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WORK TITLE: The Other Catholics
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE: 1968
WEBSITE: http://profjuliebyrne.com/
CITY:
STATE:
COUNTRY:
NATIONALITY:
https://www.hofstra.edu/faculty/fac_profiles.cfm?id=181 *
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Born May 27, 1968.
EDUCATION:Duke University, B.A., 1990; M.A., 1996; Ph.D., 2001.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Writer and educator. Texas Christian University, Fort Worth, faculty member, 2000-04; Duke University, Chapel Hill, NC, assistant professor of religion, 2004-06; Hofstra University, Hempstead, NY, associate professor of religion and Monsignor Thomas J. Hartman Chair in Catholic Studies.
WRITINGS
Contributor to periodicals.
SIDELIGHTS
O God of Players
Julie Byrne, who grew up in Pennsylvania, is a college professor whose research interests are U.S. religion and American Catholic cultures and historiography. She is a contributor to periodicals and has been interviewed about religious issues for various publications. Byrne’s first book, O God of Players: The Story of the Immaculata Mighty Macs, tells the story of women’s basketball at the small Immaculata College (now Immaculata University) outside Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She also relates how the Catholic college’s basketball team eventually won the first three women’s national college basketball championships ever played. As Byrne shows, the team overcame enormous odds to do so.
In an interview with Sherry Morton for the Bulletin for the Study of Religion Web site, Byrne noted she “was always interested in religion outside church walls—what we could find out about religion by looking at what religious people did when they weren’t specifically in their houses of worship.” Byrne went on to remark that she initially intended to write a book focusing on case studies involving sports, community organizing, and the jazz scene until her college adviser mentioned that she should investigate the story of women’s basketball at Immaculata. Byrne told Morton: “He knew about [it] because his wife … had played basketball for one of the Catholic academies in Philly. After I visited Immaculata and realized the story was great but also that they had archives and were willing to work with me, the conceptualization fell into place.”
Byrne, who interviewed hundreds of Immaculata alumni, presents an ethnographic study focusing on the young women ballplayers and the Immaculata team from 1930 on through the championships years between 1972 and 1974. A major focus is on the intersections between sports, religion, and the prescribed behaviors for women at the time, both in the general culture and within the Catholic environment prior to the Second Vatican Council of 1965, which began the emerging women’s movement in the Roman Catholic Church. Byrne also delves into her ideas about how such an underrated basketball program was able to win the college championships and their role in helping to influence a new generation of Catholic women.
“Readers will find it an emotionally moving and powerful story; there are moments when it steps up to the brink of being inspirational rather than academic literature,” wrote Church History contributor Patrick Allitt. Noting that in a time when the values of athletes are being questioned by society, Mary Frances Wilkens, in a review for Booklist, remarked: “This is perhaps the most unusual sports book of the season.”
The Other Catholics
In her next book, The Other Catholics: Remaking America’s Largest Religion, Byrne delves into independent Catholics and Catholic churches not formally connected to the Roman Catholic Church in Rome or the Roman pope. Drawing from independent Catholic archives, interviews, surveys, and fieldwork, Byrne relates the history of independent Catholicism, which began in the Netherlands, and profiles some of the most important historical figures associated with independent Catholicism. She details the rise of independent Catholicism in the United States and profiles important U.S. figures, such as Bishops Herman and Meri Spruitt, founders of the Catholic Apostolic Church of Antioch-Malabar Rite.
Byrne points out that independent Catholics observe many of the rites of the Roman Catholic Church, including the seven sacraments and the apostolic succession of bishops. However, independent Catholic priests do not earn a salary and typically have day jobs. Independent Catholics also ordain women priests and noncelibate men. According to Byrne, there are more than 200 independent Catholic communities in the United States with a million members.
“Byrne’s enlightening research and analysis will undoubtedly raise awareness of these little-known Catholic denominations,” wrote a Publishers Weekly contributor. Noting The Other Catholics “is an engaging work and reads fairly quickly, but it is the fruit of a ten year study,” Exploring Church History Web site contributor Hoon Lee went on to remark: “This reading of history breaks down longstanding theological positions established by the church. Doctrines which have been deemed heretical are revived, or at least put back on the table, as viable theological positions.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Booklist, September 1, 2003, Mary Frances Wilkens, review of O God of Players: The Story of the Immaculata Mighty Macs, p. 38.
Catholic Historical Review, July, 2004, Michael J McNally, review of O God of Players, p. 588.
Christian Century, October 12, 2016, Grant Wacker, review of The Other Catholics: Remaking America’s Largest Religion, p. 24.
Church History, December, 2004, Patrick Allitt, review of O God of Players, p. 892.
Library Journal, September 1, 2003, Kathy Ruffle, review of O God of Players, p. 176.
Publishers Weekly, Aril 11, 2016, review of The Other Catholics, p. 56.
ONLINE
Bulletin for the Study of Religion, http://bulletin.equinoxpub.com/ (September 26, 2012), Sherry Morton, “O God of Players: An Interview with Julie Byrne.”
