Men Astutely Trained
A History of the Jesuits in the American Century
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- $21.99
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- $21.99
Publisher Description
A perceptive & provocative analysis of the transformation that swept through American Catholicism in the decades leading up to Vatican II.
The Jesuits have been the carriers of a culture borne along by a fruitful & often frustrating tension between their dual commitment to ancient virtues & to the pursuit of the free play of ideas. This book explains developments among the Jesuits and sets them in the larger context of the sea-changes that shook the world and the Catholic Church in the world during the mid-20th century.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In shaping his extensive research, writes McDonough, who teaches political science at Arizona State University, his focus has been ``the ambiguous meeting between a `nation with the soul of a church' and a religious organization with a commitment to the mundane.'' From the turn of the century to the 1960s, American members of the Society of Jesus retained a firm sense of mission, as seen in the Jesuit-run schools and universities that flourished throughout the U.S. and in their nationwide prominence, not just as priests and educators but as scholars, journalists, labor leaders and social innovators. In the wake of the religious revolution launched by the Second Vatican Council, however, the Society not only lost members but experienced internecine conflicts regarding its direction. McDonough's weighty narrative, bolstered with personal accounts of priests, is a significant, often eye-opening contribution to our understanding of the American Jesuits' recent history. ( Dec. )
