Feb 27, 2009
Book edited by Roberto R. Trevino and Richard V. Francaviglia
This book is a collection of essays on Catholicism in the western United States which is often under-examined in American Catholic Church history.
Steven M. Avella wrote the introduction followed by essays by Anne M. Butler who wrote on the need for more research into the history of the Catholic Church in the western United States. This history, as Butler points out, begins before the Church was established in the then-United States of 13 states on the east coast. The Church was already existing and operating in present day western United States due to Spanish and French Catholics.
Other essays discuss topics such as women activists in Los Angeles and San Antonio, Catholicism in southeastern Utah, Catholic Action in California, racism in the Church, and the Chicano movement in Houston and how it changed the Catholic Church in Texas.