Expert: George A. Card,sfo, M.I - 2/22/2004

Question
Hello,

I am writing a term paper on anti-Catholic prejudice in America.  I gave my rough draft to an Episcopal minister-to-be to read and was told I needed to balance the argument with scholarly, reasoned opposing viewpoints.  Below is my rough draft (it is long but if you do have the time it would be a tremendous help to have feedback).

Are there any books/websites that offer scholarly analysis AGAINST Church teaching on abortion, homosexual actions, etc.?

I thank you for any help you can offer and God bless you.

Here is my rough draft (it is uncompleted):

Why is the Catholic Church the Most Vilified Institution in America?
  Episcopal Profess of Religious Studies at Penn State, Philip Jenkins, author of The New Anti-Catholicism, calls anti-Catholicism “the last acceptable prejudice.”  Though nearly every ethnic group has at one time been persecuted in America, the prejudice against the Catholic Church remains one of the few that fails to provoke widespread, outspoken protest by anyone other than devout Catholics.  Today, off-color comments about African-Americans, Jews, Muslims, homosexuals, or even other Christians of a Protestant denomination provoke outrage and labels of “bigot” from nearly every sphere, as they should.  A similar remark about the Church does not seem to elicit the same response, although Catholicism is doubtless deserving of the same respect of other religions.  America's first Puritan settlers, the Christian separatists who fled England for religious freedom, reveal a group with a deep seated hatred for “papist” Catholics that remains locked into the American psyche.  In movies, books, and television, Catholics are vilified for beliefs that challenge societal comforts.  The country's only Catholic president in 228 years, John F. Kennedy, was assassinated in office.  Since then, no other Catholic presidents have been elected, although most of the 43 U.S. presidents have professed some form of Christianity.  Various senators who profess Catholicism have, by their own choice, incurred excommunication by taking positions in conflict with Catholic teaching.  “Catholics” like these senators and others, declaring their religion in name only without actually practicing it, may explain why a country of 60 million Catholics behaves so harshly toward such a significant minority.  At the heart of the matter, American society delivers a message contrary to the Catholic Gospel; the Gospel emphasizes selfless love, peace, material poverty, and spiritual wealth, all tenets in conflict with societal messages.  Because Catholics challenge an increasingly spiritually bankrupt nation to take responsibility for a spiritual life, and because Catholics follow through in spreading the Gospel of Jesus Christ, particularly in a world so “open-minded” to New Age, feel good gimmick religions and so intolerant to pure Christianity, the Roman Catholic Church unjustly remains the most vilified religion and institution in America.
Prejudice against the Catholic Church in America exists in many forms.  Philip Jenkins recounts one 1989 desecration of St. Patrick's Cathedral during Mass: “…condoms were thrown…one protestor grabbed a communion wafer—to a believer, literally the body of Christ—and threw it to the floor” (Jenkins 3).  A 2000 attack on a Montreal Catholic Church drew little American ire, despite protestors sticking soiled sanitary napkins throughout the sanctuary and spraying atheist graffiti on walls.  The following day, the New York Times “focused on a Quebec controversy over whether Pokemon cards should be issued in French” (Catholic League's 2000 Annual Report on Anti-Catholicism”).  One could only imagine the furor over a comparable attack on a synagogue or mosque, but anti-Catholic attacks are often cloaked in “free speech.”  Free speech reared its head again in the form of “artwork” displayed at the Brooklyn Museum of Art with a clearly anti-Catholic flavor: “Andres Serrano (an ex-Catholic) displayed his “Piss Christ,” a photograph of a crucifix submerged in a jar of his own urine…Serrano's defenders stressed  he was…exploring Catholic symbolism” (Jenkins 11).  Of course, the museum may have honestly forgotten that for millions of Catholics who worship Christ as the Son of God, submerging the symbol of Christ's redemption in a jar of urine may create offense.  At the same museum in 2001, Nigerian artist Chris Ofili presented “The Holy Virgin Mary,” a “collaged figure showing a black Virgin adorned by…elephant dung and cutouts of female sex organs from pornographic magazines” (Ibid. 125).  Naturally, this work was merely an exercise of “free speech”; blaspheming against the Virgin Mary only exercised First Amendment rights.  One might reasonably wonder, then, why the Supreme Court had, a year earlier, prohibited protest within 100 feet of abortion clinics.  This would also seem to fall under one's First Amendment rights.  