Book Description

The Catholic Church in the United States has always been an immigrant church, from the earliest arrivals of the Spanish and English, to the influx of Irish, Germans, Italians, and other Europeans in the nineteenth century, to the most recent arrivals from the Philippines and Vietnam. Over two centuries countless laymen and laywomen worked with priests and religious to build and support churches and schools, laying the foundation for the Catholic Church in the United States. The wealth of original documents and photographs in Keeping Faith provides as no other source does a thorough and compelling portrait of these immigrants and their impact on the American Catholic institutions and American Catholic experience.