Render to Caesar, render to God: American Catholic intellectuals and the dilemma of dual identities, 1895-1955

As the twentieth century began, American Catholic intellectuals were faced with the task of demonstrating that they were both “good Catholics” and “good Americans.” Their work was made difficult by a continuing legacy of nativism, Roman condemnation of “Americanism” at the end of the nineteenth century, and a contemporary view, among many Catholic and non-Catholic Americans, that Catholic intellectual life was unimportant. Nonetheless, an examination of personal papers, periodical literature, and scholarly books from the era reveals the existence and development of an active group of Catholic intellectuals, dealing in different ways with the “dilemma of dual identities.” Through investigation of the writings of Catholic educators, historians, philosophers, social theorists, and public intellectuals, this study uncovers these various attitudes and stance toward the problem of the relationship between church and state, religion and society. In the process, it is clear that there was among American Catholics during the course of the first half of the century both an increasing confidence regarding their place in American society, and a gradual augmentation of the volume and quality of their intellectual activity. These culminated in a burst of Catholic optimism and intellectual assertiveness in the 1950s, albeit tempered by lingering uneasiness over the straddling of American and Catholic identities