Exploring Church History, http://exploringchurchhistory.com/ (July 11, 2016), Hoon Lee, “It’s Catholicism without Rome: A Review of Julie Byrne’s The Other Catholics.”
Hofstra University Web site, https://www.hofstra.edu/faculty/fac_profiles.cfm?id=181 (February 13, 2017), author faculty profile.
Julie Byrne Home Page, http://profjuliebyrne.com (February 13, 2017).
Times Higher Education Online, https://www.timeshighereducation.com/ (June 30, 2016), Jane Shaw, review of The Other Catholics.
Washington Book Review, http://www.thewashingtonbookreview.com (July 25, 2016), Iman Malik, “America’s Catholics without the Pope and Rome, review of The Other Catholics.”
Julie E. Byrne
Associate Professor of Religion
Degrees
PHD, 2001, Duke Univ; MA, 1996, Duke Univ; BA, 1990, Duke Univ
Bio
Julie Byrne holds the Monsignor Thomas J. Hartman Chair in Catholic Studies and serves as Associate Professor in the Department of Religion. Before arriving in New York in September 2006, she taught at Duke University (2004-06) and Texas Christian University (2000-04). Her second book, The Other Catholics: Remaking America’s Largest Religion, was published by Columbia University Press in 2016. It is a cultural history of independent Catholicism in the U.S. Her first book, O God of Players: The Story of the Immaculata Mighty Macs (Columbia 2003), tells the story of Catholic women's basketball in the Philadelphia archdiocese from 1930-75. In addition to Catholic Studies, Byrne writes and teaches subjects in American religion from gender and race to method and theory. Her courses at Hofstra include “What is Religion?," "What is Catholicism?", "The Jesus Class," "Demonology," "Religion & Media" and “Race & Religion in the Americas.” She publishes popular articles and speaks frequently to the media, including The New York Times, Newsday, Frontline and Voice of America. Byrne’s professional website can be found at profjuliebyrne.com.
Teaching Interests
American religion, US Catholicism, global Catholicism, fieldwork in religion, African American religion, gender and religion, religion and media
Research Interests
American Catholic cultures and historiography, US religion
O God of Players: An Interview with Julie Byrne
Posted on September 26, 2010 by bodiesofknowledge
Julie Byrne grew up in Pennsylvania and completed her B.A. degree in Medieval & Renaissance Studies and Religion at Duke University in 1990. She entered Duke’s graduate program in religion and earned her master’s degree in 1996 and her Ph.D. in 2000. Her first book, O God of Players: The Story of the Immaculata Mighty Macs (Columbia University Press, 2003) is a product of her dissertation; her next book, The Other Catholic Church, is an ethnography of an independent Catholic group. Currently Julie holds the Monsignor Thomas J. Hartman Endowed Chair in Catholic Studies and is an associate professor in the Department of Religion at Hofstra University in New York.
O God of Players details the experience of young women basketball players at Immaculata High School in Philadelphia from 1930 through their championship years in the 1970s. This book provides a window into the lives of young Catholic women prior to the Second Vatican Council and is an ethnographic study of religious activity on the margins of culture. Byrne explores Catholic women’s sports as a means for understanding the way religious ideas are formed and reformed. O God of Players reveals the tension between official prescriptions for women’s behavior and the living expression of young athletes defining themselves as women and as Catholics. This book combines religious-studies scholarship along with an engaging narrative, often told in the words of the women who lived it. Byrne discovers that the Mighty Macs’ competitive spirit was driven by the fun and pleasure they experienced playing the game and asserts that much of what is meaningful about religion can be found in the market, the kitchen, the school gym, and other seemingly nonreligious places.
When I was invited to generate interviews for the Bulletin, I chose to look for scholars who are shaping the study of religion in new ways and who may not have received a great deal of attention—scholars speaking with a unique voice. Julie Byrne has crafted her career out of listening to the “other voices” of Catholicism and as such is the embodiment of my theme. In coming to know Julie I discovered that she had an enthusiastic and adventurous view of religion, the study of religion, and professional scholarship. Julie’s interest in the intersection of religion and culture allows her to see religion in places that others may overlook. As a result, she hears the voices of those who live a tradition and hears a narrative that often tells a story different from that of the tradition or the scholar. Listening in this way, Julie heard young Catholic women tell of the joy, fun, and pleasure they experienced growing up Catholic, attending a Catholic girls’ school and playing basketball. In the following interview Julie provides insight into her book O God of Players, her current work, and the work of being a scholar.
Sherry Morton: Your book O God of Players is a work on religion and culture that reaches beyond theology, ethnic and gender categories and into sports as a means of understanding American Catholicism. How did you come to this project?
Julie Byrne: I was always interested in religion outside church walls—what we could find out about religion by looking at what religious people did when they weren’t specifically in their houses of worship. Initially I was planning a book with three case studies: sports, the jazz scene, and community organizing. But then I was persuaded that micropolitical analysis only works if you really go micro, and you can’t do that spreading it thin over three examples in a dissertation. Plus, serendipity had struck. For the sports example, my advisor Tom Tweed suggested investigating the Immaculata story, which he knew about because his wife Mimi McNamee had played basketball for one of the Catholic academies in Philly. After I visited Immaculata and realized the story was great but also that they had archives and were willing to work with me, the conceptualization fell into place.
