With these words, John Carroll, head of the Catholic Church in the United States and future bishop, encouraged his fellow Catholics in 1784. Catholics held a precarious position in the Early Republic despite having gained more freedom to practice their religion after the Revolution. Led by Carroll, they created an American Church with transatlantic ties. By the 1840s, in the face of increasing sectarian-driven violence, Catholicism had taken firm institutional root.
This exhibition displays examples of American Catholicism expressed mostly through printed texts from 1783 through the early 1840s. They include the earliest Catholic bibles published by Mathew Carey, and editions of Thomas à Kempis' The Imitation of Christ used and produced in the United States; polemical pamphlets with sexual and political subtexts that flew back and forth across the Atlantic; dueling sectarian newspapers; books and pamphlets created in reaction to mob violence against the Ursuline convent school near Boston; and official reports that mapped the Church's growth and growing pains.
The exhibition is curated by Rachel Bohlmann and Jean McManus.
HOURS
Monday through Friday; 9 am to 5 pm
Rare Books and Special Collections, 102 Hesburgh Library
EXHIBIT TOURS offered by curators Rachel Bohlmann and Jean McManus.
-- Thursdays at 12:30p in February and March (except 3/16)
-- Learn more: http://rarebooks.library.nd.edu/exhibits
Contact:
Department of Rare Books & Special Collections
Phone: (574) 631-0290
Email: rarebook@nd.edu
URL: http://rarebooks.library.nd.edu/