Defenders of the faith: American Catholic lay organizations and anticommunism, 1917--197

This dissertation considers the role of anticommunism in shaping twentieth-century American Catholic identity from the perspective of four lay organizations: the Catholic War Veterans (CWV), the Catholic Daughters of America (CDA), the Blue Army of Our Lady of Fatima, and the Cardinal Mindszenty Foundation (CMF). These groups enlisted over a million American Catholics in their anticommunist crusades. While they arrived at their positions from different perspectives and propounded a variety of means to combat communism, each used anticommunism as a cornerstone of its identity. Founded in 1935 by Monsignor Edward J. Higgins in Queens, New York, the CWV consistently used anticommunism to refute charges of Catholic disloyalty in street level demonstrations, petition campaigns, and congressional lobbying. For the CDA, founded in 1903 under the auspices of the Knights of Columbus in Utica, New York, anticommunism played a critical part in shaping its conception of women's gender roles, contending that women could best serve in the anticommunist struggle as purveyors of Christian morality to children and providing charity to the poor. Consistently adhering to traditional Catholic teachings on women's subordinate place in society, the CDA worked through other organizations to effect its mission. Since its inception in 1950 in Plainfield, New Jersey, the Blue Army has viewed the Cold War as a spiritual struggle, enlisting supporters to the cult of Fatima, which was based upon the alleged Marian revelations of 1917 in Fatima, Portugal. The group led a nation-wide prayer movement predicated on a devotional style of Catholic piety to convert the Soviet Union back to Christendom. Owing more the hysterical discourse of the American far-right than to papal encyclicals on communism, the CMF, established by Eleanor Schlafly and the Reverend Stephen Dunker in 1958 in St. Louis, Missouri, viewed communism as a vast conspiracy afflicting all aspects of American life, which could only be defeated through a campaign to expose subversion, even at the cost of alienating the American Church hierarchy. The variety of ideas and methods of these groups illustrates the great diversity in twentieth-century American Catholicism, and informs us of the powerful mix of religion and politics in the United States.