Notre Dame Press (Notre Dame, IN), 1978.

The American Catholic Experience: A History from Colonial Times to the Present, Doubleday (Garden City, NY), 1985, 2nd edition, University of Notre Dame Press (Notre Dame, IN), 1992.

(Editor) The American Catholic Parish: A History from 1850 to the Present, Paulist Press (New York, NY), 1987.

(Editor) Transforming Parish Ministry: The Changing Roles of Catholic Clergy, Laity, and Women Religious, Crossroad (New York, NY), 1989.

(Editor, with James P. Wind) New Dimensions in American Religious History: Essays in Honor of Martin E. Marty, W. B. Eerdmans (Grand Rapids, MI), 1993.

(Editor, with Gilberto M. Hinojosa) Mexican Americans and the Catholic Church, 1900-1965 (Volume 1, "Notre Dame History of Hispanic Catholics in the U.S." series), University of Notre Dame Press (Notre Dame, IN), 1994.

(Editor, with Jaime R. Vidal) Puerto Rican and Cuban Catholics in the U.S., 1900-1965 (Volume 2, "Notre Dame History of Hispanic Catholics in the U.S." series), University of Notre Dame Press (Notre Dame, IN), 1994.

(Editor, with Allan Figueroa) Hispanic Catholic Culture in the U.S.: Issues and Concerns (Volume 3, "Notre Dame History of Hispanic Catholics in the U.S." series), University of Notre Dame Press (Notre Dame, IN), 1994.

In Search of an American Catholicism: A History of Religion and Culture in Tension, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 2002.

Contributor to history and religious studies journals. Editor of American Catholic Studies Newsletter, 1975—; member of various editorial boards; referee for journals and publications.

SIDELIGHTS:

Jay P. Dolan's histories of the Catholic Church include his The American Catholic Experience: A History from Colonial Times to the Present. The volume, which has become a standard, was reprinted in 1992 by the University of Notre Dame Press. This second edition was reviewed for National Catholic Reporter by E. Leo McMannus, who said that it "continues Dolan's excellent research in earlier parish life."

Dolan is editor of the three volumes of the "Notre Dame History of Hispanic Catholics in the U.S." series. The relevance of this series is significant, considering that at its writing, it was acknowledged that around 2010, Latinos would be the largest minority group in the United States and would represent half of the Roman Catholic population. The first two books, Mexican Americans and the Catholic Church, 1900-1965 and Puerto Rican and Cuban Catholics in the U.S., 1900-1965, consider specific groups and periods of time. The third, Hispanic Catholic Culture in the U.S., includes essays on a broad range of topics, including Ana Maria Diaz-Stevens's "Latinas and the Church" and "Latino Youth and the Church." The series came about through the efforts of the Cushwa Center for the Study of American Catholicism, of which Dolan was founder and director, and the Lilly Foundation.

The series was reviewed in the Journal of Ecclesiastical History by P. A. M. Taylor, who noted that prior to the migration of Spanish-speaking immigrants, the Catholic Church was largely led by Irish clergy, "fearful of the hostility of the surrounding Protestant society, striving to prove itself orderly, dignified, respectable, patriotic." When the immigrants arrived, they arrived poor. As farm workers, they were exploited in the West, and those who settled in the manufacturing areas of the Northeast, saw jobs dry up or move away.

Many of the arrivals had come from rural areas that were not served by a priest, nor were they knowledgeable as to acceptable church practices. Instead, they often created their own religious ceremonies to celebrate the holy days and honor not only the Holy Family and the saints, but also people within their communities, such as midwives, who performed valuable functions. If American church leaders insisted that these activities be abandoned, they risked losing the Spanish-speakers to evangelical or Pentecostal Protestantism. If they incorporated the customs into the church, they risked the disapproval of their traditional members. If they segregated the Spanish speakers from the non-Spanish speakers, they would risk the unity of the church. Instead, the church made small changes, including language training for priests and the training of lay leaders. Ironically, in the early days of the American Catholic Church, there were few priests, and Catholics usually held lay ceremonies. It was not until more clergy immigrated, largely from Ireland, that the rules of the church began to be followed to the letter.

