Catholic Confederates: Faith and Duty in the Civil War South

by Gracjan Kraszewski

How did Southern Catholics, under international religious authority and grounding unlike Southern Protestants, act with regard to political commitments in the recently formed Confederacy? How did they balance being both Catholic and Confederate? How is the Southern Catholic Civil War experience similar or dissimilar to the Southern Protestant Civil War experience? What new insights might this experience provide regarding Civil War religious history, the history of Catholicism in America, 19th-century America, and Southern history in general? For the majority of Southern Catholics, religion and politics were not a point of tension. Devout Catholics were also devoted Confederates, including nuns who served as nurses; their deep involvement in the Confederate cause as medics confirms the all-encompassing nature of Catholic involvement in the Confederacy, a fact greatly underplayed by scholars of Civil war religion and American Catholicism. Kraszewski argues against an “Americanization” of Catholics in the South and instead coins the term “Confederatization” to describe the process by which Catholics made themselves virtually indistinguishable from their Protestant neighbors. The religious history of the South has been primarily Protestant. Catholic Confederates simultaneously fills a gap in Civil War religious scholarship and in American Catholic literature by bringing to light the deep impact Catholicism has had on Southern society even in the very heart of the Bible Belt.

Genres: History

312 pages, Hardcover

Published April 28, 2020

Reviews

[Daniel C · Rating 5 out of 5]

Highly recommend this book

I found this book scholarly, yet thoroughly readable. As a Southern Catholic, the acceptance of Catholics during the war, versus the attitude upon the rise of the KKK was something I wish was more thoroughly explores, but was probably beyond the scope of this tome. Living in the 2020s, it's interesting to once again, especially in the North, the rise in both anti-Catholocism, anti-semitism, and the vandalizing and destruction of Catholic churches once again rear its ugly head. While there is still frequent negativity on display from Southern Protestant pulpit, our church attendance and conversions to the Catholic faith are exploding. I learned much new history and information from the book and highly recommend it to those interested in history.