A similar case with “gay rights” protestors requesting free speech to lobby for “gay marriage” might produce a different outcome, but when Catholics become involved, hypocrisy is often excused and national outrage is bypassed.  Even the earliest American settlers displayed their own anti-Catholic prejudice.  The New England Primer, used by Puritan settlers, advises New Englanders to “abhor that arrant whore of Rome, and all of her blasphemies, and drink not of her cursed cup…” (Jenkins 23).  Throughout the 1830's and 1840's, anti-Catholic political parties like the Know Nothing Party arose amidst Irish Catholic immigration to America.  Though not at all reflective of mainstream American thought, the Ku Klux Klan is rarely cited for its vehement anti-Catholicism.  The KKK has labeled itself against “the Kike, Koon, and Katholic” (Jenkins 32).  A personal note might serve here.  My great-grandfather, Patrick John Sweeney, immigrated to America from Ireland in the early 1900's.  In a time where signs reading “Help Wanted: No Irish Need Apply” hung from store windows and shops of prospective employers, my great-grandfather changed his name to John Sweeney, removing his first name to avoid appearing too Irish and too Catholic.      
Any valid analysis of anti-Catholicism must look at the question of why, of all the Christian denominations, the Catholic Church receives such hatred.  The answer can be found in the substantial difference between the moral and social teachings of the Catholic Church and the moral and social teachings of Protestant churches.  The Episcopal Church, the American branch of Anglicanism, is perhaps considered the Protestant equivalent in belief and structure to the Catholic Church.  Episcopalians, according to the Catholic Encyclopedia, believe that their church is “a true and reformed part, or branch, or pair of provinces of the Catholic Church of Christ” (“Anglicanism”).  Therefore, much of Episcopal practice remains the same as Catholic practice prior to Henry VIII's 16th century schism.  Still, a recent controversial decision in the Episcopal Church shed light on a key difference between this Protestant Church and the Catholic Church.  The Episcopal Church appointed Gene Robinson, a practicing homosexual, to the position of bishop, a move endearing the church to an actively pro-homosexual American media.  Yet one of the key tenets of Protestantism, as asserted by the Reformation, remains the Protestant sola scriptura, or supremacy of the Bible in Christian religion (“Anglicanism”).  It is striking, then, that in appointing Gene Robinson, the Episcopal Church has ignored multiple condemnations of homosexual actions in the Bible.  The Catholic Church makes the distinction between homosexual orientation and action, whereas the Episcopal Church appointed a practicing homosexual.  As Christians who profess the supremacy of the Bible, Episcopalian leadership may have failed to take note of this phrase from Scripture: “Thou shalt not lie (have sexual relations) with mankind as with womankind: because it is an abomination…Every soul that shall commit any of these abominations shall perish from the midst of his people” (Lev. 18:22).  At least three other references are made to homosexual actions in Scripture.  Protestantism, though, seems to believe that truth can change with time and that such Bible pronouncements—the foundation of their faith—can become “outdated.”  This again from a people who believe in a Bible that says God's Word “endures forever” (Is. 40:8).  The Catholic Church, though, recognizes the possibility of some homosexuals being born with a certain sexual orientation and asserts that all human beings, homosexual or heterosexual, are worthy of compassion.  This gives no excuse to crumple under the weight of societal pressures, though, and contemporarily, a huge pressure exists to accept the “gay lifestyle.”  Obviously, as a religious authority, the Catholic Church must give its objections to social misdeeds with religious explanations.  Many, though, reject such pronouncements as “religious propaganda.”  It is necessary, then, to show that the social and moral teachings of the Catholic Church are often proven valid in the secular world, as can be seen in the following case.  In the case of homosexuality, America has become more open than ever before to gay “marriage” and the various political rights homosexual groups have claimed for themselves.  The Church teaches that God made human beings man and woman, and that the natural aim of intercourse involves promoting unity of the spouses and the procreation of children.  Clearly, homosexual relationships accomplish neither; no children come forth, and practicing homosexuals are not spouses.  However, many reject the Church's teaching as religious propaganda.  Today, accepting the homosexual lifestyle is “tolerant” while rejecting it is “narrow-minded and rigid.”  The case was once exactly the opposite; widespread acceptance of homosexual practices only seems to have recently gained steam.  Yet no religious explanation of homosexual acts is required, as columnist Carl Worden clearly shows:

‘I worked very closely with over 300 homosexual men in the late 60s and early 70s… I considered most of these "gay" men to be at least close business associates…(some were) close personal friends, so any attempt to categorize my comments here as "homophobic" would be in vain…all but perhaps one of those healthy young men I knew 25 years ago is dead…from an AIDS-related illness…
…this is my very dispassionate, non-religious tale of a terrible tragedy I personally witnessed… In every case of the men I knew, they had made homosexuality a choice…In many cases, today's homosexuals were molested at a very young age by another man…That experience can and does warp a young man's sexual orientation...Sometimes these men would have 4, 5, 6 or more sexual liaisons with complete strangers in one night…Don't even bother to ask how HIV infections spread…both male homosexuals as well as lesbians have a life span roughly 40% shorter than heterosexuals… I have over 300 dead bodies as evidence…         (“The Truth About Homosexuality”)

Hard as Worden's words may sound, such firsthand experience is not to be rejected.  Yet the Church earns a label of “intolerant” for pointing out that homosexual actions have a morally contemptible content.  At the same time, it is rarely noticed that the Church clearly teaches that homosexuals, like all other human beings, are worthy and deserving of compassion as creatures of God.  This is often lost amid labels of bigot, and the extreme political requests of homosexual political groups require a strong reminder of just what is being requested.  Hatred of Church leaders who enforce this teaching provokes extreme anti-Catholic hatred.  In 2000, John Cardinal O'Connor's death provoked the following response from Time Out New York's gay and lesbian section: “Cardinal John O'Connor kicks the bucket…the pious creep was (an)…anti-gay menace.  Good riddance!” (Jenkins 97).  The cardinal's death was proclaimed the “year's best event.”  Advocate writer Michelangelo Signorile declared Pope John Paul II a “hateful man…a virulent hate-monger” for the Pope's remarks on homosexuality (Ibid. 98).  Annual summer gay pride marches result in grossly anti-Catholic scenes: “Among the flagrant attacks were men in jock straps simulating oral sex in front of St. Patrick's Cathedral during Sunday Mass” (Ibid. 101).  One might imagine a similar scene in front of a Jewish temple or Muslim mosque, both of which religions teach similarly about homosexual actions (“Homosexuality”).  Outrage would be quick and vehement.  Looking again at Mr. Worden's testimony, and at the relatively mild position of the Church, particularly in a country increasingly tolerant of a once intolerable situation, the charges directed at the Church show a prime instance of unjust, anti-Catholic hatred.  
  America indisputably sends numerous societal messages through the media; news, television, movies, and books all present a distinctly American, and anti-Catholic, message.  The religion of Jesus Christ teaches Catholic Christians “Blessed are the peacemakers” (Mt. 5:9).  The United States, in effect, teaches “Blessed are those who make war.”  Rap music and action movies glorify violence, blood, and gore, and the government only aids and abets a message of violence through a warmongering foreign policy.  Jesus Christ has said, “Blessed are the poor in spirit” (Mt. 5:3).  America declares in so many ways, “Blessed are the rich.  Blessed are those who make money, have big houses, and drive big cars.”  While Catholicism stresses material poverty and spiritual riches, America glorifies the materially rich.  The very concept of “The American Dream” involves financial freedom and material wealth.  As Americans enlarge everything from Big Macs to SUV's and neglect a spiritual life, the saying of Christ reverberates: “You cannot serve both God and mammon” (Mt. 6:24).  In every way, though, too many Americans serve money and neglect the legitimate warning of the Catholic Church.  The prevailing anti-Catholic attitude seems to be “No church can tell me what to do.”  This type of prevailing attitude, so contrary to the Catholic message, may explain why subsequent Church teachings on more controversial issues provoke such outrage.  American dissemination of blatantly anti-Catholic propaganda often gains widespread approval and even admiration.  Dan Brown's recent bestseller, The Da Vinci Code, alleges that Jesus had a sexual relationship with Mary Magdalene, one of his female followers at the time.  Brown claims this relationship is “‘a matter of historical record'” but the “‘historical record' to which Brown refers are…20th-century conspiracy books” (“The Facts About the Fiction”).  The book, though sold in the “fiction” section of bookstores, has been taken seriously enough by many to provoke a belief in this fabrication.  Relying primarily on discredited second century “gospels,” the book invents an utter blasphemy to the believing Catholic that the media has taken up with open arms, marveling at its bestselling status.  According to Catholic journalist Sandra Miesel:

“…it's Brown's Christology that's false—and blindingly so. He requires the present New Testament to be a post-Constantinian fabrication that displaced true accounts now represented only by surviving Gnostic texts. He claims that Christ wasn't considered divine until the Council of Nicea voted him so in 325…Constantine—a lifelong sun worshipper—ordered all older scriptural texts destroyed…Christians somehow failed to notice the sudden and drastic change in their doctrine.”  (“Dismantling the Da Vinci Code”)

Ironically, feminist anti-Catholic scholars have taken great pains recently to attempt to discredit the authentic Christian Gospels that date from the first century A.D.  The same “scholars” simultaneously treat forged “gospels” with inflated hopes, the same fake documents that comprise the majority of Brown's “impeccable research” (Ibid.).  Interestingly, the book accuses the Vatican, and only the Vatican, of covering up and fabricating “2,000 years of lies” (“‘Da Vinci Code Stirring Controversy'”).  According to columnist Gary Stern, “Joseph De Feo, policy analyst for the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights…says ‘…it is exploitative because Brown is capitalizing on an atmosphere when people will believe anything about the (Catholic) church” (Ibid.).  Brown attacks only the Roman Catholic Church, above all other Christian churches, fabricating a fantasy conspiracy that appeals to American sensibilities and American anti-Catholic prejudice.  It is no surprise that the book has been so successful.  The media has always furthered the anti-Catholic fire, particularly in Christmastime news specials which patently ignore the religious meaning of Christmas while chronicling Jewish Hanukkah celebrations and African Kwaanza celebrations.  If the double standard escapes Americans, most will observe that Christmas is mentioned only in the context of its economic impact on the country's toy industry.  Politically correct figures like Santa Claus take the place of the real center of the holiday, Jesus Christ, meaning that most children will grow up knowing more about a mythical, jolly, red clad figure than will know about Christ.  The secularization of Christmas is sometimes taken to an extreme, as a school in California demonstrated recently.  A 24 year old Sacramento schoolteacher and two colleagues were told “use of the word ‘Christmas' in the classroom or in written materials was now prohibited” (“Faith Under Fire”).  Interestingly, “other schools in the Golden State are having students pretend to be Muslims, simulating jihads with a dice game” (Ibid.).  Similarly, the Thomas More Law Center “said (New York City Public school) district's policy ‘unlawfully discriminates against Christians' because it ‘prohibits the display of [Christian] Nativity scenes' in public schools during Christmas, while it ‘expressly permits and encourages' the display of the Jewish Menorah and the Islamic Star and Crescent during certain religious holidays and observances” (Ibid.).  In no way do free speech and religious pluralism qualify as excuses in this case; other religions received respect during their holidays while Christian holidays received none.  Amidst the awful sexual abuse scandals in the Catholic Church, the media built up the predator priest specter to such proportions that parents could not be faulted for hiding their children whenever a priest passed by on the street.  Here, again, the media grossly failed in its attempts at unbiased objectivity. 9exag. Stats)*** Clearly, one victim is too many, but few media outlets pointed out that “less than 1.5 percent of priests over the past 40 years have been accused of sexually molesting a minor” (“The Church Scandal: Fodder for State Meddling”).  This means that 98.5 percent of Catholic priests have never molested a minor.  According to William A. Donahue, “The New York Times did a study as well, covering the years 1950 to 2001: it put the figure at 1.8 percent” (Ibid.).  This figure, far lower****than media exaggerations, was conveniently lost amid witch hunts against the Church.  Astonishingly, Episcopal scholars like Penn State's Philip Jenkins have found that incidence of abuse is actually greater in other Protestant denominations that it is in the Catholic Church (Ibid.)!  For whatever reason, abuse in the Catholic Church constitutes a “crisis in the Catholic Church” while abuse in Protestant, Muslim, or Jewish faiths involve only a few deranged individuals (Jenkins 143).  Some have even suggested that relaxing celibacy requirements for Latin Rite priests would solve the problem.  Somehow, allowing men attracted to young boys to marry adult woman would solve the Church's problem.  The sex abuse scandal claimed far too many victims and misrepresents a priesthood largely full of individuals dedicated to living Christ-like lives.  My own diocese has implemented strict programs and checkups to prevent further cases, and similar measures have been taken nationwide.  An anti-Catholic media only furthers the problem, though, when it spreads vicious inaccuracies and exaggerates a problem present in equal severity throughout countless other religions and spheres as well.        
  It is an astonishing reflection on the failure of Church critics to educate themselves, that, regarding the issues of abortion and artificial contraception, the Church's teaching earns the label “misogynist.”  Catholic feminist Joanna Manning declared: “…the Catholic Church remains today one of the few institutions…whose policies…sanction for the discrimination against and oppression of women” (Jenkins 68).  More than perhaps any other issue, abortion provokes intense anti-Catholic sentiment, if not outright hatred.  U.S. Surgeon General Jocelyn Elders, in a 1993 address to a pro-abortion audience, asserted a “love affair with the fetus” directed by “a celibate, male-dominated church” (Ibid. 75).  Apparently, celibacy and maleness disqualify anyone from holding a reasonably supported perspective on abortion.  Ms. Elders discounts the facts; for protesting the deliberate killing of 22.5 million girls in America over the last 30 years, the Church is “anti-woman.”  Abortion again provides a chance to show that anti-Catholicism is not only unjust, but incorrectly administered even from a secular viewpoint.  Catholic priest Father McCarthy once observed, “America is a country that deplores a past of racism and the unspeakable evils of slavery, yet America has aborted 15 million black children.  We are a country that still mourns the maniacal Hitler's holocaust of 6 million Jews, yet America has killed by abortion more Jews than Hitler.  Though we are a nation that proudly supports feminism and women's rights, America has killed 22.5 million baby girls” (paraphrased from speech attended by author).  The country founded on the Declaration of Independence—“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness…”—denies the right to life of unborn human beings (Emphasis added).  The Catholic Church's religious assertion, affirming the Commandment “Thou shalt not kill,” is proven right by the scientific world.  Anti-Catholic, pro-abortion crusaders, many times one in the same, contend that the unborn child is not a living human being.  Dr. Jerome Lejeune, considered the “father of modern genetics” until his passing in 1994, and the discoverer of Down Syndrome, asserts:
“‘At no time,' Dr. Lejeune said, ‘is the human being a blob of protoplasm. As far as your nature is concerned, I see no difference between the early person that you were at conception and the late person which you are now. You were, and are, a human being” (“Facts of Fetal Development”).