SM: What scholarship most influenced this work?
JB: Reading Robert Orsi’s The Madonna of 115th Street earlier in grad school was a major influence, especially because I was so taken that his influences were William Christian and other historians of early modern Europe. Taking courses on late ancient, medieval, and early modern history as an undergrad at Duke with people like Liz Clark, Tom Robisheaux, and Ron Witt was what first turned me on to history. But I went another way because I just didn’t see myself poring over sixteenth-century tax records in little German villages! I did most of my early graduate work in theory, reading a lot on questions of agency, from Deleuze & Guattari to Judith Butler. I found the field of American religious history in Tweed’s class at UNC, while he was working on the Retelling book. With that, I saw that my interests in both theory and history could find a place in the field.
SM: What are some of the more interesting criticisms this work received, and how did you respond?
JB: The best criticism was in Patrick Allitt’s review. He said something to the effect of this is such a strange history book, since its organizing principle is not change over time, but consistency over time. I just laughed because it was totally true; I say it right in the introduction. I might have thought twice about that organization if I had had more training in the field of history as such, but I was such a newbie and it didn’t even occur to me how odd that was.
SM: You suggest at the close of O God of Players that scholars look further into the margins of institutional forms of religion to access how religion is lived and lives. You recommend looking at the way the faithful employ their religious beliefs in ordinary activities like community gardening and book clubs in order to determine how these activities affect our understanding of religion. Can you elaborate on what you mean by this?
JB: Like many scholars thinking about lived religion, I wanted to fill out the picture of religious cultures, rather than reduce religion to institutions and beliefs. In the study of Catholicism in particular, all those para-institutional nooks and crannies begged to be investigated; what would we find out about Catholic cultures when we did? Now I am constantly amazed at the inventiveness of the field in analyzing religion and secularism, religion and space, religion and animal studies, and so much more. I think such investigations affect the overall understanding of religion simply by making the case, in ever more rich and convincing ways, that—to paraphrase Ann Braude—American history is American religious history.
SM: Do you have a fresh insight regarding something you have discovered in the margins?
JB: I just feel ever more strongly that what I found as just a hint in O God of Players—that leaders and institutions “did” lived religion as much as so-called ordinary people—is important for the study of Catholicism. There needs to be a study of the lived religion of bishops. And some scholars, like Michael Pasquier, are starting to do this, sources permitting.
SM: Currently you are working on Catholicism beyond the boundaries of the Roman Communion. What do you have to offer regarding this project as it emerges?
JB: Last summer I read lots of Anglican historians who were interested in what is now called independent Catholicism because of Anglican anxieties about valid apostolic succession. I was simply amazed that this history of “other Catholicisms” existed, yet was not on my radar nor on the radar of the field, because American religious historians were less focused on Catholicism, and historians of U.S. Catholicism assumed the Roman kind. So the summer of 2009 was a wild process of self-education about a segment of the scholarship I didn’t know existed.
SM: What work are you currently reading (academic or otherwise) and how do you see it influencing your scholarship?
JB: I read novels a lot and just trust that they rub off on scholarship in some way. I did not agree with the critical assessments of recent Don DeLillo; I loved The Body Artist and then Falling Man even more so, especially since I was newly living in New York. A long time ago, I wrote about DeLillo’s White Noise as a series of eucharists, in a shopping mall, of course. Still his writing is so real—or unreal, it hurts. I can’t wait to read Point Omega.
SM: Here’s a wild card: what question do you wish had been asked here?
JB: What is your best advice for graduate students and pre-tenure scholars in religious studies? It’s a stressful time in a stressful profession. I love my work, but I am not one of those who thinks the only thing to be in the world is a scholar and teacher of religion. Someday I might be happier doing something else. So, this is a Quaker way to put it: listen to the still, small voice within. The research university is not for everyone. Neither is the small raryeral arts college; neither is the adjuncting life; neither is full-time position. Then again, you really might love any of those paths. There are contingencies. But there are also many versions of a happy and successful intellectual life.
I’ve always loved give-and-take discussions about religion. And I thrive on bringing crucial knowledge to the wider world, whether teaching college classes, speaking to groups or talking to the media.
Religion is a key to understanding contemporary societies and global events. Whatever the story, whatever your path in life, religion matters.
Yet “religious literacy” is at an all-time low. So are original, edgy angles. I hope to help remedy that.
My interest dates to youth, raised Roman Catholic with thirteen years of Catholic schooling. I completed a Ph.D. at Duke University with a specialization in U.S. Catholicism. I’ve taught topics in American religion for fifteen years at TCU, Duke and Hofstra. I speak about religion, not for any particular religion.
I walk a lot. All website photos are taken by me in East New York, Brooklyn.
