Rhetorical Campaigns of the 19th Century Anti-Catholics and Catholics in America

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Pages:228
ISBN:0-7734-7908-2
978-0-7734-7908-1
Price:$179.95 + shipping
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This study explores answers to the following questions: 1) how did anti-Catholic rhetors make the alleged threat of a Catholic conspiracy against American liberty so persuasive that it could sustain an active movement from the 1830s-1850s? and 2) how did Catholic leaders construct and justify their response strategies and what did those strategies tell Catholics, and all American, that it meant to be a Catholic American?

“Anybody who wants to understand Anti-Catholicism, Catholicism, and how the two shaped and were shaped by America needs to read this book.” – Gary Hiebsch

Reviews

“Anybody who wants to understand Anti-Catholicism, Catholicism, and how the two shaped and were shaped by America needs to read this book.” – Gary Hiebsch

Table of Contents

Table of Contents:
Preface by James R. Andrews
Introduction: The Anti-Catholic Movement and the Catholic Response; Scholarship on 19th Century Anti-Catholicism and the Catholic Response; Approach of This Study
1. Narratives of Disclosure and the Foundations of Anti-Catholic Ideology: Mari Monk and the ‘Awful Disclosure’; Believability in Narratives of Disclosure; Ideological Assumptions and the Polarization of Good and Evil; Revivalism; Jacksonian Democracy; Victorian Morality
2. Exposing the Papal Plot – The Rhetorical Development of a Conspiracy Theory: Rise of Anti-Catholic Organizations; Shift to Politically Focused Discourse; Samuel F. B. Morse and the Conspiracy Theory; The Influence of ‘Foreign Conspiracy’
3. The Rhetoric of the ‘Know Nothings - Organized Anti-Catholicism and Electoral Politics: Development of Anti-Catholic Political Parties; Persistence of Conspiracy Logic in Anti-Catholic Electoral Rhetoric; Moderation Strategies in Anti-Catholic Party Discourse; Mild Reforms in the Face of a Monstrous Plot
4. Turning the Other Cheek – The American Catholic Hierarchy Responds to Anti-Catholicism: Passive Response Advocated in the Pastoral Letters; Kerygmaic Form of the Pastoral Letters; Confirming the Fears of Anti-Catholics
5. Confronting the Anti-Catholics: The Rhetoric of John Hughes, Archbishop of New York: Life of John Hughes; Addressing Catholics on the Problem of Anti-Catholicism; Rhetoric of Polite Refutation; Hughes’ Confrontational Rhetoric
6. ‘All Depends on Ourselves’ - The Assimilationist Rhetoric of Orestes A. Brownson: Life of Orestes A. Brownson; Brownson’s Redefinition of ‘American’; Brownson’s Critique of the Opponents of Assimilation; Brownson’s Vision – A ‘Catholic’ America
Conclusion; Selected Bibliography; Index

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