The contributors to the series point out that all Hispanic Americans are not the same. Mexican Catholics arrived as early as 1610, while Salvadorans are recent immigrants. While Mexicans and Puerto Ricans came for economic opportunity, Cubans and Salvadorans were searching for political freedom. And although the Latino immigrants tended to be poor, Cubans who fled during the 1950s and 1960s brought wealth, resources, and job skills. Timothy Walch reviewed the series for the Journal of American Ethnic History, noting that "the diversity within Hispanic American culture makes generalizations almost impossible. All of the authors underscore the point that it was too simplistic for the institutional church to envision a single Hispanic experience. American church leaders had embraced this myth of a single experience because it allowed for a pan-Hispanic ministry. But as these bishops and priests focused more closely on the Hispanic people, the latter's diversity has become more apparent. Unfortunately for both these people and their church, the consequences of Hispanic diversity were not recognized until recently."

Walch noted the immensity of this project and said that it would have been "daunting" without the help of the Foundation and donors and the work by Dolan and others at the Cushwa Center. In conclusion, Walch said that they "are to be applauded for their work on Hispanic Catholics and for their many contributions to American Catholic scholarship in general."

In Search of an American Catholicism: A History of Religion and Culture in Tension is Dolan's examination of the relationship between Catholicism and evolving American values and how religious doctrine has been influenced by democracy. Christian Century 's Christopher J. Ruddy called the volume "the capstone to his celebrated career. Put simply, he argues that America has been quite good for Catholicism and that Catholicism must continue to adapt to American culture if it is to endure, let along flourish."

Thomas W. Josziewicz wrote in Catholic Historical Review that "throughout his survey, the author works five themes: democracy, devotional style, questions of nationality, the Americanization of Catholic doctrine, and gender. The primary narrative context is in fact the developing, indigenous democratic culture in the United States since the end of the American Revolution, and the entry of an apparently foreign Roman Catholicism into this largely Protestant republic, an entry that was not always so easy, nor so acceptable to the majority of an oftentimes apprehensive native population."

Ruddy wrote that the 1960s "witnessed the vindication of Catholicism in the United States and of American Catholicism. The election of John F. Kennedy signaled Catholic acceptance into the cultural mainstream, while the Second Vatican Council—largely through the work of the formerly silenced American Jesuit John Courtney Murray—supported the right to religious freedom and discounted church-state alliances. Soon enough, though, the American church found itself increasingly torn between being a democratic 'people's church' and the restorationist 'bureaucratic church' exemplified by Pope John Paul II. The sexual-abuse crisis, Dolan concludes in a postscript, reveals the failure of this monarchical church and the need for a more democratic American Catholicism."

In spite of divisions within the church over such issues as the possibility of female priests, birth control, and the sex-abuse scandal, Dolan is confident that it will grow and prosper. Church History 's Debra Campbell said Dolan's "convictions and his optimism are contagious and timely."

Dolan once commented to CA: "I love to write, but I find it very frustrating at times. I am a different personality when doing serious and prolonged writing; my mind is in another world. Basically, I flip out during these periods. A personal goal is to promote the study of American Catholicism, an area too long neglected by scholars and in need of competent creative study."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

America, December 2, 2002, Thomas Bokenkotter, review of In Search of an American Catholicism: A History of Religion and Culture in Tension, p. 25.

Catholic Historical Review, October, 2003, Thomas W. Josziewicz, review of In Search of an American Catholicism, p. 807.

Christian Century, October 9, 2002, Christopher J. Ruddy, review of In Search of an American Catholicism, p. 26.

Church History, September, 2003, Laurie F. Maffly-Kipp, review of In Search of an American Catholicism, p. 634; December, 2003, Debra Campbell, review of In Search of an American Catholicism, p. 911.

Journal of American Ethnic History, summer, 1996, Timothy Walch, reviews of Mexican Americans and the Catholic Church, 1900-1965, Puerto Rican and Cuban Catholics in the U.S., 1900-1965, and Hispanic Catholic Culture in the U.S.: Issues and Concerns, p. 49.

Journal of Ecclesiastical History, July, 1996, P. A. M. Taylor, reviews of Mexican Americans and the Catholic Church, 1900-1965, Puerto Rican and Cuban Catholics in the U.S., 1900-1965, and Hispanic Catholic Culture in the U.S., p. 584.

Journal of Religion, January, 1997, Thomas A. Tweed, review of Puerto Rican and Cuban Catholics in the U.S., 1900-1965, p. 151.

National Catholic Reporter, February 5, 1993, E. Leo McMannus, review of The American Catholic Experience: A History from Colonial Times to the Present, p. 36; May 21, 2004, Jeffrey Marlett, review of "American Catholicism Examined," p. 4.

Sociology of Religion, spring, 1996, Patricia Wittberg, review of Hispanic Catholic Culture in the U.S., p. 107.

U.S. Catholic, October, 2003, "To form a more perfect union" (interview), p. 12.*