LC control no.: n 95074488
Personal name heading:
Byrne, Julie, 1968-
Found in: Embodying diversity, 1995: CIP t.p. (Julie Byrne) data
sheet (b. 05-27-68)
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The Other Catholics: Remaking America's Largest Religion
Publishers Weekly. 263.15 (Apr. 11, 2016): p56.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2016 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
The Other Catholics: Remaking America's Largest Religion
Julie Byrne. Columbia Univ., $29.95 (416p) ISBN 978-0-231-16676-8
In this probing study, Byrne (0 God of Players), associate professor of religion at Hofstra University, provides a history and overview of independent Catholic churches in America, which have been largely invisible in the shadow of the Roman Catholic Church. Her research involved access to independent Catholic archives, surveys, clergy interviews, and years of ethnographic ("participant-observation") field work. Biographical accounts of key historical figures, such as France's 18th-century bishop Dominique-Marie Varlet and 19th-century bishop Joseph Rene Vilatte, help Byrne trace the roots of independent Catholicism in the United States, while stories about Bishops Herman and Meri Spruitt and Archbishop Richard Gundry illuminate the contemporary independent church experience. Diverse, independent Catholics share the apostolic succession of bishops, celebration of seven sacraments, and a reverence of saints. They also incorporate mysticism, though many debate "how much woo-woo was too woo-woo." As "worker-priests," holding day jobs and ministering without salary, clergy focus on " 'sacramental justice' issues" such as ordaining women and non-celibate men and practicing open communion, which they frequently administer, upon request, to Roman Catholic laity. Byrne's enlightening research and analysis will undoubtedly raise awareness of these little-known Catholic denominations. (June)
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"The Other Catholics: Remaking America's Largest Religion." Publishers Weekly, 11 Apr. 2016, p. 56+. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA449663026&it=r&asid=ddde731272761b12bc08338c27b885e6. Accessed 23 Jan. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A449663026
Byrne, Julie. O God of Players: the Story of the Immaculata Mighty Macs
Mary Frances Wilkens
Booklist. 100.1 (Sept. 1, 2003): p38.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2003 American Library Association
http://www.ala.org/ala/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist_publications/booklist/booklist.cfm
Full Text:
Oct. 2003. 320p. illus. index. Columbia, $59.50 (0-231-12748-0); paper, $22.50 (0-231-12749-9). 796.323.
How did Catholic girls in Philadelphia in the 1940s amuse themselves? Why, by playing basketball, of course! Drawing on that 30-year-tradition of hoops mania, little Immaculata College won the first three women's NCAA college basketball championships in the early 1970s. Byrne, a religion professor, brings a fascinating point of view to the history of this unlikely ball club, arguing that the young women's spiritual values, as much as their physical skills, helped make them champions. The sports-religion connection is examined in fascinating depth, as Byrne probes the traditional Catholic position on sports, effectively building the case that basketball allowed young women the opportunity to be expressive without sacrificing their Catholic beliefs, Interviews with hundreds of Immaculata alums provide Byrne with plenty of anecdotal evidence to back up her claim that these athletes helped shape a generation of women, In an era when athletes' values are routinely under attack, this is perhaps the most unusual sports book of the season.
YA/IL: Teen athletes will enjoy learning this little-known piece of sports history. MW.
Wilkens, Mary Frances
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Wilkens, Mary Frances. "Byrne, Julie. O God of Players: the Story of the Immaculata Mighty Macs." Booklist, 1 Sept. 2003, p. 38+. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA109906811&it=r&asid=8b7a4f720e6daf3aeef79dcda64436de. Accessed 23 Jan. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A109906811
Byrne, Julie. O God of Players: The Story of the Immaculata Mighty Macs
Kathy Ruffle
Library Journal. 128.14 (Sept. 1, 2003): p176.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2003 Library Journals, LLC. A wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
http://www.libraryjournal.com/
Full Text:
Columbia Univ. (Religion & American Culture). Oct. 2003. c.320p. photogs. index. 0-231 12748-0. $59.50; pap. 0231-12749-9. $22.50. SPORTS
Imagine a tiny college with 800 students winning the national championship in women's basketball, Immaculata College (IC), near Philadelphia, did that in 1972--and for the following two years as well, despite a miniscule budget and no athletic scholarships. How this was accomplished and what it meant to the players, fans, nuns, and the Catholic community in Philadelphia are the subject of this book. Perhaps it is surprising that Catholic girls played basketball so passionately and skillfully, but for many reasons sports were always big among Catholics in Philadelphia, and the church's extensive school system fed Catholic colleges like IC. The author (religion, Texas Christian Univ.) used interviews with former players to illustrate how sports and conservative Catholic womanhood were not at odds. This book occasionally uses overly academic language, but mostly it is entertaining and eyeopening, as when the author describes the four layers of uniform worn (including baggy cotton stockings with garter belts!) right up to the mid-Sixties. Students in women's studies, religion, and sociology would benefit from this well-documented book. Recommended for all academic libraries and larger sports collections.--Kathy Ruffle, Coll. of New Caledonia Lib., Prince George, BC
Ruffle, Kathy
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Ruffle, Kathy. "Byrne, Julie. O God of Players: The Story of the Immaculata Mighty Macs." Library Journal, 1 Sept. 2003, p. 176. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA107837075&it=r&asid=167b7487d29518674d5278badc894fad. Accessed 23 Jan. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A107837075
The Other Catholics: Remaking America's Largest Religion
Grant Wacker
The Christian Century. 133.21 (Oct. 12, 2016): p24.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2016 The Christian Century Foundation
http://www.christiancentury.org
Full Text:
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
The Other Catholics: Remaking America's Largest Religion, by Julie Byrne (Columbia University Press, 432 pp., $29.95). Liberal independent Catholics not recognized by the Vatican number something like a million adherents scattered across thousands of meeting sites. They are united by commitments to apostolic succession, seven sacraments, and reverence for saints. But they also display a continually shifting array of unexpected emphases, often--though not always--including women's ordination, gay marriage, radical social justice, sacramental inclusiveness, liturgical innovation, and (Byrne quips) concerns about "how much woo-woo was too woo-woo." Reviewers have called this book brilliant, landmark, vivid, captivating, and (my favorite) rock solid. Drawing on deep research in archives as well as surveys, interviews, and ten years of field research and participant observations, the book is as important for the self-reflexive methods it reveals as for the remarkable story it tells.