Dr. Lejeune also observes that, “Each of us has a very precise starting moment which is the time at which the whole necessary and sufficient genetic information is gathered inside one cell, the fertilized egg, and this is the moment of fertilization. There is not the slightest doubt about that and we know that this information is written on a kind of ribbon which we call the DNA” (“Life Begins at Conception”).  Clearly, then, the unborn child is a living human being, a scientific fact beyond difference of opinion.  Even abortion doctors who have left the industry admit they knew as much while regularly performing abortion: “Former abortionist, Anthony Levatino, M.D., says, ‘I want the general public to know that the doctors know that this is a person, this is a baby. That this is not some kind of blob of tissue . . .” (“Confessions of Former Abortionists”).  “Pro-women” groups like Planned Parenthood promote an agenda that not only fails to help women, but deeply scars them emotionally, physically, and spiritually.  The Church has long pointed out that an abortion claims two victims: mother and child.  Post-abortion syndrome is rampant and strikes numerous women, causing physical and emotional pain.  Dr. Anne Speckard found that up to 81% of women who receive an abortion experience “preoccupation with the aborted child,” while 65% consider suicide, along with countless other severe physical and emotional traumas (‘Symptoms of Post Abortion Syndrome”).  By no stretch of imagination can a pro-abortion stance be considered “pro-woman,” nor can applying labels of “anti-woman” to the Church hold weight when considering the terrible problems associated with what has been called the American Holocaust.  Whether or not one agrees with Catholic teaching on abortion and contraception, no person can justly condemn teachings that are based both in theology and contemporary science.  To call the Church “anti-woman” is to ignore the Catholic message, promoting unjust and undeserved prejudice against the Catholic Church.    
  Of the Catholic Masses I have attended in my life, many have focused on the need for people to practice a spiritual life.  In America, this concept seems to be particularly difficult for many.  Americans constantly have their physical lives at the forefront; the media promotes the latest weight loss trends to an increasingly obese country.  Pleasure is esteemed and promiscuity abounds.  Emotionally, Americans take pain to better themselves, as evinced by the self-help industry and the numerous commercials for drugs to beat depression and other psychological problems.  The third part of the human being, the spiritual person, seems in many ways ignored.  Presenting statistics of church attendance will not prove the point; anti-Catholicism remains because the Church points out the need for weekly Mass attendance and a constant attention to spiritual matters.  The Church is often scorned for dubbing a purposely missed Sunday Mass a “sin.”  Muslim imams require Friday mosque attendance, and Orthodox Jews also require a strict observance of Saturday Sabbath.  The Catholic Church, though, presents its message on a public scale and presents the uncomfortable possibility to people that inattention to spiritual life may lend itself to an uncomfortable eternity.  Though recent attempts to remove God from the public sphere have succeeded in small ways, any poll will show that Americans do believe in God in large scales.  Americans, tough, adopt a “pick and choose” spirituality that leaves out the aspects of religion that displease them.  Yet the Catholic Church teaches that Hell exists and people will be accountable for their actions.  The Church teaches that God is what He is, and people cannot change God to suit their needs and wants: “Oh, God is forgiving, and if I am a good person I will go to Heaven.”  Catholicism does indeed teach of the forgiveness of God, but it also teaches that trying to get by on as little as possible—“I just have to be a good person, and if I miss church, it does not matter”—does not lend itself to the hope of a happy life hereafter.  