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James Baldwin's Challenge To Catholic Theologians And The Church, Jon Nilson

Theology: Faculty Publications and Other Works

Racism/white supremacy is seemingly ineradicable, despite its contradictions to the gospel and American ideals. James Baldwin perceived the reason: whites' fears of their own mortality. He did not demonstrate the truth of his claim, but Terror Management Theory (TMT) provides empirical confirmation for it. The Church has declared reconciliation to be the heart of its mission. So TMT must shape its new, effective strategies, like the processes that produced the two influential pastoral letters in the early 1980's.

The Costumed Catholic: Catholics, Whiteness, And The Movies, 1928 - 1973, Albert William Vogt Iii

Dissertations

Abstract

This dissertation examines the impact movies had on the place of Catholics of European descent in mainstream white America. Most scholars who study the history of Catholic populations in this country assume that they attained whiteness at some point. Whether with the Irish in the late nineteenth century, or more generally when urban parishes began the move to the suburbs post-World War II, the historiography claims that Catholics earned white status. However, an analysis of twentieth century American film complicates the historiography of Catholicism. A set of negative stereotypes, instead, have colored the presentation of the religion in cinema …