Selected by Grant Wacker, who teaches Christian history at Duke Divinity School and is the author of America's Pastor: Billy Graham and the Shaping of a Nation (Harvard University Press).
Wacker, Grant
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Wacker, Grant. "The Other Catholics: Remaking America's Largest Religion." The Christian Century, vol. 133, no. 21, 2016, p. 24. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA472473110&it=r&asid=2e11b102f245dbcbde0ea8cd0ac6a4a9. Accessed 23 Jan. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A472473110
O God of Players: the Stored of the Immaculata Mighty Macs
Patrick Allitt
Church History. 73.4 (Dec. 2004): p892.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2004 American Society of Church History
http://www.churchhistory.org/church-history-journal/
Full Text:
O God of Players: The Stored of the Immaculata Mighty Macs. By Julie Byrne. New York: Columbia University Press, 2003. xx + 291 pp. $22.50 paper.
Tiny, threadbare Immaculata College, a Catholic school in Malvern, Pennsylvania, won the first collegiate women's national basketball championship in 1972. They won again in 1973 and 1974. How did these plucky Davids take on and defeat the Goliath-sized state and private powerhouses? Julie Byrne shows how, and explores the way players tried to live up to the submissive ideal of Catholic womanhood while also making themselves aggressive, powerful champions and objects of display. Her book, which follows the Mighty Macs from their 1920s beginnings to the championship years of the 1970s, joins the fast-growing literature on lived religion; she does for women's basketball among Catholics what Daniel Sack did for white bread among Protestants.
Philadelphia was basketball-crazy almost from the moment the game was invented (1891), and it caught on quickly in white Catholic working-class districts. It required less equipment and space than baseball and football; poor kids created makeshift courts in streets and on playgrounds. Boys in big immigrant families played, and their sisters soon joined in their tough street games, playing hard and creating a reservoir of experience and talent. Immaculata, whose nuns were dedicated to educating the disadvantaged, drew from this pool, beginning in the 1920s right through to their moment of glory in the 1970s. Standards were high, and it was difficult even for excellent players to make the team.
From the rough and tumble co-ed street version of basketball, however, female collegiate players had to learn a refined version of the game, as created by the ladylike Division of Girls and Women's Sports. Its leaders, mainly Protestants from Smith, Vassar, and Wellesley, believed in female delicacy, favored a "separate spheres" interpretation of feminism, and tried to minimize competitiveness. Right into the 1960s women's teams fielded six players, not five, with three permanently on offense and three on defense, all prohibited from crossing the centerline, and observing a limited dribbling rule that further restricted their mobility. These rules tried to diminish physical contact and speed. The nuns, meanwhile, obliged players to dress for the game in four layers of clothing, culminating in long and heavy woolen skirts--they exchanged gartered black stockings for shorts and bare legs only at the dawn of the 1970s. Profoundly modest, they never changed or showered together (their gym did not even have showers) but went home drenched in sweat.
For four decades, Mighty Macs' games began with prayers, players made the sign of the cross before free-throw attempts, and participation in the game was structured around religious rituals and invocations of divine help. One of the book's many memorable photographs shows the whole team, in warm-up jackets and veils, praying at the college chapel before a big game. The players' lives, indeed, were hemmed in by the awareness that their religion came first and that their moment of athletic glory would be followed by lives as dutiful wives and mothers.
Byrne sent questionnaires to as many "Mighty Macs" players from the 1930s to the 1970s as she could locate, and followed up with personal interviews. She supplemented these personal sources with archival research, and the book shows a lively familiarity with the secondary literature on twentieth-century Catholicism and lived religion. Byrne's primary sources are often contradictory--one admits, for example, that there were cases of homosexual attraction among some of the players, while others strenuously deny it. Many of her informants are in their eighties and express a powerful nostalgia for their youthful exploits. A few players' names recur so often in the text that it is tempting to think they said more or less what Byrne had hoped they would say; they are made to carry much of the burden of her analysis.
