Date
8-6-2025
Department
College of Arts and Sciences
Degree
Doctor of Philosophy in History (PhD)
Chair
Logan Thomas
Keywords
Catholic Action, World War II, Second World War, Catholic, National Catholic Welfare Conference, NCWC, Liturgical Movement, Home Front
Disciplines
History
Recommended Citation
Vician, William, "Catholic Action at War: Prayer, Study, and Action in the National Catholic Welfare Conference Bulletin, 1939-1945" (2025). Doctoral Dissertations and Projects. 7331.
https://digitalcommons.liberty.edu/doctoral/7331
Abstract
The study of the Roman Catholic Church in America during the twentieth century focuses on the Second Vatican Council’s (1962-1965) massive social changes and reactions, often minimizing the importance of the social and political forces of the preceding decades. The most significant of these forces was the Second World War (1939-1945), in which the nation’s twenty million Catholics participated in roles both on the battlefront and the home front. The Catholic Church that met the challenge of the war effort was increasingly led by the National Catholic Welfare Conference, the forebear of today’s United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.
The Church of this era was extremely hierarchical and organized on a national level, with no empowerment of independent lay action or initiative. The immense needs created by the war effort on the home front required a mobilization of the lay Catholics to act as the apostolate of the laity – termed “Catholic Action.” The N.C.W.C.’s monthly bulletin for lay leaders and priests, which they named Catholic Action, demonstrates the successes and limits of lay mobilization on the home front. The Conference met home front needs by creating organizations like the National Catholic Community Service and War Relief Services–N.C.W.C., believing that organization was the best way to vector the laity’s efforts. These organizations relied on unprecedented donations of goods, money, and volunteer hours to troops, defense workers, and the destitute overseas. The Catholic hierarchy, which was increasingly represented by the N.C.W.C., did not come to trust or empower the laity until the 1960s, but the pages of Catholic Action show a newfound respect and understanding of the power contained in a unified, national Catholic laity performing the three modalities of Catholic Action: Prayer, Study, and Action. Along the way, the hierarchy adopted surprising rhetoric on patriotism and interfaith cooperation, demonstrating the war’s ability to change how they addressed the laity. The N.C.W.C.’s changing rhetoric on Study, expanded reliance on the laity for Action, and ambivalence toward liturgical renewal changed as part of their response to the home front. They emerged into the postwar peace with a new understanding of national power contained in the twenty million Catholics of the United States performing unified Catholic Action.