As the Church challenges the spiritual complacency of a large portion of Americans, Americans who adopt New Age meditation techniques to make themselves “feel good” and change religious affiliations out of distaste for the organ music, the response becomes harsh and anti-Catholic.  Soon, the Church is “misogynist” for trying to help women not to abort their children and suffer from it.  The Church is “homophobic” for *** acknowledging the compassion each person, regardless of sexual orientation deserves, while condemning a practice that spreads AIDS and is condemned by their Scripture.  The Church is “repressed” for encouraging sexual purity.  The Church is “out of touch” for refusing to allow people to vote to change unchanging truths.    St. Francis
  From the first anti-papist Puritans to modern day feminist, homosexual, and pro-abortion groups, various groups in America ensure that the Roman Catholic Church will be met with constant animosity.  Protestant and non-Christian faiths that teach many of the same doctrines rarely receive the same level of criticism.  An eagerness to change moral teachings with the times, much like one changes clothes for different seasons, endears other faiths to anti-Catholic groups.  Practicing Catholics, like practitioners of other faiths, believe that Church teaching is rooted in truth, however difficult it may be to hear.  Granted, America esteems free speech and the right of dissent; any amount of scientific and theological fact will not dissuade some from different opinions, and no problem exists with this.  Yet grave problems arise when people make unwarranted character attacks on a Church that serves as the biggest charity in the world. **** Americans call the Church anti-woman, while the Church fights to protect woman from the abortion procedure that indisputably harms them and their unborn children.  Americans call the Church homophobic, while the Church teaches compassion for all people and retains a belief in the wrongness of homosexual actions that were once widely condemned.  Americans increasingly pick and choose the religious truths that please them, discarding “outdated” theories that conflict with spiritual complacency.  As Pope John Paul II once said, “It is a mistake to apply American democratic procedures to the faith and the truth. You cannot take a vote on the truth.”  Americans, though, seem more willing than ever to embrace a “good people go to Heaven” mentality that excuses minimal spirituality.  As long as the Catholic Church teaches unique articles of faith, She will be vilified.  As long as the Catholic Church speaks about God in an ever more atheistic culture, She will be hated.  As long as the Catholic Church challenges the spiritual complacency of Americans and takes moral stands, She will be attacked, maligned, and denigrated.  Americans will never accept a church that fails to bend to the will of its people, a will that rarely if ever supports strong, trusting faith.  The Catholic Church in America, as long as Her members believe in God, will withstand and overcome hostility as She always has: through faith, hope, and love.  

Answer
                      Shalom

Dear Michael,

 I delayed in writting in reponse for two reasons. First to think out a general reponse. Second to hear back from a friend that big US History buff.
 First besides the sources you named, me and John suggest:
(1)The Presistenent Prejudice by  Michael Schwartz[Our Sunday Vistor(OSV)] and (2) Christ the King, the Lord of History[Tan].The second book is written as high school text book that starts from about 3000 BC to the mid 1980's A.D.

Second remember the Church is not only attacked from Libralism but also from the "Right" which is offen more hard to see.

To quote my wise father:

 Christ nor has Bride ever failed souls or nations but some Churchmen have failed Christ, His Church,Souls and Nations. Some in lack of Charity and some by lack Knowledge, either way: love them with prays for mercy and wisdom to love them as we should.



                         Your Servant But His First
                                george/rav Jerome72