Historians generally emphasize changes. In striking contrast, this author emphasizes similarities across the decades. She often juxtaposes anecdotes from three decades apart to argue for strong continuities in the experience of the Mighty Macs' players. Vatican II and the social upheavals of the 1960s, as she tells it, made little impression on Immaculata College, whose nuns declined to change or abandon their traditional attire and made only marginal concessions to radically changing times and gender expectations.
The effect of this approach, unfortunately, is to de-historicize the story. Even if the details of players' on-court experience was similar in the 1960s to that of the 1930s, the off-court experience, and the religious and social context in which it took place, were drastically different. As Byrne herself shows, changing ideas about sports and careers for women (not least as basketball coaches for the rising generation) made Immaculata's tough basketball style less anomalous in the later decades than it had been earlier. Other schools--single-sex and co-ed alike--were catching up with Immaculata by the mid 1970s and promoting a high level of competitiveness in women's sports--that is why little Immaculata could no longer succeed at the national level after 1974.
These interpretive problems limit O God of Players's scholarly value. Yet readers will find it an emotionally moving and powerful story; there are moments when it steps up to the brink of being inspirational rather than academic literature. Byrne's admiration for the former players, some of whom became Immaculata nuns, shines through and energizes the entire work. What it loses in scholarly rigor, it gains in emotional intensity.
Patrick Allitt
Emory University
Allitt, Patrick
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Allitt, Patrick. "O God of Players: the Stored of the Immaculata Mighty Macs." Church History, vol. 73, no. 4, 2004, p. 892+. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA126166770&it=r&asid=191ec57927776405dbb1ee2b2b99bc09. Accessed 23 Jan. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A126166770
O God of Players: The Story of the Immaculata Mighty Macs
Michael J. McNally
The Catholic Historical Review. 90.3 (July 2004): p588.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2004 The Catholic University of America Press
http://cuapress.cua.edu/journals.htm
Full Text:
Byrne, Julie. O God of Players: The Story of the Immaculata Mighty Macs. (New York: Columbia University Press. 2003. Pp. xix, 291. $59.50 clothbound; $22.50 paperback.)
In this book, a reworked dissertation, the author examines religion by analyzing a nonreligious activity, namely, women's collegiate basketball. Specifically, Byrne explores the meaning behind the winning of the first three women's national college basketball championships from 1972 to 1974 by Immaculata College, a small Catholic women's college near Philadelphia, which had a student population of 800. The "Mighty Macs'" amazing accomplishment was possible because Catholic girls played basketball in their urban Philadelphia neighborhoods with their brothers, because pastors encouraged girls' basketball in parish schools and CYO programs, because Immaculata had a tradition of women's basketball going back to 1939, because the team had some great coaches, and because the young players found the game both "fun" to play and part of their identity as Catholic women. The book is arranged thematically, since the author maintains that during the period under study, from 1939 to 1974, there was "relatively little institution change" either in Catholic Philadelphia or at Immaculata. The chief primary sources used by the author are surveys and interviews of about 130 former Immaculata players and others connected with Immaculata basketball from 1939 to 1974. The author typifies it as history "from way, way below" since it centers on the memories of how players and those associated with the team perceived themselves. Consequently, the book raises some methodological questions. Is it sports history, women's history, social history, intellectual history, American Studies, or theology? To what extent do the author's preconceived notional categories impose themselves on the interpretation of the interviews? Notwithstanding, this study suggests that Philadelphia Catholicism and Catholic women's relationship to it were complex realities of accommodation and resistance. The author makes a creative contribution to the understanding of Catholic women's history and history of Catholicism, especially in Philadelphia, and invites further scholarship on these topics.
MICHAEL J. MCNALLY
St. Charles Borromeo Seminary--Overbrook
McNally, Michael J.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
McNally, Michael J. "O God of Players: The Story of the Immaculata Mighty Macs." The Catholic Historical Review, vol. 90, no. 3, 2004, p. 588. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA122814369&it=r&asid=9f5d899667915cdb42d68a5a8d6d5606. Accessed 23 Jan. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A122814369
It’s Catholicism without Rome: A Review of Julie Byrne’s The Other Catholics
July 11, 2016 / Hoon Lee / 0 Comments
Julie Byrne, The Other CatholicsLike many, I have run into independent Catholics before, but I had never really grasped their existence. Eyebrows were raised when Mel Gibson established a church in California. I vaguely recall hearing about the ordination of Sinéad O’Connor. I completely overlooked the Santa Muerte reference in Breaking Bad, while my attention was fixed on Tuco’s bizarre cousins.
Independent Catholics are roughly split into 250 geographical areas, or “jurisdictions.” Since the 1890 United States census, where they were labelled “Other Catholics,” the best estimations put them at 1 million in the US. Julie Byrne’s The Other Catholics: Remaking America’s Largest Religion (Columbia University Press, 2016; source: publisher) takes a moment to study these independent Catholics.
