Reclaiming American Catholicism: Faith, Politics, and the Future of the Catholic Church

A rich portrait of American Catholicism at a crossroads between crisis and opportunity

The most vocal leaders in the U.S. Catholic hierarchy today embrace a culture-war Catholicism.

Reclaiming American Catholicism makes the argument that recalibrating the Church’s engagement with politics and public life is vital for both the Church and the country. Gehring illuminates the Church that Pope Francis envisioned-＂bruised, hurting and dirty because it has been out on the streets＂--through stories of Catholic advocates working on the border, young Catholics who question Church teachings but are active in social justice campaigns, LGBTQ+ Catholics within a Church that does not accept their full humanity, and seminarians who work in the fields with migrants as part of their religious formation.

This book offers a hopeful vision for the Church at a time when the Catholic social justice tradition is more relevant than ever.

John Gehring is Catholic program director at Faith in Public Life, a policy advocacy organization based in Washington, DC, and the author of The Francis Effect: A Radical Pope’s Challenge to the American Catholic Church (2015).