Missionary Empire: American Catholics in Belize and Guatemala, 1941-1961
Recent historical scholarship on American Catholic and Protestant overseas missions has employed the framework of "reverse mission" to analyze the back flow of information from the mission field to the United States. Most historians of U.S. Catholicism who employ this "reverse mission...
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
American Catholic Historical Society
[2019]
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| In: |
American catholic studies
Year: 2019, Volume: 130, Issue: 3, Pages: 1-36 |
| IxTheo Classification: | KAJ Church history 1914-; recent history KBQ North America KBR Latin America KCA Monasticism; religious orders KDB Roman Catholic Church RJ Mission; missiology |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (Resolving-System) Volltext (doi) |
| Summary: | Recent historical scholarship on American Catholic and Protestant overseas missions has employed the framework of "reverse mission" to analyze the back flow of information from the mission field to the United States. Most historians of U.S. Catholicism who employ this "reverse mission" framework focus on the late 1960s through the 1980s, when Catholic missionaries inspired by the Second Vatican Council began to embrace the concept. In fact, U.S. Catholic missionaries practiced "reverse mission" well before the 1960s. To understand the fuller scope of U.S. missionary activity, this article suggests that a broader framework is needed. It makes a historiographical intervention by recovering the category of "empire," specifically United States imperialism in Central America during the first two decades of the Cold War, to avoid overdetermined periodization that sees the 1960s as the defining dividing point. "Empire" as a category of analysis also foregrounds the relevant asymmetrical power dynamics and captures personal and institutional exchanges that are multilayered and multivocal. The article features two case studies from the 1940s-1950s: Missouri Jesuits in Belize and Maryknoll missioners in Guatemala. The article concludes by analyzing the writing of perhaps the most prolific American Catholic priest of the twentieth century, Maryknoll Father Albert J. Nevins, whose rhetoric of international responsibility helped Catholics achieve a confident and even advantageous position in America's emerging empire. |
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| ISSN: | 2161-8534 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: American catholic studies
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1353/acs.2019.0055 |