Bright Promise, Failed Community: Catholics and the American Public Order

In Bright Promise, Failed Community, respected Catholic sociologist Joseph Varacalli describes how and why Catholic America has essentially failed to shape the American Republic in any significant way. American society has never experienced a 'Catholic moment'-the closest it came was during the immediate post-World War Ii era-nor is it now close to approximating one. Varacalli identifies as the cause of the current situation the 'failed community' of Catholic America: an ineffective and dissent-ridden set of organizational arrangements that has not succeeded in adequately communicating the social doctrine of the Church to Catholic Americans or to the key idea-generating sectors of American life.