The Other Catholics is an engaging work and reads fairly quickly, but it is the fruit of a ten year study. The scope of the study addresses the history of independent Catholics from the eighteenth century, but concentrates on the Church of Antioch. Byrne traces non-Roman Catholicism from the Netherlands in 1724, to its way to the US in 1819, and its development into the Church of Antioch.
The differences between independent Catholics are as varied as the Protestant denominations. However, as a reform movement that left the Roman church but remained Catholic, they share some commonalities. As Byrne states,
As diverse as they are, however, almost all independent Catholics have a few things in common. They have bishops in apostolic succession. They celebrate seven sacraments. They revere the saints. And they hold that it is possible to be Catholic outside the big bodies. The Other Catholics, 8.
In short, “It’s Catholicism without Rome.”
Through following the life of Archbishop Richard Gundrey, Byrne explains the theology of the Church of Antioch. For instance, traditional doctrines are reinterpreted. Byrne writes,
Like Herman, Richard is not big on sin. He does not baptize, confess, or heal people to handle sin, he said. Rather, he baptizes to awaken the Christ that already lives within. With a theological anthropology espousing innate human divinity , there is really nothing to prevent Antioch’s “altars and orders” from being open to everyone, as Richard often put it. The Other Catholics, 190.
Though not found in all branches of independent Catholics, esotericism has a large presence in the Church of Antioch. Metaphysics, such as Theosophy or Religious Science, is found in all areas of their theology and church practice.
Independent Catholics are often compared to progressive Roman Catholics. Though they may agree on issues such as gay-ordination, they differ on the justification. Byrne explains,
So even though left-leaning independents actually carry out reforms that Roman progressives only dream of, it still looks to them like independents are going backward. Independents have women priests, married priests, and out-gay priests, but only by obsessing about a Holy Orders ever more “absolute,”“magical,”or “mechanistic.”Instead, Roman progressives say, the future lies in ordinations conferred not by bishops but by whole congregations, as some progressive communities are already doing. The Other Catholics, 41.
It also seems that one obvious distinction between independent Catholics and progressive Roman Catholics, namely the absence or presence of the Roman Church, leads to distinct approaches to ecumenism. At least in the Church of Antioch, a spirit of ecumenism does not just extend to the Roman Catholic Church, or even to Protestantism, but as Byrne writes, “They not only acknowledge non-Catholic religious truth, but also welcome it to reconfigure Catholicism.” (The Other Catholics, 242).
A peculiar characteristic of the Church of Antioch is their reading of history. Byrne states,
Even casually informed Antiochians characterize church history in ways that depart drastically from big-body narratives of orthodoxy and unity. Maybe it’s a veritable requirement of survival in independent Catholicism to get wise fast about power and positionality from the perspective of critical history. The Other Catholics, 246.
This reading of history breaks down longstanding theological positions established by the church. Doctrines which have been deemed heretical are revived, or at least put back on the table, as viable theological positions.
Julie Byrne’s The Other Catholics is a fascinating look at an overlooked subset of American religion. There is much to disagree with the Church of Antioch from a Protestant point of view. It also seems fair to not only ask what makes them Catholic, but also to ask what makes them Christian. However, Byrne does well to tell their story and their theology.
The Other Catholics: Remaking America’s Largest Religion, by Julie Byrne
Jane Shaw on a brilliant study of independent churches in the US
June 30, 2016
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By Jane Shaw
Twitter: @DeanJaneShaw
Archbishop Richard Gundrey performs wedding ceremony, Pojoaque, New Mexico
Source: Alamy
Sincere rituals: Archbishop Richard Gundrey does weddings for Catholics who want a more inclusive approach
Who is a Catholic? The term is usually used as shorthand to mean Roman Catholic, but it is also used by Eastern Catholics, such as Maronite Catholics who are in communion with Rome, and Anglo-Catholics, in the Anglican Church, who are not. It is also used by about 1 million Christians in the US who are independent Catholics, and the subject of Julie Byrne’s fascinating book, based on 10 years of fieldwork and interviews.
“Independent Catholics” is a term that covers myriad groups on both the Left, such as the Imani Temple in Washington DC and the White-Robed Monks of St Benedict, and the Right, including the Society of St Pius, founded by Marcel Lefebvre, and Mel Gibson’s Church of the Holy Family in Malibu, California. Byrne’s focus is on the liberal groups, in part because they are older (the conservative groups tend to be post-Vatican II) and in part because she believes that they are poised to have a greater impact on the future because they embrace the ordination of women, open communion, same-sex marriages and worshippers with multiple religious affiliations.
Byrne’s focus is on the Church of Antioch, founded in 1959 by Herman Spruit, who personified the seeker mentality of independent Catholics – and post-war California. A Methodist minister, Spruit was influenced by metaphysics and became a religious science teacher, steeped in New Thought, until a longing for Jesus and the sacraments led him to liberal catholicism, which traces its lineage to the early 18th century, and he was ordained in that church. From there he built the Church of Antioch, and – with a theology of the divine feminine – ordained and consecrated women as bishops as early as 1974. He made his wife, Meri, an archbishop and they called their union a “conjugal episcopate”.
Byrne brilliantly evokes the world of these independent churches. She describes their sincere, eclectic rituals in borrowed buildings and people’s homes; their changing nature as members discover new ideas, split off and create or join other churches; and the openness that leads them to serve a community beyond the relatively small numbers at their services. The Spruits’ successor, Archbishop Richard Gundrey, does a nice line in weddings for people who want a Catholic marriage but do not want to jump through the hoops of the Roman Catholic institution.
The Roman Catholic church has little time for these independent churches. Occasionally it bothers to excommunicate one – only to receive the reply from that church that as it is not part of the Roman jurisdiction anyway, it cannot be excommunicated. The Independent Catholics wonder why they do not attract more members – perhaps because they are “too mixed for many Catholics, too Catholic for many metaphysicals, too churchy as Americans abandon organized religion in droves”, as Byrne remarks. But they ruminate on their future with humour: when The Da Vinci Code was published, one priest announced that it would be helpful if someone could have a really big vision, “preferably of St. Mary Magadalene”.
Byrne’s book is an excellent study of churches on the fringe that incubate new ideas and shed new light on mainstream religion. Through her storytelling, Byrne documents the multiple claims to be Catholic and recognises that in the very writing of her book she, too, is producing Catholicism.
Jane Shaw is professor of religious studies, Stanford University.
The Other Catholics: Remaking America’s Largest Religion
By Julie Byrne
Columbia University Press, 432pp, £21.95
ISBN 9780231166768 and 1541701 (e-book)
Published 24 May 2016
America’s Catholics without the Pope and Rome
The Other Catholics: Remaking America’s Largest Religion by Julie Byrne, Columbia University Press, U.S. $29.95, Pp 432, May 2016, ISBN 978-0231166768
Within primary research on independent Catholicism, there are vast amounts of untapped resources to be found in the Vatican; in Roman, Episcopal, and Orthodox dioceses; in libraries, in independent Catholic churches, and in Catholic homes. “Other Catholics” was the label used by the United States Bureau of the Census in 1890 when independent Catholics first seemed to warrant classification. The independent aphorism “Catholicism without Rome” clarifies that independent Catholics are not formally connected to the Pope of Rome. They can change quickly and experiment freely. Some affirm communion for the divorced, women’s ordination, clerical marriage, and same-sex marriage. From their early-modern origins in the Netherlands to their contemporary proliferation in the United States, these “other Catholics” represent an unusually liberal, mobile, and creative version of America’s largest religion.
In The Other Catholics, author Julie Byrne’s intrepid research and lucid prose brings to light a subterranean realm of independent Catholics, who number at least two hundred communities and a million members across the United States. Byrne is an associate professor of religion and holds the Monsignor Thomas J. Hartman Chair of Catholic studies at Hofstra University in New York. Byrne’s decades of research and extensive fieldwork have yielded to this immensely valuable guide. In her book, Byrne tells the story of US independent Catholicism using the Church of Antioch as a prism through which to see the continuity and distinctiveness of the whole. However, according to Byrne, no one church can tell it all. “Independents differ widely, ranging from right to left on the political spectrum.” On the right, traditionalist churches practice versions of Catholicism more conservative than Rome. On the left stand groups such as the Church of Antioch, the Ecumenical Catholic Communion, and the White-Robed Monks of St. Benedict. Byrne focuses on the left-leaning side in her book. In 2016, many left-leaning independents not only ordained women, but also performed same-sex marriages, open communion to all, and allowed multiple religious affiliations, among other surprising things.
Through major archives, over four hundred survey responses, forty-six interviews, and ten years of field notes, Byrne examines the story of the unforgettable leaders and surprising influence of these understudied churches, which have changed the narrative and shape of modern Catholicism. As Pope Francis fights to soften Roman doctrines with a pastoral touch and his fellow Roman bishops push back with equal passion, independent Catholicism continued to leap ahead of Roman reform, keeping key Catholic traditions but adding a progressive difference.
Byrne has clustered the chapters thematically according to common Catholic traditions of succession, sacraments, and saints. In her vivid analysis, Byrne looks ahead to the future of independent churches and tests where Catholicism may go next. She digs deeper to see whether the independent church would grow and become a lead the ministry to a new age – or if the church is at risk, and if ta new age would be welcomed by all. Byrne writes, “all Catholics believe in social justice, but these Catholics lead the way in what I call sacramental justice.” According to Byrne, they work against huge odds. They chase a more open, more universal Catholicism, especially through sacraments.
Byrne’s fresh approach opens a window through which to explore the meaning and making of Catholocism. Any reader interested in the American faith landscape will be captivated. Byrne’s laser-focused study on gender and the dynamics of power and privilege will be of special interest to the practitioners of gender, women’s studies, and sexuality. Moreover, this book offers a unique perspective on the role of LGBTQ people within American Catholicism. Byrne’s historical, sociological, and anthropological research is at once original and rock solid, and her findings are compelling. Byrne’s research on independent churches in her accessible writing style only adds to the book’s value and appeal to a wide swath of readers. Reviewed by Iman Malik
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